Another Blow for the Future of Corals
theatlantic.com
Another Blow for the Future of Corals
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Re: Another Blow for the Future of Corals
#2I have the good fortune to work on an island surrounded by "super corals". The spawning this year seemed to be synchronized and right on schedule.
Life is adaptable, and while that does not excuse our behavior it does give me hope for the future of our reefs.
Reefs are the oldest ecosystems on the planet, they will survive the damage we are doing to the planet. Our species however may not.
If you are at all interested in coral conservation there are several organizations that organize reef cleanup, ghost net removal, and coral farming projects. I highly encourage you to consider volunteering some of your time during your next vacation. It's a rewarding activity that will also have you working in some of the most beautiful locations in the world.
Re: Another Blow for the Future of Corals
#3Nature is wonderful it always gives us signs of distress. But we as species who have transformed earth due to our behaviour are too late to take action on these signs.
Majority will trade distant future for today's comfort. We only have hopes on minority warriors and scientists who see this sign and force us to take action before it's too late.
Hopefully we do a better scientific study and take action as quickly as possible to first understand the signs and mitigate the effects to make our earth more balanced.
We as a society should have a stronger scientific temperament which will help us to take action. We should give up selfish behaviour and skeptics like the popular leaders in some countries denying climate changes by human for the sake of power, politics and votes.
We should denounce it, before we become extinct due to irreversible damage.
Re: Another Blow for the Future of Corals
#4Nature is wonderful it always gives us signs of distress. But we as species who have transformed earth due to our behaviour are too late to take action on these signs. Majority will trade distant future for today's comfort. We only have hopes on minority warriors and scientists who see this sign and force us to take action before it's too late. Hopefully we do a better scientific study and take action as quickly as p…
Majority will trade distant future for today's comfort. We only have hopes on minority warriors and scientists who see this sign and force us to take action before it's too late.
There are probably a series of decisions that we could have make as a worldwide civilization that does not involves the notion of sacrifice whatsoever.
Re: Another Blow for the Future of Corals
#5The reefs are already lost. We've already emitted enough GHG to raise temperatures sufficiently to kill most of them and there are no signs that we'll stay below 2° of warming. At 2° all coral reefs will die.
Re: Another Blow for the Future of Corals
#6I have the good fortune to work on an island surrounded by "super corals". The spawning this year seemed to be synchronized and right on schedule. Life is adaptable, and while that does not excuse our behavior it does give me hope for the future of our reefs. Reefs are the oldest ecosystems on the planet, they will survive the damage we are doing to the planet. Our species however may not. If you are at all intereste…
> Reefs are the oldest ecosystems on the planet, they will survive the damage we are doing to the planet. Our species however may not.
My understanding is that this is very much in doubt. According to the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C [1],
> The risks of climate-induced impacts are projected to be higher at 2°C than those at global warming of 1.5°C (high confidence). Coral reefs, for example, are projected to decline by a further 70–90% at 1.5°C (high confidence) with larger losses (>99%) at 2°C (very high confidence). The risk of irreversible loss of many marine and coastal ecosystems increases with global warming, especially at 2°C or more (high confidence).
Coral reefs are so old, and have survived so many changes, because they are adaptable to many different environmental conditions, including temperature. The threat to them, as I understand it, is that global warming will happen so quickly that they will be unable to adapt by migrating in latitude or evolving defenses.
[1] https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/05/SR15...
Re: Another Blow for the Future of Corals
#7Stuff changing too quickly is what makes an extinction event.
Re: Another Blow for the Future of Corals
#8Nature is wonderful it always gives us signs of distress. But we as species who have transformed earth due to our behaviour are too late to take action on these signs. Majority will trade distant future for today's comfort. We only have hopes on minority warriors and scientists who see this sign and force us to take action before it's too late. Hopefully we do a better scientific study and take action as quickly as p…
Majority will trade distant future for today's comfort. We only have hopes on minority warriors and scientists who see this sign and force us to take action before it's too late. There are probably a series of decisions that we could have make as a worldwide civilization that does not involves the notion of sacrifice whatsoever.
Decarbonizing the world economy is expensive. You have to sacrifice at least money.
Re: Another Blow for the Future of Corals
#9I have the good fortune to work on an island surrounded by "super corals". The spawning this year seemed to be synchronized and right on schedule. Life is adaptable, and while that does not excuse our behavior it does give me hope for the future of our reefs. Reefs are the oldest ecosystems on the planet, they will survive the damage we are doing to the planet. Our species however may not. If you are at all intereste…
> coral farming projects
Do you have much familiarity with this? I assume it's where they build some sort of a frame and then attach small pieces of living coral to it to start a new reef?
A comment below says: "The threat to them, as I understand it, is that global warming will happen so quickly that they will be unable to adapt by migrating in latitude or evolving defenses."
I was watching a documentary the other day where environmentalists on some remote island were doing this and it seemed to be working, but they were doing all the construction themselves and clearly didn't know what they were doing. Is this something that could be mass-industrialized (the structures) with crowd sourced labor to do the laborious coral attachment part?
Re: Another Blow for the Future of Corals
#10Nature is wonderful it always gives us signs of distress. But we as species who have transformed earth due to our behaviour are too late to take action on these signs. Majority will trade distant future for today's comfort. We only have hopes on minority warriors and scientists who see this sign and force us to take action before it's too late. Hopefully we do a better scientific study and take action as quickly as p…
Majority will trade distant future for today's comfort. We only have hopes on minority warriors and scientists who see this sign and force us to take action before it's too late. There are probably a series of decisions that we could have make as a worldwide civilization that does not involves the notion of sacrifice whatsoever.
I really don't think so. The cheap and easy thing has always been to burn the fossil fuels, cut down the forests, fish until there are no more fish, and hunt until there are no more prey. The only hope for the future is if we care for it.