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Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

nytimes.com

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Re: Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

#51

Post by Retric »

dmix wrote: post #46
xfactor973 wrote: post #32

I planted about 50 fruit trees and bushes when I moved into my new place. I also converted the electric to 100% renewable. Other than dumping my natural gas heater I'm not sure what's left that I can do to help reduce climate change.

Cows and other animal agriculture contributes as much or more [1], to climate change than all cars and trucks. So eating less meat is one good way. > Livestock is responsible for 65% of all human-related emissions of nitrous oxide – a greenhouse gas with 296 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, and which stays in the atmosphere for 150 years. -“Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Option…

Nitrous oxide and Methane both break down in the atmosphere. If we where starting from zero then sure they would both have a large impact but they are both in sufficient quantities that lot's of them are breaking down making the future contribution have a negotiable net effect.

Re: Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

#52

Post by ageofwant »

fche wrote: post #42
banach wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop eating animal-based food. See http://www.cowspiracy.com/ for details.

Cowspiracy's points on GHG emission and water consumption are simply illiterate. They don't recognize the concept of a net flow. (e.g.: carbon that comes out of a cow first went into a cow - via its food - which got apprx. all its carbon from the air)

Fertilisers and fuel did not come from the air. There are hundreds of millions of cows (and other livestock) that did not exist before. Landscapes have been sterilised to support them with a massive resulting freeing of previously captured carbon, or carbon trapped in a slow cycle. Methane from ruminants are a significant source of CO2 and are not easily recaptured, not to mention a potent greenhouse gas.

Re: Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

#53

Post by beachy »

agumonkey wrote: post #4

At this point I welcome catastrophe. Nobody listens anyway so a clear message from nature is the only way.

At some stage, people may welcome a man-made catastrophe, such as a nuclear holocaust that removes a percentage of humanity such that the remaining percentage may survive.

(I live in the southern hemisphere, so for selfish reasons I'd prefer this apocalypse to take place in the northern hemisphere).

Re: Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

#54

Post by dmix »

fche wrote: post #42
banach wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop eating animal-based food. See http://www.cowspiracy.com/ for details.

Cowspiracy's points on GHG emission and water consumption are simply illiterate. They don't recognize the concept of a net flow. (e.g.: carbon that comes out of a cow first went into a cow - via its food - which got apprx. all its carbon from the air)

Most of the science from Cowspiracy is still on point. A percentage was exaggerated but the main point remains persuasive: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KpmTiHjUEBU

Especially as China and other countries continue eating more meat at higher and higher rates.

Re: Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

#55

Post by eggy »

ageofwant wrote: post #29
gedy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Washington could be taken over by the Green party, ban fossil fuels, etc - and we'd still be in trouble due to China, et al with their increasing CO2 output. Reminds me a bit of banning plastic bags in California to help the ocean. That's lovely, but given Asia dumps something like 150 times the amount plastics into the ocean, so is basically meaningless.

Its not meaningless. Its millions of tons of plastic less, it may be the 2% margin that matters.

I read the book Guesstimation 2.0 by Lawrence Weinstein a few years ago, and it had this breakdown. This is not addressing any other fact than how much time people spend worrying about the wrong thing, thinking emotionally rather than rationally or mathematically:

"Paper or Plastic?

How many plastic bags does the US use in one year? 10 bags per grocery store trip x 2 trips per week x 52 weeks per year = 1000 bags per person per year. 300 x 10^6 people in the U.S. = 300 x 10^11 bags in the US per year.

Is this a lot? Compared to what? A roll of bags weighs a few ounces so there are about 200 bags/lb Your 10^3 bags weigh about 5 pounds.

The 500 gallons of gasoline you burned last year weighs 4000 pounds (2 tons).

Your 10^3 bags are irrelevant. (Just don’t litter)."

...Or use a re-usable bag ;)

I want to read "How Bad Are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint Of Everything" by Mike Berners-Lee. It addresses similar disconnections on how we think about our impact on the climate, and the steps we take to try and do something. For example, people who bike everywhere, but eat foods shipped from all over the world over local produce.

Re: Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

#56

Post by samcheng »

Retric wrote: post #51
dmix wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cows and other animal agriculture contributes as much or more [1], to climate change than all cars and trucks. So eating less meat is one good way. > Livestock is responsible for 65% of all human-related emissions of nitrous oxide – a greenhouse gas with 296 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, and which stays in the atmosphere for 150 years. -“Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Option…

Nitrous oxide and Methane both break down in the atmosphere. If we where starting from zero then sure they would both have a large impact but they are both in sufficient quantities that lot's of them are breaking down making the future contribution have a negotiable net effect.

Methane is, however, much more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2, and global livestock contribute a non-negligible fraction of greenhouse gas pollution.

This estimate says that livestock contribute 14.5% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gasses: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/

As far as opportunities to curb your own carbon footprint, use one of the calculators available on the web. For many people, jet airplane travel dominates the 'discretionary' portion of GHG pollution.

Re: Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

#57

Post by n72 »

fche wrote: post #50
scarmig wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To answer your question: sure, 2000 years from now it's hard to predict total acreage, and it may well be higher (or lower). But there's little uncertainty that on the timescale of centuries, corals will be devastated, and that means really bad things for us and our children, to say nothing of the health of marine ecosystems.

"corals will be devastated, and that means really bad things for us and our children" What "really bad things" would you or your children suffer, should all the corals suddenly become sentient and beam into outer space? Just curious.

From the article: "An estimated 30 million small-scale fishermen and women depend on reefs for their livelihoods, more than one million in the Philippines alone. In Indonesia, fish supported by the reefs provide the primary source of protein."

Re: Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

#58

Post by donatj »

codecamper wrote: post #7
appleflaxen wrote: post #3

There is a whole lot of climate change evidence coming out that is terrifying. At what point does this become so scary that something happens to increase the taxes on fossil fuels so that consumption will go down? Falling renewable prices are not enough, and use-based taxes are the single best way to let individuals make their own decisions about what/how much to use. Carbon credits are a good market-based solution t…

It's very sad that reefs are dying, but it seems that their whole existence was very much tied to a very specific amount of carbon in the atmosphere. (about 265 ppm co2) The scary thing is that these reefs are so incredibly diverse & their creation took millions of years. Millions of years to create and they can be globally destroyed in just 200 or so years. It's also scary is to consider what else may be balanced ju…

How did they survive the ice ages and previous warm ages, and what makes this different?

Re: Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

#59

Post by Evenjos »

whyenot wrote: post #28
gedy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Washington could be taken over by the Green party, ban fossil fuels, etc - and we'd still be in trouble due to China, et al with their increasing CO2 output. Reminds me a bit of banning plastic bags in California to help the ocean. That's lovely, but given Asia dumps something like 150 times the amount plastics into the ocean, so is basically meaningless.

> banning plastic bags in California to help the ocean They were banned because they don't decompose, so they end up all over the place. Not just in the ocean, but on the beach, in creeks, lakes, anywhere near a highway, etc. As an example local to Silicon Valley, Stevens Creek used to be completely clogged with plastic bags. It's gotten a lot better now.

There's some research that the creation of paper bags, and those more permanent plastic bags, is just as harmful to the environment as plastic disposable bags.

https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4460

Re: Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

#60

Post by fche »

n72 wrote: post #57
fche wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"corals will be devastated, and that means really bad things for us and our children" What "really bad things" would you or your children suffer, should all the corals suddenly become sentient and beam into outer space? Just curious.

From the article: "An estimated 30 million small-scale fishermen and women depend on reefs for their livelihoods, more than one million in the Philippines alone. In Indonesia, fish supported by the reefs provide the primary source of protein."

Thanks, so it's a human-food availability concern.
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