Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds • Hacker News Board

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#111

Post by drewzero1 » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 6:00 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #100

TheRealSteel wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Civil aviation is 2% of global carbon emissions. It's also one of the hardest things to make clean. Flying is not something people should feel guilty about. We actually can, and probably should, keep civil aviation -- especially seeing as we need to implement carbon capture anyway. Heating your house and eating meat contribute far more to your personal carbon footprint than flying, unless you fly much more than usual…

Aviation makes up a small percentage because globally almost nobody can afford to fly. For me, taking a flight to Australia and back is a good way to double my carbon emissions for the year.

It'd also be a good way to double your travel expenses for the year! (Well, it certainly would for me, at least.)

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#112

Post by kristopolous » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 6:10 AM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #10

What do climate change denialists think about stories like this? Do they A) Think it's a complete lie/exaggeraiton, and the Barrier Reef will be fine? B) Think it's happening but not because of human activity (a massive die off across thousands of kilometers is totally natural, dude) C) Agree that it's caused by humans, but that it's too late to do anything about (probably true), but that also it's not worth taking a…

The ones that I've read have untouchable sacred cows that shape how they view the world, such as "the market is efficient and self-correcting" or "all/any government/group/societal intervention is bad". These are their holy third rails which cannot be questioned. All other beliefs warp themselves around these sacred faiths until they can satisfiably fit.

It's like how medieval scientists had to use "all scripture is literally true" as their starting point. The actual work is to make reality fit within their required doctrines.

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#113

Post by shrubby » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 6:11 AM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #110

shrubby wrote: post #103

These are all symptoms of over consumption, warming, plastic... Bill Gates's idea of spraying chalk dust into the stratosphere is duct tape that will maybe address one of the symptoms. There are close to eight billion of us here. The planet absorbs twenty billion tonnes of CO2. That gives a quota of three tonnes for each of us, divided equally. Three tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year, per person. Three tonn…

I think a lot of us are going forward with the hope that technology will improve and we will find solutions. You can take individual action. I did for a couple decades. It was, more or less, a waste of time and energy, but I felt smug for a while. The world needs more Elon Musks, not more smug Westerners. There are billions of people in the developing world who want their world to continue to develop, and right now t…

Tech wont come in time as we're passing tipping points all the time, the due date was already.

Only chance is psychology of moderation and realizing the statistics of the over consumption.

Oxfam told in their report that the top 1% contributed twice the amount of the lowest 50% over the course of last 25 years. And out of that consumption of the rich, most is vain.

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/carbon-emissions-ric...

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#114

Post by barryhoodlum » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 6:15 AM UTC

hntroll666 wrote: post #107

This stuff is not science, it's fear propaganda. Scientists and the media form a kind of complex that allows each to get what they want without consequence when their claims turn out to be wrong. The scientists get publicity, which helps with grants. The media gets to run a scary story, which puts money in their pocket. In twenty years, when doomsday has still failed to materialize, nobody will remember the claims, j…

You could say the same about a "nothing bad will ever happen" opinion like yours, except a different group benefits from it.

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#115

Post by barryhoodlum » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 6:19 AM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #57

Ancalagon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this is the correct answer and I’m just now realizing it. Basically this means everyone going mostly or entirely vegetarian, restricting air travel, clean transport and energy and reduction of general production of crap (not only because the crap itself produces warming but also the shipping).

I get downvoted everytime I say this, but if someone wants to make a difference: 1. Don’t eat meat. 2. Don’t get in airplanes. 3. Don’t drive a car. 4. Live in as small a house/apartment as you can. 5. Don’t have kids. It turns out that when people ask, “But what can I do?” What they really mean is “What can I do that won’t really inconvenience me that much?”

The world doesn't work in this "bottom up" way. It's top down.

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#116

Post by shrubby » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 6:21 AM UTC

ip26 wrote: post #79

diplodocusaur wrote: post #60

Suppose we ceased to exist. Are we certain that nature would 'repair' itself? What's the 'good' state measured by (objective function)? If we don't have it defined, I don't think we fully understand our relationship with the natural world and how to fix it.

What's the 'good' state In simple terms my understanding is, high biodiversity. More diversity is correlated with resilience, adaptability, etc.

https://imgur.com/a/Yy59VjX this shows exactly what we've done to biodiversity. Biomass of farm animals, human and wildlife compared. The equivalent ratio is present everywhere we go.

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#117

Post by shrubby » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 6:23 AM UTC

foobiter wrote: post #36

lenkite wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, wild tiger population has doubled (in India) in the last 12 years. https://www.businessinsider.in/science/environment/news/indi... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-49148174

it’s easy to double when numbers are under 5,000. Many ecologists are not as rosy as the indian government about this... 95% of their range is gone at this point and there’s not a lot of genetic diversity; a single disease can wipe out of the population. We’d need nearly 100,000 tigers to have the diversity to avoid this, and we’re not on track for that by a long shot. https://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/april/tigers…

https://imgur.com/a/Yy59VjX there is no land for wildlife populations to grow as we're using the land for the meat.

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#118

Post by EdwinLarkin » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 7:32 AM UTC

Without a global agreement/government I dont see the issue of climate change getting solved anytime soon. In many countries in Europe we are required to return plastic bottles to stores for recycling.

Meanwhile in China they ferry water in plastic bottles everyday to people because tap water there is undrinkable.

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#119

Post by pvaldes » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 8:01 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #3

Perhaps a stupid question, but why wouldn't coral reefs naturally move to colder areas (closer to the poles)? EDIT: turns out they do: https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-oceans-warm-tropical-coral...

Coral reef and corals are different things. A coral is just an animal. Will settle in any suitable place reached by sea currents. If the currents in their place go from poles to equator will never survive to settle there. A coral reef needs 1000 years and several submarine mounts to appear. It hosts tens of thousands of species interacting together, is more complex than the more complex software that we could imagine and not all of those species can just move with the coral and survive in the new area. Algae for example, that are of crucial importance in the survival of the reef, both as symbionts but also as competitors.

Wipe the 10% of the species, just the rare ones, and you will have still a stunning "virgin" coral reef but is neither healthy nor sustainable long term. Wipe all the uncommon species of coral and Acropora will refill all empty space so technically there is plenty of coral still. Wipe all sharks and there will be a chain of unexpected consequences down on the food chain. The reef works as a whole entity.

Is about quantity but also about quality of the remaining corals.

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#120

Post by somishere » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 8:23 AM UTC

ghiculescu wrote: post #52

I grew up in Queensland. During school in the late 90s, we were taught the same thing, except the reef was meant to already be gone by today. When I visited a few years ago, it was stunning. Hopefully this report won’t come true either, but it is hard to believe anyone predicting what Australia will be like in 2100. In any case, particularly on a forum like this, we should argue about what technological ideas we can…

Also grew up in (far north) Qld in 80s and 90s. Spent much of my childhood camping on islands and snorkelling fringing reefs where my (clouded) memories are pretty great. Like most, attended state schools ... but we never visited the reef, and it was rarely, if ever, mentioned. Returned a few years ago to work in reef conservation. You should keep in mind that the sites zoned/selected for tourism make up less than 1% of the reef and tend to be chosen because of their natural beauty and resilience. You are not visiting a randomly selected site (not to mention that you tend to swim in an area the size of a couple of 50m pools, the reef is about the same size as Italy, as long as the west coast of the US .. or QLD). Unless you're talking a bed of dead coral (which could easily be caused by a storm) most signs of stress in the ecosystem are unrecognisable to the average eye. Much of the reef, including many of the tourist sites, have already been heavily affected by the mass bleaching events (most recently in 2019/2020). Many of the reefs recovered, some of them didn't and the boats visiting them stopped doing so. I have personally seen pristine reefs and decimated ones within a few kms of each other. It is a nuanced story. The main issue is that the heating events - that lead up to the bleaching - are occuring more frequently. Bleaching isn't the only outcome here. E.g. many species' reproductive cycles are effected by temperature. Add to this other effects of climate change, such as acidification (which doesn't just take a toll on corals but also hugely important sea grass populations). Plus seperate anthropogenic stressors, such as nutrient runoff which can lead to uncontrollable outbreaks of coral eating starfish. Absolutely agree that technology is a vital component, but without a major and rapid ideological shift (in Aus at least) the distopia painted by Ove, et al may be closer than you think.

If you're interested, we collected ~14k images from across the reef between Oct and Dec last year. You can have a look (and help us analyse them) here: greatreefcensus.org/analysis