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Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

smh.com.au

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Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#41

Post by klyrs »

mikedilger wrote: post #8
mikedilger wrote: post #6

Article has no link. Here is the report: https://www.science.org.au/supporting-science/science-policy...

The report sites a lot of papers, many of which by one report author Hoegh-Guldberg who has been studying reefs and claiming they are at risk since at least 1999. One of the latest of those papers puts it like this (ideas which the article does not accurately represent): "Even if the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement are achieved, coral reefs are likely to decline by 70–90% relative to their current abundance by m…

That sounds pretty doomed to me. They're saying that mass destruction is inevitable, and the best path forward is to protect habitat that's got the best chance of future regrowth. Of course, "best chance" is according to imperfect modeling and optimism that people will actually get their shit together on the Paris treaty in the next 30 years.

And if 70-90% loss doesn't sound like "doom" to you, may I have 80% of your assets?

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#42

Post by refurb »

bb123 wrote: post #9

This is so incredibly sad, and I feel so helpless that this is slipping through our fingers. I fear I’ll never get a chance to see a coral reef in real life, and it looks almost certain that my children won’t. Is there anything we can do as individuals to help? I tried looking into conservation efforts but it seems like any amount of money we could hope to donate isn’t going to make a drop of difference to sea temper…

Everything I read tells me that it’s too late. Even if we stop all CO2 production tomorrow there will be severe climate change due to the CO2 already released.

Seems like the best idea is to just enjoy the time we have left.

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#43

Post by an4rchy »

Assuming we can make and dump dry ice / ice at scale through renewable energy, would it be a feasible / meaningful solution to even try, in order to extend time (not reduce temperature)?

Came across this interesting idea of storing ship emissions as dry ice at the bottom of the ocean. [1]https://fathom.world/co2-spears-decarbonise-ccs/

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#44

Post by zackbloom »

ghastmaster wrote: post #20

I find it hard to believe that ancient creatures that have lived through this many times in history are somehow unable to do it again. The temperature estimates in the article do not eclipse highs in fairly recent history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_periods_and_events_in_... Nor does the rate of change exceed that of what the earth experienced as recently as 8k years before present. https://en.wikipedia.or…

It's important to understand that there were many extinction events throughout the history of the earth. Just in the world of Foraminifera there were at least seven catastrophic events which wiped out all or most of entire genetic lines. Some do survive, and over millions of years they can repopulate areas, but the resurrection will not happen one one hundredth as quickly as the destruction does, and it very well may not look anything like what exists now.

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#45

Post by porb121 »

refurb wrote: post #42
bb123 wrote: post #9

This is so incredibly sad, and I feel so helpless that this is slipping through our fingers. I fear I’ll never get a chance to see a coral reef in real life, and it looks almost certain that my children won’t. Is there anything we can do as individuals to help? I tried looking into conservation efforts but it seems like any amount of money we could hope to donate isn’t going to make a drop of difference to sea temper…

Everything I read tells me that it’s too late. Even if we stop all CO2 production tomorrow there will be severe climate change due to the CO2 already released. Seems like the best idea is to just enjoy the time we have left.

That's quite simply not true. If we stopped all CO2 production tomorrow, we'd by well under 1.5 degrees of warming by 2100.

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#46

Post by webkike »

an4rchy wrote: post #43

Assuming we can make and dump dry ice / ice at scale through renewable energy, would it be a feasible / meaningful solution to even try, in order to extend time (not reduce temperature)? Came across this interesting idea of storing ship emissions as dry ice at the bottom of the ocean. [1] https://fathom.world/co2-spears-decarbonise-ccs/

https://youtu.be/0SYpUSjSgFg

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#47

Post by btilly »

an4rchy wrote: post #43

Assuming we can make and dump dry ice / ice at scale through renewable energy, would it be a feasible / meaningful solution to even try, in order to extend time (not reduce temperature)? Came across this interesting idea of storing ship emissions as dry ice at the bottom of the ocean. [1] https://fathom.world/co2-spears-decarbonise-ccs/

Absolutely not. Adding carbon dioxide to water creates carbonic acid, which dissolves shellfish shells and coral reefs.

In fact ocean acidification from dumping carbon dioxide in the air is already putting us at risk of losing most of our shellfish in the next few decades.

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#48

Post by AussieWog93 »

deanCommie wrote: post #22
AussieWog93 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is most likely being downvoted because it is ideological flamebait, not because people disagree with your opinion. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I can accept that in broader society, climate change is an "ideological" concept. I cannot accept that it would be inside a well educated circle like hackernews. It should not be any more controversial than flat earth theory or moon landing conspiracies. So, I think it's reasonable for me to try to understand, anthropologically speaking, the mindset of a modern climate change denialist. My uncharitable and editoriali…

A couple of responses:

- Your comment wasn't about climate change, but about your interpretations of people who don't care about it as much as you do. Talking about climate change is not unproductive.

- Your comment did not make a good faith attempt to shine light on the mindset of the people who oppose solutions to global warming. You set up 5 strawman arguments and then beat them down.

- Comments like these are not effective at changing the minds necessary to avoid an ecological disaster. The most likely impact of your comment is that you galvanised the viewpoint of a few climate change deniers and pushed people in the centre away from your point of view.

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#49

Post by elevenbits »

deanCommie wrote: post #10

What do climate change denialists think about stories like this? Do they A) Think it's a complete lie/exaggeraiton, and the Barrier Reef will be fine? B) Think it's happening but not because of human activity (a massive die off across thousands of kilometers is totally natural, dude) C) Agree that it's caused by humans, but that it's too late to do anything about (probably true), but that also it's not worth taking a…

I have a different view than captured by your A-E options.

1) The climate, or really the whole earth, has some background rate of change, that itself changes over time.

2) On top of that, there is change, ranging from significant to insignificant depending on the area, caused by humans.

3) This will cause the earth to change at a rate (potentially much) faster than if humans were not here.

None of this, to me, represents a problem in itself. The earth before humans, or at any other point in our history was not some ideal utopia. Humans have inflicted colossal change upon the world since our first day -- we've decimated pests, built cities over forests and dams over rivers, created lakes and removed others, just to name just a few. The world we live in today is anything but "natural".

My primary point of disagreement with those who consider climate change a grave threat is the approach. Rather than setting "reduction targets" and "cutting back", we will, as humans have always done, build solutions to problems as we grow. Whether that's investing in improved desalination technology to provide large quantities of fresh water (due to a demand for water), electric vehicles to reduce localized emissions (due to a demand for clean air), or plant a trillion trees to store carbon (due to a demand for lower temperatures), the key is that for those to be workable options they must represent the growth of humanity, not the decline. There's also vast amount of land in Canada and Russia that at present is undesirable because it is too _cold_.

Humans have survived in horrendously hostile environments and have built upon that the wonderful and wholly unnatural modern lifestyle. Humans have never in history been THIS well resourced to survive despite environmental changes, and I have the utmost confidence we will do exactly that.

Re: Barrier Reef doomed as up to 99% of coral at risk, report finds

#50

Post by ghiculescu »

bb123 wrote: post #9

This is so incredibly sad, and I feel so helpless that this is slipping through our fingers. I fear I’ll never get a chance to see a coral reef in real life, and it looks almost certain that my children won’t. Is there anything we can do as individuals to help? I tried looking into conservation efforts but it seems like any amount of money we could hope to donate isn’t going to make a drop of difference to sea temper…

I think your timelines are a bit off, the article claims it’ll be gone in 2100. Your kids will be fine, regardless of your views on if it’s true or not.
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