41–50 of 93 posts
Coincidentally I went diving on the GBR last week, and from personal observation, it's in way, way, way worse condition that it was 20 years ago. There are massive sections of bleached coral, huge dead patches and way less fish life. Here's how it looked last week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0h0j0PSqaY In 2015 the Aussie government tried to have it de-listed as a UNESCO site so they could dredge it (Nobody had…
Just wanna say I love your channel! Cool to see you on HN.
Coincidentally I went diving on the GBR last week, and from personal observation, it's in way, way, way worse condition that it was 20 years ago. There are massive sections of bleached coral, huge dead patches and way less fish life. Here's how it looked last week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0h0j0PSqaY In 2015 the Aussie government tried to have it de-listed as a UNESCO site so they could dredge it (Nobody had…
I assume you're having to work hard to make a lap of Australia as intrepid as Africa!
And now plenty of mud and wild 4x4 in cape york (see today’s video for just the beginning)
Epic mountains in Tasmania, plenty of wild stuff
This is apparently only for one particular kind of fast-growing coral, which means coral diversity is lower and that makes the reef more vulnerable to damage and less supportive of the wider ecosystem: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-04/great-barrier-reef-re...
I wonder if, like forests, corals tend to colonize an area first with fast growing species, which then get slowly replaced by longer lived species (forest succession). I understand that it takes a while for a forest to go from clean-field to a fully matured forest though.
This is apparently only for one particular kind of fast-growing coral, which means coral diversity is lower and that makes the reef more vulnerable to damage and less supportive of the wider ecosystem: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-04/great-barrier-reef-re...
Can we just have a moment of happiness? Of optimism?
On the 10-20 year window, its a damaged, diminished ecosystem and it will need decades to recover. There is room for hope, it has to be tempered.
I felt this article left some things unexplained, like what is a mass bleaching event? The wikipedia article on Coral Bleaching is excellent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_bleaching Also, cool note on the economics: “Experts estimate that coral reef services are worth up to $1.2 million per hectare which translates to an average of $172 billion per year.” Someone do the math, what is the value of this comebac…
https://www.google.com/search?q=172aud+in+usd I'd add that the recent recovery has been used by some climate change deniers as justification for ignoring the bigger picture, a sad situation given Australia's emissions per capita. I too dove on the reef in the early 1990s and have seen no reef of that caliber since, anywhere.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Someone do the math, what is the value of this comeback in USD? About USD 120 billion. I’m always sceptical of these claims in the media that economists say that something “could be worth up to $X billion/year” or “X costs the economy $Y billion/year”. They are based on assumptions, whose veracity may be unknowable-if not just totally unrealistic; and the error bars on such estimates must be huge, but many journali…
That's fair, but I have to assume it's better than the alternative, which is allowing everyone to maintain the implicit assumption that the value is 0. The point of these claims is to try to get people to understand that climate destruction events have meaning, and if negative economic effects are the most straightforward way to explain that, then so be it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is apparently only for one particular kind of fast-growing coral Plus a bit of evolution for that coral, I'm guessing. Nature will eventually adapt to whatever we throw at it, but I'm not so sure if it will be fast enough for humans to survive.
Why don't you think humans will adapt as well?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I assume you're having to work hard to make a lap of Australia as intrepid as Africa!
Not at all, I was very remote crossing the Simpson - 750km over seven days without seeing a soul, crossed 1,300 soft red sand dunes. And now plenty of mud and wild 4x4 in cape york (see today’s video for just the beginning) Epic mountains in Tasmania, plenty of wild stuff
I turned onto the Oodnadatta Track the other month (going up for Tourism Australia shoots) and got two flat tyres with one spare as the sun set. Same trip, one of my drones got taken by a wedge-tailed eagle. Diesel at $2.70/L. Not a cheap trip. The surrounds were very wet when I went through, but looks like you copped it muddy.
I felt this article left some things unexplained, like what is a mass bleaching event? The wikipedia article on Coral Bleaching is excellent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_bleaching Also, cool note on the economics: “Experts estimate that coral reef services are worth up to $1.2 million per hectare which translates to an average of $172 billion per year.” Someone do the math, what is the value of this comebac…
https://cairnsnews.org/2022/07/22/coral-harvesting-on-the-gr...
At least it seems they've stopped wholesale grinding it up for fertilizer.
Coincidentally I went diving on the GBR last week, and from personal observation, it's in way, way, way worse condition that it was 20 years ago. There are massive sections of bleached coral, huge dead patches and way less fish life. Here's how it looked last week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0h0j0PSqaY In 2015 the Aussie government tried to have it de-listed as a UNESCO site so they could dredge it (Nobody had…
I'm not saying that coral bleaching etc isn't a problem, in fact I don't see how we can avoid massive coral die-off if global warming continues, but we should also avoid generalizing "the reef is dying!" or "the reef is recovering!" based on samples of a single point.