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Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

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Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony surely being that the "economic value" here supposedly worth $10T is, ultimately, the very cause of their undoing (human economic activity is somewhat directly correlated with environmental destruction). Personally I'd prefer to live in a world where we saved coral reefs for their own sake and not for their economic value. Still, it's a detail. Well done for the amazing work you're doing. We all depend on p…

You'd prefer to live in a world where labor is free and we don't need to work for anything? I like the current world better.

How can you say that without experiencing the other world? If people didn’t need to work to live the creativity unleashed would be insane.

Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#72
post #52
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s one successful example that only worked because of human intervention: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240308123248.h... They can only survive short duration events. At some point the temp and time is too much and they die. The only way they come back is reintroduction. We’ve lost over 50% of the reefs and are expected to lose 90% by 2050. There are many amazing solutions. Some use corals more re…

"So now we need to help nature with our technology." I guess the best help, would be stop getting into natures way so brutally, but since transforming the whole industry takes time and making people aware and care is even harder, some technical solutions to offset some damage is of course welcome.

Unless we change the incentives, people will continue strip mining everything. I do have hope though as there is a lot that can still be done.

Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#73
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One major issue though is diversity. Many coral gardeners use fragments to clone one type over and over.

Also pests aquariums have some of the toughest pests imaginable

Algae is prolific!

Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#74
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glyphosate has made forest fires worse. Bleaching happens when the symbiosis breaks down due to elevated temps. That is due to suffering and causes suffering.

>Glyphosate has made forest fires worse. How? How does this work? >Bleaching happens when the symbiosis breaks down due to elevated temps. The first part is correct, the second is unknown. In 2016, 84% of corals bleached, the highest number. Did global warming peak in 2016? I admit, saying "prosperity" was provocative. It's probably not a sign of prosperity. But what exactly it is a sign of, we have little idea.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/glyphosate-spraying-w...

It changes the composition of the forest to make it more flammable.

I don’t understand your coral comment. The coral expels the algae because the temp causes it to expel harmful toxins. There are other triggers besides heat.

Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#75
post #35
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glyphosate has made forest fires worse. Bleaching happens when the symbiosis breaks down due to elevated temps. That is due to suffering and causes suffering.

I'm not a big fan of synthetic chemicals in the food supply but I can't help wondering how Glyphosate has made forest fires worse?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/glyphosate-spraying-w...

It changes the composition of the forests to make them more flammable.

Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#76
post #2

The biodiversity in West Africa in general is completely underrated. I mean, Darwin solidified his trajectory in life a few short days after the Beagle anchored off of Cape Verde (a place he initially detested then fell in love with). I'm hoping that Cape Verde's World Cup success story translates to more eye balls on stories like this (with the mere mention of the country landing it in search results). Which means m…

There are 6 floristic kingdoms in the world, and Fynbos can only be found in a tiny section of Africa.

When I was there it was wild to see a completely different array of plants and flowers. There is one small white flower that had petals that felt like some sort of sythentic material. There is a whole world that very few people experience or even know exists.

Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#77
post #61
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

did this start as just shells? Because I remember reading something a long time ago about this and they were just putting shells in the bay in metal cages. Amazing that they're actually progressing on a billion oysters. That's incredible. I wonder when it becomes self sustaining, and just reaches a billion on it's own.

> As part of the strategy, discarded oyster shells from over 70 New York restaurants are collected and left outside for a year to be naturally cleansed of organic matter. Baby oysters are then placed on the shells by students at New York Harbor School, a maritime-focused public high school located on Governors Island. [10]

yeah, I read it. But what I remember is that they weren't doing the baby oyster thing, but just collecting the shells and putting them in cages so that they don't float away, and then dropping them into the bottom of the Hudson. It's definitely been over a decade since I read the article though, so could be mistaken.

Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#78

Nice to read a paper that's looking for paths of persistence instead of only documenting decline. Climate stories often end with "thing are getting worse", this one also asks where ecosystems might still persist if local conditions are managed well.

I'm just now reading _Ocean_ by David Attenborough and Colin Butfield, which includes many stories like this. Would recommend!

Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony surely being that the "economic value" here supposedly worth $10T is, ultimately, the very cause of their undoing (human economic activity is somewhat directly correlated with environmental destruction). Personally I'd prefer to live in a world where we saved coral reefs for their own sake and not for their economic value. Still, it's a detail. Well done for the amazing work you're doing. We all depend on p…

You'd prefer to live in a world where labor is free and we don't need to work for anything? I like the current world better.

> I like the current world better.

Think about that in the next years when you finally realise how screwed we are.

Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#80
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd prefer to live in a world where labor is free and we don't need to work for anything? I like the current world better.

How can you say that without experiencing the other world? If people didn’t need to work to live the creativity unleashed would be insane.

No. Plenty of people are in that boat - look at youth unemployment in many countries - or housewives. And yet somehow workers seem to do the most creative work.
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