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Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#21

Post by eloff »

nautilius wrote: post #14
plank_time wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not “hot season”. It was a historically abnormal heat wave. I lived in Vancouver. You don’t normally see temperatures like that. It doesn’t have to reproduce right away, that’s just unrealistic. But the larger amounts of free space will mean a land grab by the survivors. That’s how it works in nature. If the climate changes and the water heats up then the ecosystem will be replaced by those animals that would su…

Yeah, the sun and Venus for example are overrun with life because there’s essentially no competition. That’s just science!

That's a dumb example, there's no life in those environments.

You could look to the intertidal regions near the equator for more reasonable comparison. They are much less rich in life compared to the waters around Vancouver.

Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#22

Post by morpheos137 »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #9
plank_time wrote: post #3

It’s obviously horrible, but it also means that it will allow other creatures to grow to fill that space. It’s like a forest fire. Sure the devastation is bad but there’s also renewal afterwards. It’s not like it will remain barren forever.

It’s not that simple. As the article mentions, if weather continues to warm and these events become more common, we could end up with seasonal die outs of intertidal species. It’s not immediately evident from that statement, but that would completely transform the biodiversity of the coastline. Currently it’s one of vast abundance, but this transformation would very likely reduce that abundance and its diversity due…

The world has always changed. We only have moderately good climatic records from dendrochronology for the past 1000 years or so. A meteor impact or supervolcanic eruption could disturb the climate far more rapidly than a few tens of decades burning fossil fuels. Life will go on. It always has.

Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#23

Post by mellavora »

ji0 wrote: post #7
plank_time wrote: post #3

It’s obviously horrible, but it also means that it will allow other creatures to grow to fill that space. It’s like a forest fire. Sure the devastation is bad but there’s also renewal afterwards. It’s not like it will remain barren forever.

How comforting to know things will regenerate after we die off from our own stupidity.

I fear that much of the poison we leave behind, and the extinction of so much biodiversity, will make such regeneration much slower than it would otherwise need to be.

My greatest fear -- I've seen individual animals loose the will to live. What if a biotope loses the will? What if life decides not to come back?

Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#24

Post by nautilius »

eloff wrote: post #21
nautilius wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the sun and Venus for example are overrun with life because there’s essentially no competition. That’s just science!

That's a dumb example, there's no life in those environments. You could look to the intertidal regions near the equator for more reasonable comparison. They are much less rich in life compared to the waters around Vancouver.

Ah really, there’s no life on the sun? Hey, come to think of it — that was my point exactly!

Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#25

Post by plank_time »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #17
plank_time wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the waters heat up are you saying that no creatures will ever survive? That’s anti-science. There are creatures around the world that thrive in warmer waters. The space will be reclaimed by other creatures that can survive in that environment. To think otherwise goes against basic science.

> If the waters heat up are you saying that no creatures will ever survive? That’s anti-science. • Science is a way of finding out about the world, not a list of facts. • No, actually. Rather, these creatures will die and we might lose entire species, significantly reducing biodiversity. > The space will be reclaimed by other creatures that can survive in that environment. To think otherwise goes against basic scienc…

Your understanding of “science” is absurd.

Yes, those creatures that died will be dead. When the environment changes and creatures are selected against, they will die out. This is called the Theory of Natural Selection.

Does it suck that it’s happening in situations like this heat wave? Yes.

Should we do whatever we can to stop our contribution to this? Absolutely.

Should we expect that it never should happen? No, otherwise dinosaurs would be roaming the Earth right now. There have been around 20 mass extinction events in the last 500M years.

Are we causing the next mass extinction event? Probably.

Will we be the cause of life to end on Earth? No. Even plastic breaks down and nuclear waste becomes harmless over a geological timeline.

Again, your understanding is pretty basic. Since when is the environment “stable”? Climate is always changing. To believe that the climate has to be stable in order for life to thrive is anti-science. Life will thrive. Even a nuclear catastrophe like Chernobyl and Fukushima hasn’t stopped life from taking over in time frames that scientists thought were impossible.

Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#27

Post by spiffydave »

In other news, 288,000,000,000 pounds of seafood was consumed last year.

If we give a rough estimate of 5 lbs. per animal (probably a lot less than that) that's around 60 billion animals killed last year so we can eat them.

It's estimated we can add another 40% to that as unwanted by-catch. So now we have 84 billion sea creatures killed each year on purpose.

If you're concerned about the environment you might consider not adding to this number.

https://www.yourfishguide.com/how-many-fish-do-we-eat-a-year...

https://oceana.org/sites/default/files/Bycatch_Report_FINAL....

Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#28

Post by eloff »

nautilius wrote: post #24
eloff wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a dumb example, there's no life in those environments. You could look to the intertidal regions near the equator for more reasonable comparison. They are much less rich in life compared to the waters around Vancouver.

Ah really, there’s no life on the sun? Hey, come to think of it — that was my point exactly!

Your point is pointless. Life doesn't expand to take advantage of new resources in environments where there is no life. First you need life.

Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#29

Post by will4274 »

spiffydave wrote: post #27

In other news, 288,000,000,000 pounds of seafood was consumed last year. If we give a rough estimate of 5 lbs. per animal (probably a lot less than that) that's around 60 billion animals killed last year so we can eat them. It's estimated we can add another 40% to that as unwanted by-catch. So now we have 84 billion sea creatures killed each year on purpose. If you're concerned about the environment you might conside…

I mean... I have to eat. Is seafood any worse than land animal production?

Re: Pacific Northwest Heat Wave Killed More Than One Billion Sea Creatures

#30

Post by plank_time »

spiffydave wrote: post #27

In other news, 288,000,000,000 pounds of seafood was consumed last year. If we give a rough estimate of 5 lbs. per animal (probably a lot less than that) that's around 60 billion animals killed last year so we can eat them. It's estimated we can add another 40% to that as unwanted by-catch. So now we have 84 billion sea creatures killed each year on purpose. If you're concerned about the environment you might conside…

How much of this was farmed seafood? I have a friend right now who is planning on opening fish farms because he feels it will have less of an environmental impact.
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