gone by 2050?

[reefworm]

[also posted in the general discussion forum]

Not that coral reef die-off is new news, but it was distressing to see this article on CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/12/10/coral.destruction/index.html

less than 1 generation and the only reefs left may be the ones in our little boxes of water. it may behoove us to try to develop more captive bred species

[westuk]

Very bad news to hear but as with all news it shows the down side but I would be nice to see if there is any plus's.

New strains of zooxanthellae found in the red sea that are more heat resistance so protecting its self in higher temp areas and even those works done by coral farms done in the sea.

It would be nice to see other plus's.

For example the natural predators of the crown of thorns (that has a major impact on reefs) re-introduced or encouraged by a ban on fishing in certain areas.

[greenbean36191]

They probably won't be gone by 2050, but there's a real chance there won't be any left with net positive growth by then.

[Snail-po]

well thats a little sad. in that case best be selfish now and enjoy it while it lasts:)

[vitz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13915321#post13915321 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by greenbean36191
They probably won't be gone by 2050, but there's a real chance there won't be any left with net positive growth by then.

er- pardon my confusion, but if a reef has already declined in coral biomass by 30%, doesn't it ALREADY have 'negative growth' ?

practically EVERY reef on the planet hasn't has 'net positive growth' for decades already !

reefs will be gone well before 2050, at current rates of decline-which increases as time progresses

your statement "there's a real chance" is, pardon me for saying so, absolutely ludicrous, in addition to being false

[vitz]

addendum-50 yrs is app 2 generations ;)

[greenbean36191]

er- pardon my confusion, but if a reef has already declined in coral biomass by 30%, doesn't it ALREADY have 'negative growth' ?

practically EVERY reef on the planet hasn't has 'net positive growth' for decades already !
Generally with a loss of coral cover there is negative net growth, but not necessarily. Sometimes you just get slower net growth.

30% is an estimate of the worldwide loss, but that loss is not uniform across all reefs. The Caribbean has been hit particularly hard, with some areas seeing 80% reductions in cover. In the Philippines, miles of reef have been outright destroyed (100% loss). In other parts of the world like the Line Islands and parts of the GBR there is no clear decline to speak of. These corals show lots of resilience and recover quickly after disturbances, often to over 100% coverage. There are quite a few reefs left with net positive growth.

[vitz]

i would contend that all of the reefs worldwide have been shown to have only net negative growth for decades already

where is your data from ?

[buck50bmg]

Sheep.....you guys believe what the Communist News Network tells you....or any other news agency.......news...its should be called lies.

[greenbean36191]

Thank you for your useful contribution to the discussion. Would you care to enlighten us with your superior knowledge of the situation?

[Eric the half-bee]

I'm no expert on much of anything. However, like other trends on this planet, isn't it possible the reefs have gone through declines in past times? I found this article on line about discovery in Australia of an alleged 650 mil. year old reef.

http://ecoworldly.com/2008/09/22/650-million-year-old-reef-discovered-in-australias-outback/

[jenglish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14059611#post14059611 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Eric the half-bee
I'm no expert on much of anything. However, like other trends on this planet, isn't it possible the reefs have gone through declines in past times? I found this article on line about discovery in Australia of an alleged 650 mil. year old reef.

http://ecoworldly.com/2008/09/22/650-million-year-old-reef-discovered-in-australias-outback/

Its almost certain that reefs have risen and fallen in the past. I think the concern is that we are contributing to the changes if not through climate change then certianly through fishing shipping etc. The enviroment has gone through many changes but we may be changing it faster than ever before. The problem is that it is a dynamic system that would change whethor we were here or not and it is sometimes difficult to tease out all the relationships in such a complex system.

[greenbean36191]

It's more than almost certain that reefs have flourished and disappeared in the past. However, as with other cyclical trends it's not logically sound to assume that because changes occurred naturally in the past, all changes we see now are natural or of no consequence. A large % of the world population today depends on the existence of the reefs which obviously wasn't the case several million years ago. Also, most of the formerly dominant reef building groups didn't just decline, but went completely extinct or are represented by only a few species today.

The very first reef builders were cyanobacteria. Today there's only a single, small living example comparable to the original structures. Next came the stromatoporid sponges. Probably all of them went extinct, though we do have a handful of recently discovered modern species that resemble them superficially. Next came tabulate and rugose corals. All of them were now extinct. Shortly after that the first sceractinian corals showed up, but almost disappeared soon afterward for about 20 million years. During that time rudist bivalves would have their day as the primary reef builders- and then go extinct too. Scleractinians have only been the dominant reef builders again for the past 34 million years- about 5% of the total history of reef building.

It's important to note though that it's not the case that one group fades out and another quickly fills it's place. There are periods where reefs completely disappear for several million years after the decline of the previously dominant group. The claim that reefs have always been around so they will just change their range or evolve isn't borne out by the evidence.

Obviously these animals didn't just decide to punch out after dominating the scene for several million years. There were reasons precipitating their declines. While we don't know the reason behind many of the declines, the reason the first Scleractinia almost disappeared seems pretty clearly to be due to CO2 driven changes in seawater chemistry. It became unfavorable for the deposition of aragonite and coral growth slowed tremendously. They only became the dominant reef builders again after seawater chemistry favored aragonite deposition again. Modern ocean chemistry is being driven towards these unfavorable conditions again, which is the reason for concern over ocean acidification.

[Rossini]

Some good info here too.

http://www.aims.gov.au/docs/media/news2009/20090102.html

I posted about the same thing on a popular reefkeeping forum in the UK,and there were several people who claimed its just scaremongering or the facts were wrong! how ignorant and arogant they are to think they know more than the experts at the australian institute of marine sciences.

You can read the full paper on "Science"link is on website.

[kaptken]

Yes, I like reading the research articles by AIMS, and GreenBean's sublime argumentative debates too.

Which resonate with my believe that environmental changes don't just happen in a vacuum, for no particular reason, or without predictable consequences. Our task is to observe, measure, understand, predict and correct our action as best we can. So as to preserve our niche in life on this planet. and all the life forms we need and or appreciate for their beauty.

It seems we now produce much more airborne CO2 than the natural world can handle. The forests absorb about 20%, the oceans absorb about 40% and the rest goes to raising the CO2 content of the air we breath. up from 280 to 385 PPM now over the past 150 years. the air was stable at 280 ppm for the preceeding 10,000 years. we as human beings, able to speak and write and reason, (at least a little), have only been at that level for the past 10,000 years. or about a nano second compared to the 4.5 billion years age of the earth. which doesn't forbode well for our longevity compared to the adaptive ability of let's say: blue/green algae. we could very well be a flash in the pan, much thanks to our own propensity to degrade the vary ecosystem we need to survive in. as CO2 rises, ocean PH declines, and becomes more acidic, which reduces stoney corals, clams, snails, shrimp, .... calcarus structure animals, ability to form their shells and structures to grow. reefs will die.

As GB points out, very slow changes over epochs has been the norm, which allows lifeforms time to morph and adapt over time. The current rapid changes preclude genetic drift by destroying species before they have time to reproduce many generations and morph. which... simplifies the ecosystem. It can and will recover, over time, much time. but not necessarily with us in it. and that, i think is the concept most people don't understand or appreciate. Even though we control a large chunk of our own fate.

Just remember, things like cars, powerplants, and other manmade forms of combustion, and pollution are not part of the natural ecosystem. but have the same effect as catochlysmic events such as super volcanic erruptions, and asteroid impacts, to name a couple, which happen in a short geological time frame.

remember 1816, the year without a summer? caused by the 1815 mount Tambora erruption, a small event, compared to a yellowstone scale erruption. It COOLED the planet several degrees by its emissions of sulphuric gases and soot. a Sharp change but temporary. which means if we cut our net emissions, we too can slow warming, or reverse it. but that is a very big IF. even maintaining current CO2 levels will continue to raise the temperatures for a long time until it reaches stability. we need to reverse the trend a little bit. and that is a very big problem when we live in a world based on fire, combustion, CO2 production.

So theres a lot of work to do. To save the reefs, and our way of life. Lest we treat the environment, in our search for "More" much like the Captain, In Walt Whitman's famous poem.

http://www.poetry-online.org/whitman_o_captain_my_captain.htm

Or perhaps we can save ourselves with Red Green's Posum Lodge's Prophetic monthly meeting opening slacker sanctum:

" THE MAN'S PRAYER "
I'm a Man,
I can change,
If I Have to,
I Guess....~?~?~?~?

[Sisterlimonpot]

I think there needs to be more people in the business of breading all these SW fishes so we can lower our dependance on wild caught fishes.

[Rickyrooz1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13914572#post13914572 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by westuk
Very bad news to hear but as with all news it shows the down side but I would be nice to see if there is any plus's.

New strains of zooxanthellae found in the red sea that are more heat resistance so protecting its self in higher temp areas and even those works done by coral farms done in the sea.

It would be nice to see other plus's.

For example the natural predators of the crown of thorns (that has a major impact on reefs) re-introduced or encouraged by a ban on fishing in certain areas.

Or have farmer's stop using fertilizers which are dumped into the ocean via rainwater run off. I believe the only "natural" predator to the Crown of Thorns are the: The predators most commonly observed to feed on crown-of-thorns starfish are: the giant triton shell (Charonia tritonis), a puffer fish (Arothron hispidus), two species of trigger fish (Balistoides viridescens, Pseudobalistes flavimarginatus), a Harlequin shrimp (Hymenocera picta) and a worm (Pherecardia striata). Until they are re-established in greater numbers I think divers will have to continue to inject poison into the stars.

[Beaun]

A recent article in the NYTimes says the same thing. Maybe the same declaration? It's by a group of 155 scientists from 26 countries. It talks about CO2 affecting the acidity of the ocean. A very interesting article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/science/earth/31ocean.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

“Ocean acidification may render most regions chemically inhospitable to coral reefs by 2050.”

So its not saying coral reefs will be gone by 2050, just that the regions may not be "chemically hospitable". Still something to be worried about.

[Ricky92]

climate change is gong to happen soon the equater wont have reefs but the poles might only thing we do is pollute we didnt cause global warming only pollution and maybe a little carbon dioxide (10 percent in rise of warming not much) its bound to happen then the world freezes over and we start over again hopefully with less pollution

-*EDIT* RC has a strict policy against posting things of a religious or political nature. -Dgen

[vitz]

climate change isn't 'going to happen'-it started as soon as the industrial revolution began

when it happens full blast-the planet will recover, eventually.WE won't ;)

the scientific community on the whole has severely under-estimated the rate of glacial melting across the board, and has missed the mark repeatedly-the scientific community should be storming the houses of gov'ts around the globe, instead of letting oil profiteer puppets like the idjit last prez, try to trash the progress of science and plain ol' simple listening to the actual facts (bush did more to ruin the environment and try and suppress science/scientific knowledge than any other past prez)

100 sump bux sez that anyone born within the past decade will see the total end of reefs, and many other species (food) of fish, like tuna

the rate of decline is not linear ;)

once certain feedback loops begin, they CANNOT be stopped by anyone, in spite of our naive foolish beliefs that people or scientists can correct everything :(

the general masses of this planet truly have no clue as to what the extent of environmental damage has been done to this planet, or what the large scale results will be-in fact, as is sooooo typical of our species, not only do we interfere and meddle with very dangerous practices/policies on a PLANETARY scale, our best ideas is to try and mess with them even more, instead of simply stopping the damage we're doing

there's absolutely NO reason why this country, and every other developing country (china and india, for example), shouldn't have completely eliminated the use of ALL fossil fuels for anything, decades ago.

have fun driving your suv's, and burning fossil fuels to keep a pretty tank in your house ! at least the cats at exxon will be happy and fat going to hell in the handbasket they're making :P

bottom line is, even if we completely stop ALL pollution YESTERDAY, it's too late-the wheels have been set in motion-enjoy the ride ! :P

[greenbean36191]

Guys, just a friendly reminder- The UA prohibits political and religious discussion.

Whether you feel it's relevant or not, please leave politics and religion out of the discussion. Otherwise this thread will come to a very quick halt and this is an important topic to discuss.

[vitz]

i'm curious as to how this topic can be discussed without references to political/energy use/development policies that directly effect gobal warming and reefs ? It's largely in part to those very politics/policies that the issue exists still today altogether :/

it's kind of like saying you can't discuss the still ongoing use of cyanide without discussing phillipine politics- knowledge of one is required to factually/correctly understand the other

i understand that it's not allowed/frowned upon-but it really makes all discussion here exceedingly shallow/fairly irrelevant, and really makes it impossible to discuss completely/factually/properly

jmo

[buck50bmg]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14290350#post14290350 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by vitz
climate change isn't 'going to happen'-it started as soon as the industrial revolution began

when it happens full blast-the planet will recover, eventually.WE won't ;)

the scientific community on the whole has severely under-estimated the rate of glacial melting across the board, and has missed the mark repeatedly-the scientific community should be storming the houses of gov'ts around the globe, instead of letting oil profiteer puppets like the idjit last prez, try to trash the progress of science and plain ol' simple listening to the actual facts (bush did more to ruin the environment and try and suppress science/scientific knowledge than any other past prez)

100 sump bux sez that anyone born within the past decade will see the total end of reefs, and many other species (food) of fish, like tuna

the rate of decline is not linear ;)

once certain feedback loops begin, they CANNOT be stopped by anyone, in spite of our naive foolish beliefs that people or scientists can correct everything :(

the general masses of this planet truly have no clue as to what the extent of environmental damage has been done to this planet, or what the large scale results will be-in fact, as is sooooo typical of our species, not only do we interfere and meddle with very dangerous practices/policies on a PLANETARY scale, our best ideas is to try and mess with them even more, instead of simply stopping the damage we're doing

there's absolutely NO reason why this country, and every other developing country (china and india, for example), shouldn't have completely eliminated the use of ALL fossil fuels for anything, decades ago.

have fun driving your suv's, and burning fossil fuels to keep a pretty tank in your house ! at least the cats at exxon will be happy and fat going to hell in the handbasket they're making :P

bottom line is, even if we completely stop ALL pollution YESTERDAY, it's too late-the wheels have been set in motion-enjoy the ride ! :P
Take a look at this....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIq8eWpMQH4&feature=related

So funny

[billsreef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14299497#post14299497 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by buck50bmg
Take a look at this....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIq8eWpMQH4&feature=related

So funny

And completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand ;)

[buck50bmg]

But still funny.....

[DgenR8]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14298258#post14298258 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by vitz
i'm curious as to how this topic can be discussed without references to political/energy use/development policies that directly effect gobal warming and reefs ? It's largely in part to those very politics/policies that the issue exists still today altogether :/



You've made it quite obvious that if it can be discussed without political reference, you're not capable of discussing it that way. Seeing as I had just edited a post for political content, and warned against it, perhaps your best move would have been to just keep on going to a discussion that you could participate in without breaking our rules.
That's all water under the bridge, now.
Thread closed