50% of Coral Reefs Died in 12 Months

Run time: 02:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoGKdeAEwRY   Posted on YouTube: January 25, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: January 27, 2008 By DU Member: Hissyspit Views on DU: 2253

 
January 24, 2008 - CBC The National

Bad, bad news. :(

50% of the world's reefs are NOT dead and unrestorable; 50% of the Caribbean reefs were bleached/damaged in 2005. the Bleaching of coral reefs is a serious problem around the world due to climate change, but the severity of the damage in the caribbean is due to the combination of increased ocean temps AND a worse than normal hurricane season in 2005 (the 12 months reported in the clip). I subscribe to SCUBA magazine, and I've been reading reports that some of the reefs damaged in the 2005 hurricanes are starting to make a comeback, specifically in the Antilles and Caymans. Nevertheless, coral is the "canary in the coalmine", and just one more important reason to fight global warming...

What I've been wondering, is if coral reefs die off due to increased temps, will coral start to grow in other areas that are currently too cold? Like the Pacific Northwest?

Thanks for posting the clip.

Need to change our attention to this planet fast!

Humans care about human games while all the other species and the entire food chain die. We are selfish and suicidal while we accessorize and glamorize our petty little concerns.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2006/03/the_fate_of_the_ocean.html

"News: Our oceans are under attack, and approaching a point of no return. Can we survive if the seas go silent?

By Julia Whitty
Illustration: Yuko Shimizu

March/April 2006 Issue

While it is true that pollution and over exploitation are serious problems to the health of the oceans, the world temperature has always been unstable, long before the industrial age. Human activity accounts for about 1.5% of the co2 in the atmosphere, the rest 98.5% is produced naturally by the oceans, decaying organic matter, volcanoes, etc. There is a political agenda behind the global warming scare and it has more to do about economic control and power than reducing pollution.

A political agenda behind the global warming scare? Oh, you don't see any agenda behind falsifying information by big oil? And what would be the Sierra Clubs evil agenda? And furthermore, the early earth could recover from flucuations without humans who continue to dump crap everywhere. It's o.k. with me if you add your freeper carbon to the mix. Quickly.

and you will find that carbon is not "crap", if you believe so then maybe we should saran wrap the oceans and every living organism on this planet, how is that for "being born stupid"? The humidity in the air is much more of a green house gas than co2 will ever be. Much of the environment movement is controlled by the same interest that controls big oil, good cop, bad cop, corporate democrat or corporate repugs, same interest same agenda, it's about controlling the worlds resources. Remember the disappearing ozone layer a few years ago, made the headlines of all the corporate medias...The sky is falling, the sky is falling !

Much of the environment movement is controlled by the same interest that controls big oil.

I don't even understand this statement. Do you mean Exxon/Mobile is behind the environmental movement? O.K., I'll give you an easy one. Do the oceans contain as many fish as they did one hundred years ago? If they don't, then what's the reason? Or are humans completely innocent of environmental destruction?

"Do the oceans contain as many fish as they did one hundred years ago? If they don't, then what's the reason? Or are humans completely innocent of environmental destruction?"

As I said previously there are grave pollution problems and overexploitation of natural resources, and it may be a good thing to move away from a petrol based economy, but there is no link between global warming and co2, it's a scam... we are in a period of global warming that started 200 years ago, nothing we can do about it.

How is it possible that much of the environment movement is controlled by he same corporations who pollute?

Remember the disappearing ozone layer, the scare tactics, huge increase in skin cancer and all the rest, we had to ban Freon at soon as possible, well it just happens that Dupont's Patent on Freon was running out in 1992 and after that date any country could produce it, so there goes their monopoly, and so it was in their interest to have a world wide ban on it, and they did promote that agenda, by the way they already had a substitute product ready to be commercialized and so they never lost their monopoly on refrigerants. Look into the science behind it, there is no link between freon an holes in the Ozone layer, but we all bought it, including myself. Things are not always as they appear.

The Scrabble player in me just noticed that it's almost possible to spell Dr Exxon from the letters in your name. Just a coincidence?

That humans have changed the climate of Earth through our increased production of greenhouse gasses is now fact. Scientific fact. And please, no smarmy-ass message board tromp d'oie. There is not a major scientic climate alive--except those that work for the petroleum cartels--that believe or support one iota of the shit you spout. The evidence is unmistakable. As is your purpose for posting here. Phil Cooney, is that you? If so, rot in hell you bastard.

Stop reading only the conspiracy articles. The science isn't so difficult to understand. The people who are spouting the lies you have been reading have agendas as well. For example, create further distrust of regulators, create distrust of scientists, create distrust of any environmental movement, improve their own economic interests, among a variety of others.

I did a quick google to refresh my memory.

Some quotes from a 1995 article:
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1995-05-04/news/freon-easy/1

"Even today, naysayers dismiss this theory based on the fact that CFCs are many times heavier than air. How, they ask, could CFCs reach the stratosphere? But CFCs have now been measured in the stratosphere in hundreds of experiments. Scientists explain that the air is constantly churning, pushing CFCs into the stratosphere."

"The evidence that CFCs in the stratosphere contribute to at least some ozone depletion is so overwhelming that even some scientists who oppose the Montreal Protocol concede the point."

"Almost 300 scientists from the developed and developing world contributed, including 147 scientists who participated in the peer-review process."

Here is a more recent assessment of the ozone depletion:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/2006/twentyquestions.html#list

The DIC content in the oceans is what is buffering most of the CO2 flux into the atm by an. When the oceans become acidic from our actions and all marine organisms belly up and die then will you understand? The problem with the "State of Fear" argument is that it swings to far the other way. Do you also believe that the paleontologists are lying about the age of the earth and the paleoclimate findings?

if not, please provide some sources for me to peruse.

humans do a lot more stuff that isn't healthy like this




in other parts of the world they blow it up or poison it

There is enough real problems out there, without worrying about the co2 scam !

You have got to be kidding.

Here's what's happened to atmospheric CO2 in the past 47 years. I'm sure you can reconcile this graph with this 1.5% figure. In your own "mind", anyways. I look forward to your reply.

double post...

...any increase in atmospheric CO2 is not man-made, I'm still going to advocate that we err on the side of caution and stop burning witches.

Not man-made? What do you think the products of burning fuel are? Let's say you fill up the car with 15 gallons and given a weight of say, 6 pounds a gallon, where do you think that 90 pounds goes? How much air do you think is being polluted? Maybe if you were the only one on Earth driving then our atmosphere could dilute it effectively but how many people are driving? Now add the power plants with coal and petroleum that are being burned. If you cannot imagine how the air is being polluted by man, then you have a failure of imagination.

Maybe you think it has been volcanoes?
Gerlach (1991) estimated a total global release of 3-4 x 10E12 mol/yr from volcanoes. This is a conservative estimate. Man-made (anthropogenic) CO2 emissions overwhelm this estimate by at least 150 times.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/index/
Over the last 150 years, carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations have risen from 280 to nearly 380 parts per million (ppm). The fact that this is due virtually entirely to human activities is so well established that one rarely sees it questioned. Yet it is quite reasonable to ask how we know this. (Read the articles at the link for more info)

If you have ever kept an aquarium you should have learned of a delicate balance there is between water chemistry and aquatic organisms. If you have successfully kept marine animals than you will know how much more sensitive they can be.

Scientists have been predicting that increases in CO2 are going to have a devastating impact on the coral reefs. My guess is that some people would prefer that they are all dead and they see the autopsies before they will acknowledge the facts. I realize that sounds like a strawman but I think it is legit. The stresses on these reefs will make them more susceptible to poisons, toxins, dead zones, hurricanes, whatever, but CO2 will contnue to be THE major factor. Now, ask how quickly does a coral reef grow?

This seems like the smoking debate all over again to me.

Humans are creating unnatural trends, maybe some can't see it if you live in a rural area, so if that is the case, use the internet to do some research. And by that I mean use good sources, SCIENTISTS.

is this what we want to leave to our children???