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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

#31

Post by nautilius »

eloff wrote: post #28
nautilius wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ah, that final newly added sentence turns your post into something that finally makes any sense at all and no longer contradicts GP’s point that I am arguing.

The point others and I are making is that life does not expand arbitrarily, or in a weaker form, the life that may expand will be a much less desirable environment for us humans than the present.

Even though you deny it, we can very simply create environments, right here on earth, where life as we know it will not be possible. Look into an operating steel smelter for example, just to remove any subtlety and ambiguity.

Sure, maybe ‘Science’ can replace all of our biosphere with extremophiles, but I for one do not desire to live in such a world. I like trees and birds and mammals and lizards and (you get the point).

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

#32

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

will4274 wrote: post #29
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?

Get ready to be told to simply go vegan.

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

#34

Post by klyrs »

morpheos137 wrote: post #22
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Life will go on, the earth will continue to orbit the sun. Even if the earth was flung away from the sun, life would go on, in the form of subterranean bacteria.

The thing we're concerned about is that humans are apex predators and depend on a functioning food chain to survive. Filter feeders eat algae. Unconstrained algal growth is toxic to fish (salmon) that we eat. Oyster and mussel farms were devastated and some won't see a rebound for at least 3 years if we don't have another event like this. Bears eat salmon, and when they can't find it, they seek other food sources like humans.

This story is a single datum. We've got freak cold snaps on the east coast and Texas. Flooding in Europe. The world is rapidly becoming more hostile to human life.

But yeah, a hot, acidic ocean will still support life -- maybe nothing we can eat for a few hundred generations, but life goes on with or without us. Hotter climes will spread tropical bugs and diseases; life goes on.

But we're still looking for intelligent life that's survived the "hold my beer" great filter. Haven't found such extraterrestrials; jury's still out on terrestrials.

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

#35

Post by peytn »

BurningFrog wrote: post #26

This is up there with "billions of tons of CO₂" as a context free large number that sounds Really Bad.

The new business model for magazines like Scientific American seems to be subscription confirmation bias. I’m a former subscriber.

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

#36

Post by peytn »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #32
will4274 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Get ready to be told to simply go vegan.

At some point everyone will be vegan ascetics forever apparently. Including all of our descendants, who will recognize and appreciate how enlightened we are. Curiosity and discussion about other solutions cannot be tolerated lest it jeopardize the coming worldwide ascetic veganism forever awakening.

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

#37

Post by iask »

midhhhthrow wrote: post #8

We need some frame of reference. How many creatures typically die every year? Without that the numbers are meaningless

Exactly!!! These articles are just click baits. If we cannot compare this to previous data then this is just opinionated.

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

#38

Post by Johnjonjoan »

inasio wrote: post #15

What does the number even mean, is it a lot, what is the denominator? Doing a rough back of the envelope calculation, looking at tidal areas, barnacles and other creatures there go from one milliliter to one centimeter square, meaning that the dieoff represented 1000 square meters to 10 hectares, which in all honesty is probably not a lot

If the heat die off has only effected those at the lower levels of the food web I wouldn't like to be high up in it.

There's a chance we'll see increased competition among higher level organisms leading to the depletion of the same low level organisms in adjacent areas until those higher levels have a die off event too allowing them to recover.

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

#39

Post by williamdclt »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #32
will4274 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Get ready to be told to simply go vegan.

I mean... The comment is suggesting a false dichotomy (possibly without meaning it) that options are either seafood or land animal production. I'm not vegan, not even vegeterian, but the only answer I can give in good faith is that "I have to eat" is not a good argument, there's alternatives better for the environment than seafood _or_ land animal production.

No vegan even commented, I find vegan-bashing so much worse than vegan-evangelism. I'm seriously getting vegan fatigue fatigue.

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

#40

Post by spiffydave »

plank_time wrote: post #30
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.

Looks like farmed fish is 50%.

However, they feed farmed fish wild fish apparently. Takes 5 lbs. of wild fish to grow 1 lb. of farmed fish.

Hmmm... doesn't sound sustainable.

https://www.livescience.com/5682-milestone-50-percent-fish-f...

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