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As ocean oxygen levels dip, fish face an uncertain future

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Re: As ocean oxygen levels dip, fish face an uncertain future

#91
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hope you can eat that.

Ok this conversation can get pretty silly, let's try to avoid that. Now at 2023 we have lifted more people out of poverty and ill-health in both raw numbers and as a percentage of the population than any time in the planet's history. Without prescribing anything in so far as dealing with the world's problems, be careful flippantly trading that off. It may not be you, your friends and your family that previously watch…

Yes we have made great progress with maternal and basic health, these are really great and represent real meaningful knowledge and capability gains. However, there are other health trends that are not looking very promising at the moment that take a bit of the shine off.

Poverty has some very definitional issues with the chosen metrics and I am hesitant to actually draw any conclusions on if it has brought net positive human fulfillment.

In any case the whole system is a pretty precarious place at the moment with rapidly closing windows to maintain stability, and if we don't those "stunning achievements" are going not going to persist in a meaningful way.

Re: As ocean oxygen levels dip, fish face an uncertain future

#92
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How did fish manage during the climatic optimum [1] some 8500 to 5500 years ago when it was between 1.5°C and 4°C warmer than it is now From your wikipedia link: ---8 A study in 2020 estimated that the average global temperature during the warmest 200 year period of the HCO, around 6,500 years ago, was around 0.7 °C warmer than the mean for nineteenth century AD. The HCO consisted of increases of up to 4 °C near th…

The same is true for the current warming where the largest increases are seen in the northern winters so that does not affect the comparison. Instead of picking on one section in a Wikipedia article it would be interesting to know what exactly is different "this time" compared to earlier warmer periods, both the climatic optimum as well as e.g. the Viking and Roman warm periods, let alone those during earlier intergl…

In Scandinavian regions, at the very least, the Viking warm periods were not as warm as today; fresh evidence suggests that they were less warm than many have stated:

Tree rings reveal that it has not been this warm in the past 1,200 years

AUGUST 3, 2023: https://phys.org/news/2023-08-tree-reveal-years.html

Fennoscandian tree-ring anatomy shows a warmer modern than medieval climate

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06176-4

Re: As ocean oxygen levels dip, fish face an uncertain future

#93
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps your friends work in a region like the GOM where anoxic zones are a substantial and growing issue or regions where management remains poor so the sentiment would be accurate for their domain, but it isn't even close to holding true globally for all fish stocks, neither effects of low oxygen nor overharvesting etc. There were big improvements in stock assessment and fisheries management around 15-20 years ago…

While Ray Hilborn is one of the biggest (most publishing) voices in academic fisheries research, others absolutely hate him: Greenpeace calls him a 'overfishing denier' https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/research/overfishing-denier/ >As part of their investigation into our appeal, the journal also posted a correction noting that several authors of a paper defending the Marine Stewardship Council were actually employed by…

If Greenpeace hates him, that’s a pretty good indication that he’s a reasonable scientist imo.

Greenpeace is generally unreasonable politically and scientifically. Their efforts to stop nuclear development have likely caused a third of anthropogenic warming. Their campaigns make the public hate them. They are not a good org to trust for balanced science.

Re: As ocean oxygen levels dip, fish face an uncertain future

#95
post #3

Aside from Ocean Acidification, uncontrollable Algae Blooms, and Melting Sea Ice, we now have Ocean Deoxygenation on our plates. We also have unprecedented droughts on land as well. Humans really will be the next mass extinction event on this planet. So incredibly selfish.

I don’t think any of these are really that critical: they will become a problem in a few centuries if we do absolutely nothing but will likely be fine.

Take ocean deoxygenation: it happens locally due to fertiliser runoff in places that have a history of low oxygen. It’s good to put some resources towards fixing this, but it’s not useful to think of it as an extinction level problem that we “now have.”

Re: As ocean oxygen levels dip, fish face an uncertain future

#96
post #3

Aside from Ocean Acidification, uncontrollable Algae Blooms, and Melting Sea Ice, we now have Ocean Deoxygenation on our plates. We also have unprecedented droughts on land as well. Humans really will be the next mass extinction event on this planet. So incredibly selfish.

Atmospheric CO2 has increased by a third just since I've been alive.

It's difficult to overstate just how quickly we are destroying the planet.

I spend a lot of time snorkeling and I tell my kids to really take in what they see because it probably won't be there when they're parents themselves.

Re: As ocean oxygen levels dip, fish face an uncertain future

#97
post #3

Aside from Ocean Acidification, uncontrollable Algae Blooms, and Melting Sea Ice, we now have Ocean Deoxygenation on our plates. We also have unprecedented droughts on land as well. Humans really will be the next mass extinction event on this planet. So incredibly selfish.

I don’t think any of these are really that critical: they will become a problem in a few centuries if we do absolutely nothing but will likely be fine. Take ocean deoxygenation: it happens locally due to fertiliser runoff in places that have a history of low oxygen. It’s good to put some resources towards fixing this, but it’s not useful to think of it as an extinction level problem that we “now have.”

Wow, you have the entirety of the world ecosystem, from deep ocean currents and biology, to the entire 70% of the world's surface oceans, to the jungle rainforests, arctic/antarctic ice, atmospheric changes, solar radiation variation, historical records, 100% accurate computer simulations/predictors, all nailed down?

All the interaction of species, effects of (mass) extinctions? Invasive species? Habitat destruction, soil loss from farming, AND you can predict the impacts of human industry, economics, and technology change?

You have ALL THAT NAILED DOWN, internet expert?

Forgive me if I don't take your assurances about that as being "no big deal" with any iota of reliability.

There are literally 20 major scientific domains that all are in lockstep agreement about anthropogenic global warming, from geologists, atmospheric scientists, basic chemistry and physics, oceanographers, biologists, archaeologists, historians. A massive collection of scientific inquiry that basically all ends at the same conclusions. It's quite literally thousands of PhDs, maybe tens of thousands.

Of course, all of them don't know as much as you, internet guy.

Re: As ocean oxygen levels dip, fish face an uncertain future

#99
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're a little better than that. No one actually wants a world where everything is turned into financial statements. The tragedy of the commons is a bug, whereas wholesale conversion to paper clips for Clippy is a feature.

So I think we are this, even if we don't want to be. We just don't have the (whatever it is) to not do it. I think where we've made the mistake was deferring everything to technological solutions, which arguably created the problem in the first place. This is not to say technology won't help, or even eventually solve it, but we should work harder on the people and governmental problems.

But when you think of people and governments, the range of beliefs and behavioral choices is enormous. Certainly some people and some societies and governments have more of (whatever it is) than others, if it is the capacity to prioritize long-term, multigenerational self-preservation and quality of life over short-term gains. Money, in the purest sense as a means of exchange, isn't the culprit; the trouble is the culture that (a) generates wealth via extraction and (b) wastes it on immediate consumption, rather than investing in a sustainable future. I'd even argue that "money" is a red herring. What we're really paperclipping is mostly-disposable stuff. In the long term, we'll probably be remember for being really good at turning a deep geological layer of carbon into a shallower one of plastic. But it's worth saying that we are 7 billion or so individuals capable of making decisions, with vastly different aims and priorities, rather than one monolithic thing obsessed with a particular shiny object.

Re: As ocean oxygen levels dip, fish face an uncertain future

#100

> The oxygen drop is driven by a few factors. First, the laws of physics dictate that warmer water can hold less dissolved gas than cooler water (this is why a warm soda is less fizzy than a cold one). > Melting ice adds fresh, less-dense water that resists downward mixing in key regions, and the high rate of atmospheric warming at the poles, as compared to the equator, also dampens winds that drive ocean currents. >…

So there is this idea that we can reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere by using iron seeding into the ocean causing a massive amount of phytoplankton production. But would the side effect of this be a drop in ocean oxygen levels?
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