Barrier reef damage exaggerated?

[Alexraptor]

Came across this article that seems to have a different view of the recent bleaching event that hit the Great Barrier Reef.
And it seems to paint a bit more of a hopeful and promising picture than the doom and gloom that has been permeating the media in the last year.

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/...-a7827796.html

Thoughts?

[ca1ore]

I took the time to actually read many of those past articles, and mostly they represent a similar sentiment to the one you linked here. There were a few hyperbolic tweets, but that's the world we live it. Don't think too many would say that the reefs aren't in trouble though.

[Alexraptor]

Of course not, but the sensationalist news would have you believe its already game over.

[jubei2006]

Think we also have to consider the sources. Do the papers/articles have a political spin to put on it. How can we use an event, sensationalize it, and then get people to get on the bandwagon. I would like to see more research, measurements in the affected areas. We have species in our own tanks from wold colonies that have adapted to much larger changes than what is going on at the reef. So I also think as long as we are reasonable with pollution and do our part the limit environmental effects, the reefs will adapt and survive.

[ca1ore]

If memory serves, I recall most of the media reports were actually quite balanced in their reporting. There were a few sensational articles intended to be tongue in cheek. Outside Magazine, for example wrote a story entitled 'The GBR Passed Away in 2016 After a Long Illness'. I think some either failed to note the sarcasm or just didn't read the story. Though not dead, I've read views of a number if scientists that it's likely doomed. Why this is a political issue escapes me.

[jubei2006]

Not to take anything away or disregard what we are doing to our natural resources with our species overpopulation, but most of the articles from large news sources are gloom and doom with 30, 50, 80% of the reefs dead. Then articles like these with local observation saying well it's not as bad as they say. Which view do we take? I've seen plenty that the pet fish trade has a huge negative impact on the reef ecosystem, yet how does even this compare to countries tearing up the reef for building supplies (concrete in third world countries until recently), reactor pollution (fukishima) as well as agricultural and industrial runoff, and overfishing?Then the article goes on to talk about money spent, but not how it's allocated. I know the reefs can be in trouble with our current state of pollution, but in the grand scheme of things which side is more accurate, and are we seeing a change to more tolerant corals or are we as screwed as the papers say. As soon as I see big money in an article, then things get political for me. Sorry bout the rambling, these things make my mind wander.

[ca1ore]

I think with these things you listen to the people most likely to know what that are talking about: the scientists that study it! Not that they cannot be wrong, of course; after all science is about testing, validating and rejecting, hypotheses, but they are certainly more likely to be right than a lay-person that espouses their personal 'beliefs'. Always has seemed to me that if there is at least a chance of really bad $hit happening, we ought to do something about it. Sadly politicians, regardless of ideological dogma, are useless.

[Spslvr]

got Netflix? check out Chasing Coral its a new doco pretty eye opening, and as a collector and coral farmer I can tell you the great barrier reef is B.A.Dly damaged....

[alton]

The biggest problem I see is when money is donated for research, the research is used to help the person with there argument. Plus the global warming side needs to find better spokes people than Al Gore and others like this guy
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/bus...eyebrow-artist
And if you do the research although the northern hemisphere is getting warmer, Antarctica has been getting colder until the large iceberg broke off and then global warming was the cause? It would be nice if someone would create a news channel and or paper that was accurate instead of putting there own spin and favoring there own beliefs in creating the news versus just reporting it.

[d0ughb0y]

I was there at Great Barrier reef last April, and can confirm the corals are dead as far as the eye can see from where I was (1 hour trip off of Cairns).

The story the local guide gives is, this year is the second year in a row when avg water temp did not fall below 30C. He said the corals grow fast and will recover IF temp comes down next year. If not, then damage can get worse.

[ThRoewer]

While some articles may exaggerate the current state of the reefs, the existence of the problem can't be denied.
Same goes for the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere. And there is really no denying where that is coming from. There is quite solid evidence that ocean acidification is a man made problem. The coral may be able to handle heat or handle a more acidic ocean, but they can't handle both together.

The issue is really not if you "believe" in climate change or not - but rather if you want to take a gamble with the living quality of future generations if not life itself.
I'd rather be on the side of caution because if you are wrong the potential damage can be fixed (if there is any).
But if climate change tuns out to be real it will be next to impossible to to fix the problem once the evidence is absolutely undeniable.



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[hanas]

+1.

My thoughts (concerns) exactly.

[ca1ore]

I have long thought that by the time climate change becomes 'blindingly obvious' to even the most obtuse, it will be too late. Fully agree that even if the chance for catastrophe is small (though it probably isn't small) we would be collectively stupid to do essentially nothing. Unfortunately humans ARE collectively stupid

[Spslvr]

big tobacco managed to convince the sheeple for 4 decades that cigarettes DO NOT cause cancer.

[ThRoewer]

Originally Posted by ca1ore

I have long thought that by the time climate change becomes 'blindingly obvious' to even the most obtuse, it will be too late. Fully agree that even if the chance for catastrophe is small (though it probably isn't small) we would be collectively stupid to do essentially nothing. Unfortunately humans ARE collectively stupid

The problem is that people don't want to change their ways, especially not if it may require some sacrifices. So they rather escape into delusional fantasies. This is particularly easy if the fallout for inaction strikes far away and somewhere in the future.

The saddest thing is that most of the big oil companies are by now acknowledging the causes and have already started divesting into renewable energy and solar.
But by now climate change has become an ideological divider and especially the denial side has made their stance a believe system that is above questioning and argument.

I just wonder if this kind of denial would be the same if a couple of doctor tell them that according to their findings they have cancer and need immediate treatment. I mean, after all that's just the prevailing medical option and medicine has been wrong before. The proof would only be delivered at the funeral.

But I bet you that most would rather err on the side of caution and believe the majority of doctors instead of the one that things will be fine if you just do nothing...

But just to be clear here the fault is equally with those that acknowledge man made climate change and then hop into their new two ton Tesla instead of taking the bicycle or walk... or turn on the AC when it's getting hot...

Basically everyone is responsible for his/her own actions. If all those people who actually believe in climate change would actually act the​ part, the relativ minority of climate change sceptics or deniers wouldn't really matter much...

So the delusion and stupidity is equally rampant on both sides of the issue.

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[Punchanello]

I don't think there's anything sensationalist about sounding the alarm on the top 3rd of the GBR being totally bleached. The reef is MASSIVE. In geographical terms it's like destroying almost all the flora and fauna life in a medium sized US state.

At this point, denying the threat that climate change poses is at best wilful ignorance and at worst callous vandalism. We had members of parliament here fondling lumps of coal a few weeks back and having a laugh at what they perceive as hysteria over climate change. History will judge them poorly, it's just a shame that they'll be dead before the worst impacts hit and they can be held to account.

[ThRoewer]

Anyone ever seen "Nightbreaker"

You don't have to go all the way to the Central or West Pacific to find above ground nuclear test sites. There is the Nevada Test Site, just 65 mi north of Las Vegas where the US Department of Energy performed 100 atmospheric tests in the 1950s, quite a few of those with US soldiers as unknowing guinea pigs - not to study nuclear effects on the human body (those were quite known even before Hiroshima and Nagasaki) but rather to study and evaluate psychological responses. Those test caused those US soldiers all kinds of health problems and then the government tried denying the cause of those ailments was the radiation and fallout...

[ThRoewer]

And this is where the fallout of the NTS above ground tests went:


Seems parts of Iowa and Montana should be glowing at night...

and of course Utah:
"St. George, Utah received the brunt of the fallout of above-ground nuclear testing in the Yucca Flats/Nevada Test Site. Winds routinely carried the fallout of these tests directly through St. George and southern Utah. Marked increases in cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma, thyroid cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, bone cancer, brain tumors, and gastrointestinal tract cancers were reported from the mid-1950s through 1980." (Wikipedia)

[sde1500]

Interesting about the nuclear tests. Funny because as I was reading through this, I went to get an article I read recently about some of our nuclear tests, really US did test quite a few...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-nuclear-tests

Obviously the damage is worrisome. But it isn't all doom and gloom. If this reef can come back after we nuke it 23 times, there is certainly hope.

[Punchanello]

Originally Posted by sde1500

Interesting about the nuclear tests. Funny because as I was reading through this, I went to get an article I read recently about some of our nuclear tests, really US did test quite a few...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-nuclear-tests

Obviously the damage is worrisome. But it isn't all doom and gloom. If this reef can come back after we nuke it 23 times, there is certainly hope.

I hope you are right. Unfortunately recovery after these tests represent recovery of reefs in a limited area under relatively healthy ocean conditions. Current acidification and warming is widespread and is likely to get worse before it gets better. I hate to be a pessimist but I fear that the political inertia and baseless anti-science is more powerful than the momentum of enlightened change.

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[ThRoewer]

Warming and acidification are only 2 of the issues.
The oceans are also still used as garbage dumps.

When it comes to the northern sections of the Great Barrier Reef heavy metals and especially copper have to be considered as a contributing factor as well. The sludge runoff from the Bougainville Copper mines on the south side of Papua New Guinea was massive and hit the GBR straight on. The mines are closed for a good while now, but the pollution is still there.

When it comes to global effects you may get a more conclusive picture when looking at the line islands: http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-news/expedition-line-islands

As for the Bikini Atoll - the nuclear fallout didn't harm the surrounding ocean much because it was washed away rather quickly and diluted in the vast volume of the Pacific and by now all other oceans as well.

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[Tripod1404]

Originally Posted by alton

The biggest problem I see is when money is donated for research, the research is used to help the person with there argument. Plus the global warming side needs to find better spokes people than Al Gore and others like this guy
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/bus...eyebrow-artist
And if you do the research although the northern hemisphere is getting warmer, Antarctica has been getting colder until the large iceberg broke off and then global warming was the cause? It would be nice if someone would create a news channel and or paper that was accurate instead of putting there own spin and favoring there own beliefs in creating the news versus just reporting it.

This is a big urban legend. Very little money is donated to academic researchers from private sector. Any company rich enough to have money for science will either have its own R&D department or it is some type off a "Technology" company that makes money out of research (like many pharma and biotech companies).

Most of research money for academic institutions comes from government grants. I am a professional scientist and it is quite funny that people think we swim in money. You need to work on proposals for years to get even the smallest amounts of grant money. And no, we dont personally get any part of the grant money. Our salaries are set by the academic institution. Even if you get a $50 million dollar grant, your salary will not change. I am saying this because I have met with people claiming scientist say there is global warming to get grants, so that they can get rich.

Of course companies like Exon do "pseudoscience" under their so called R&D departments, but can we honestly trust a oil company to make unbiased research on climate change? When you look at scientific data on climate change, look at the number of articles that comes from academic sources. How many academic sources claim climate change is not real?

And what I dont understand is why do we need a spokesman. Science is based on facts, not beliefs. Would anyone disagree with gravity if there is a great spokesman against gravity and would that make gravity unreal. Like Neil deGrasse Tyson said “The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.”

Btw, southern hemisphere and Antarctica are also getting warmer. If you average out whole southern hemisphere, it is clearly getting warmer. Southern hemisphere is much more ocean and much less land, so climate there is less prone to extremes. This makes the climate there to appear more stable. Coastal Antarctica is getting warmer, it is not having the same amount of sea-ice around the continent in Antarctic winter. It is true that the interior Antarctica is getting colder but that is mainly because of the shifts in ocean currents and dominant winds due to ocean heating.

[ThRoewer]

Originally Posted by Tripod1404

... Science is based on facts, not beliefs. Would anyone disagree with gravity if there is a great spokesman against gravity and would that make gravity unreal. ...

Sure, if someone with a cult following makes it a politically divisive issue and tell his his fanatical followers that it's a made-up scheme by their opponents or people they deem inferior...

One actual example of exactly that would be the "Arian Physics" (or "Deutsche Physik") of the Nazis that called among other things Einstein's general relativity a "Jewish hoax" despite the fact that it had already been proven that gravity is acceleration and that a strong enough gravity well can bend light.

And with the right assembly of blind followers you can repeat equally or even more ridiculous things any day of the week...

Just take carbon dating of fossils - you will easily find plenty of people who are dead certain that that is a hoax...

If it fits their world view people are willing to believe everything and wilfully ignore the facts - until they finally hit them in the face.

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[alton]

I guess I should of stipulated my tax money going into research? You can watch the thermometer and see the temps going up. The question is what is everyone doing about it? And that answer is nothing! Have you ever wondered how much energy Face Book uses in a day? How much fuel we burn out on the lake or in a bay on a weekend with jet ski's, bass/bay/ski boats. I know some that go out and use 100 gallons of gas a weekend to fish. And please do not bring up controlling our population, I have received negative post about controlling growth. One last thing I grew up in a family of nine in a 2,000 sqft. home, today most homes are 3,000 SQFT + for a family of four?

[Tripod1404]

Originally Posted by alton

I guess I should of stipulated my tax money going into research? You can watch the thermometer and see the temps going up.

Wow, we have nothing to argue here after this much of anti-intellectualism. If someone didn't sit and watched how mold was growing, people would still be dying from bacterial infections.