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Obituary: Great Barrier Reef

outsideonline.com

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Re: Obituary: Great Barrier Reef

#41

Post by otempomores »

triplesec wrote: post #21
andrewwhartion wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quote the article... "With no force on earth capable of preventing the oceans from continuing to warm and acidify for centuries to come, Veron had no illusions about the future." I feel you're missing the point of the article. The reality is that the reef effectively has a terminal illness and there's little anyone can do now. Stage 5. Acceptance.

Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Would it be possible to breedcoralls and fish that coul survive the new oceans? Using diffrent shellmaterial for example?

Re: Obituary: Great Barrier Reef

#42

Post by NoGravitas »

jsingleton wrote: post #36
adrianN wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think bringing CO2 down to pre-industrial times would be a pretty save bet. If we had a source of massive CO2-free power we could extract CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it back into coal, effectively unburning all the coal and oil that we burned so far. Technology that tries to undo climate change without that is what's risky.

We already have this technology, burning biomass with CCS [^0] as just one example. Synthesising methane with solar/wind energy, burning it and feeding the exhaust into greenhouses to grow crops as another. It just needs deploying at scale. This is not a technology problem. It is a political/economic problem. And it can be solved given the will. [^0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage

Yeah, it seems like the best currently available solution would be to dedicate a lot of land to growing some plant that captures carbon as fast as possible (hemp is probably faster than trees; bamboo maybe faster than hemp; there might be some algae that is faster than bamboo?); make charcoal out of it to stabilize it, and bury it. Busy-loop on this as fast as you can.

A lot of the CCS technologies I've seen focus on carbon-neutral energy generation. But we need to be going carbon-negative even if it costs some (solar/wind) energy.

Re: Obituary: Great Barrier Reef

#43

Post by wycx »

otempomores wrote: post #41
triplesec wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Would it be possible to breedcoralls and fish that coul survive the new oceans? Using diffrent shellmaterial for example?

To use different shell material they would no longer be coral. Breeding corals with different skeleton material is like trying to breed humans with a different skeleton material.

For context: Many shelled organisms (cnidarians - corals, brittlestars, sea urchins; molluscs - shellfish) build shells from CaCO3, either as the polymorphs calcite or aragonite. Other options for shell material are silica (SiO2; e.g. some radiolaria, siliceous sponges) or chitin (C8H13O5N; e.g. shells of crustaceans). Animals make their skeletons from hydroxy apatite Ca5(PO4)3(OH).

Re: Obituary: Great Barrier Reef

#44

Post by ivanhoe »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #16
kodroid wrote: post #14

Ignoring the errors in the article, what can we do? Due to the selfishness and shortsightedness of our race, I think the only way we are not totally screwed is if we (quickly) invent some tech that cleans up the atmosphere and oceans - not an easy task!

I don't like the "our race" generalisation, not when there's so many people committed to reducing carbon emissions and what-have-you; billions, if not trillions are being invested in creating clean alternatives, projects get both community and government support everywhere, countries are banning coal power plants and promoting and subsidising solar, wind and water power, big scientific teams are dedicating their live…

Rising economies don't give a fuck, but first they're still relatively small, and second it's not them that got us all here. Developed countries invest a lot now, but they've been polluting the world for decades/centuries and even now their footprint is still the significant part of the global emission. Only a few very underdeveloped countries can truly say: "Hey, don't blame us, we had nothing to do with it". The rest of the world is guilty as charged.

Re: Obituary: Great Barrier Reef

#45

Post by ohyes »

NoGravitas wrote: post #42
jsingleton wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have this technology, burning biomass with CCS [^0] as just one example. Synthesising methane with solar/wind energy, burning it and feeding the exhaust into greenhouses to grow crops as another. It just needs deploying at scale. This is not a technology problem. It is a political/economic problem. And it can be solved given the will. [^0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage

Yeah, it seems like the best currently available solution would be to dedicate a lot of land to growing some plant that captures carbon as fast as possible (hemp is probably faster than trees; bamboo maybe faster than hemp; there might be some algae that is faster than bamboo?); make charcoal out of it to stabilize it, and bury it. Busy-loop on this as fast as you can. A lot of the CCS technologies I've seen focus on…

Kudzu maybe?

Problem here being that we grow things with potash, which is derived from fossil fuels afaik.

Re: Obituary: Great Barrier Reef

#46

Post by FullMtlAlcoholc »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #16
kodroid wrote: post #14

Ignoring the errors in the article, what can we do? Due to the selfishness and shortsightedness of our race, I think the only way we are not totally screwed is if we (quickly) invent some tech that cleans up the atmosphere and oceans - not an easy task!

I don't like the "our race" generalisation, not when there's so many people committed to reducing carbon emissions and what-have-you; billions, if not trillions are being invested in creating clean alternatives, projects get both community and government support everywhere, countries are banning coal power plants and promoting and subsidising solar, wind and water power, big scientific teams are dedicating their live…

He's not blaming everyone. It's just that, as a species, we have failed and as a consequence, we all will suffer the same fate.

If you're a tremendously talented athlete on a bad team (think mid-2000's Kobe Bryant), it doesn't matter how well you play. Your team still loses.

You may very well be the global environmental MVP. But for Team Homo Sapiens, it's an L. There's talks though by assistant GM Elon Musk of a possible expansion team on Mars.

Re: Obituary: Great Barrier Reef

#47

Post by anexprogrammer »

wycx wrote: post #43
otempomores wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be possible to breedcoralls and fish that coul survive the new oceans? Using diffrent shellmaterial for example?

To use different shell material they would no longer be coral. Breeding corals with different skeleton material is like trying to breed humans with a different skeleton material. For context: Many shelled organisms (cnidarians - corals, brittlestars, sea urchins; molluscs - shellfish) build shells from CaCO3, either as the polymorphs calcite or aragonite. Other options for shell material are silica (SiO2; e.g. some r…

There was recent research that coral adapted to cope with changing pH[1], but weren't adapting fast enough and the symbiotic algae that bound reefs together did not seem to adjust at all. Plankton is apparently equally vulnerable to acidification.

The unknown for coral is the rate of change of temperature.

[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120401160101.h...

Re: Obituary: Great Barrier Reef

#48

Post by niftich »

theGimp wrote: post #11

[The Australian Government] shortly after approving the largest coal mine in its history, successfully pressured the United Nations to remove a chapter about the reef from a report on the impact of climate change on World Heritage sites. Australia’s Department of the Environment explained the move by saying, “experience had shown that negative comments about the status of World Heritage-listed properties impacted on…

The true answer is likely more complex. Australia is one of the top coal producers in the world, has one of the largest reserves of coal in the world, and coal's share in electricity generation and exports is very high.

Ranking high on various quality-of-life indices, Australia's government is wise to protect coal's continued role in the economic system of the country. Sadly, drawing too much attention to the association between climate change, the Great Barrier Reef, and Australia's role in perpetuating climate change in its own (front)yard hurts its economic outlook and energy independence, which are valuable attributes in a world with dwindling resources. It's a shame that this maneuvering has to occur at the expense of the Reef.

Re: Obituary: Great Barrier Reef

#49

Post by antisthenes »

jfoutz wrote: post #32
triplesec wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point, but nonetheless the article doesn't provide any figures or estimates. So other readers can point to the continued life on the reef and say 'lies', and bury their heads in the sand too. Even if it will all be dead in 20 years, or 40. The article talks of 450[units] carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We're at 400 now. No data on when we get there nor graphs or estimates of when the rest dies off.

Roughly 50 ppm per 30 years. Early 50s was 300 ppm. That seemed to be the upper limit for a long time. There are a bunch of graphs around. It's seasonal and has a hint of an exponential. 1000 ppm starts affecting performance from co2 poisoning.

2015 was the first year we broke 3 ppm in a year.

Average for the last decade was ~2.25ppm/y

1000ppm by 2100 is probably not going to happen, but considering the significant lag behind the effects, it's starting to look more and more likely that we will hit 1000ppm at some high point, perhaps in the 22nd century, before it starts going down again.

Regarding the poisoning comment, that's not very accurate. It's true, there is reduced performance at high CO2 levels, but 1000 is probably the lowest bound for the most sensitive people and the effects aren't really noticeable until high teens. You can still function indefinitely at those levels.

Re: Obituary: Great Barrier Reef

#50

Post by 1812calif »

frederikvs wrote: post #34
andrewwhartion wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but when do you call time of death? (It's a rhetorical question) I guess I'm happy to grant the author a little artistic license to make his point.

The author has some freedom to choose how to define death in this case, yes. But then he should include the definition he used. Otherwise it's just fear mongering.

It seems like attendant readers understands what the author was doing. They didn't say the definition explicitly, which would violate pep20 (explicit is better than implicit), but, considering this is an article in Outside Online magazine... I think we can accept this violation.

I can understand that you might think other people would be misled by the rhetorical structure... but I encourage you to not get upset at imagined misunderstandings on behalf of others. (Not that it's wrong, it's just makes your life a little less happy)

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