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Great Barrier Reef Has Worst Coral Die-Off Ever, Report Finds (usatoday.com)
Australia's Great Barrier Reef has suffered from its worst coral die-off ever recorded, according to a new study from the Australian Research Council Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies based at James Cook University. "Stress from the unusually warm ocean water heated by man-made climate change and the natural El Nino climate pattern caused the die-off," reports USA Today. At more than 1,400 miles long, Australia's Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef and the planet's biggest structure made by living organisms. In the northernmost section of the reef, which had been considered the most "pristine," some 67% of the coral died. The good news, scientists said, was that central and southern sections of the reef fared far better, with "only" 6% and 1% of the coral dead, respectively. Coral reefs result from the work of little polyps, creatures only a few millimeters long, budded on top of one another. Over centuries, the shells of these creatures combine to form the exotic shapes of coral reefs. Tiny differences in the anatomy of each polyp species affect the shape of their shells and produce the exotic shapes of each reef. The vibrant colors that draw thousands of tourists to the Great Barrier Reef each year come from algae that live in the corals tissue. When water temperatures become too high, coral becomes stressed and expels the algae, which leave the coral a bleached white color. Mass coral bleaching is a new phenomenon and was never observed before the 1980s as global warming ramped up. Besides their beauty, reefs shelter land from storms, and are also a habitat for myriads of species.
Manbearpigs got to it!
The daily climate change propaganda is not appreciated. Let's get back to technology..
USA Today? Really?
Some alternate sources:
Australia: http://www.news.com.au/technol...
BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...
Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
but you know...can't attribute this to humanity because otherwise bitchtits will get their consumption panties in a know.
This is just some of that fake news the Republicans warned us about. Probably from that damned Barney Slanders.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
- Donald Trump
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/265895292191248385
here is the real reason. http://www.aims.gov.au/docs/research/water-quality/runoff/impact-of-runoff.html
Recount!
Table-ized A.I.
While it lasts!
... what does the Trump administration have to say about it?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I feel bad for kids these days. The world is going to be a nastier place to live in than it is today in many ways, environmentally, notwithstanding. Go, Trump!
Art Sisneros' the Texas Elector (for the Electoral College) has withdrawn from the job because he cannot in good conscious vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming Electoral College.
What he should have done is vote against Trump or abstain. You cannot have a President that the people voted AGAINST put in power by the Electoral College while he's in breach of the Constitution Article 1, Section 9. If Trump's claim to power is 'the rules say he wins despite getting far fewer votes', then he has to obey the rules. He has to divest the businesses with foreign income, and put his US income business into blind trusts.
He hasn't met world leaders yet, and he's meeting with his real estate business partners instead.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/us/politics/donald-trump-international-business.html?_r=0
He cannot take office while he's getting streams of income (and yes it includes Russian income, and not just from his crappy little Trump branded vodka), and the Electoral College should head the voters and not elect this man against the wishes of the voters.
GOP, WTF were you thinking? He doesn't keep promises, did you really think he would divest his foreign income? That he would keep that promise? That you, uniquely were the people he wouldn't lie to? He'd sell out his mother for wealth and power, do you think he wouldn't sell out his country?
Just my anecdotal experiences of diving 10 times, reefs were always more grey than historical pictures of the area. I try to consider myself logical, but I've always had an unfulfilled feeling when diving, and then unnerved when I see this kind of evidence of the cause. Diving is like being let in as a guest to a powerfully beautiful host called nature. It feels like my co-partiers are tearing up the place, and it doesn't feel good. I hope that enough people go diving and experience this.
Tourism has to be the worst form of global warming. Flying thousands of miles,dive boat exhaust,bus ride to airlie beach,smoke a bunch of spliffs, for literally no reason except to take a selfie and loose Dutch women.
All these global warming complainers are the same people that insist everyone should "experience other cultures", "be at one with nature" (driving their 22mpg subarus into the mountains every weekend), etc.
If you want to make a real impact, stay home.
not news: people hate and kill caterpillars, yet love butterflies.
if you hate jellyfish and Bobbitworms and ragworms, where will the jellyfish go settledown and make babies when the swimnets around Australia shred them to bits on every swell?
Do you want safe swimming areas, or box jellyfish and worms rebuilding reefs?
Things die, whatever.
diving is a really, really expensive thing to go do. That's sorta the problem. The rust belters in America who just voted for Trump (or who didn't vote Hilary because they couldn't bring themselves to) really don't care about coral reefs. They care about next month's rent. Until you can fix their economy you're not going to get anyone to care. The environment doesn't really matter to somebody taking out their second payday loan...
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How is that "more realistic" than the links quoted above? It's more realistic than the Outdide Magazine orbitiary it debunks, but it agrees with the articles above when it notes that this "is the most severe coral bleaching on record."
The fewer blue ringed octopi and box jellyfish habitats the better.
The current team don't have anyone for environment I think. Nearest swamp thing is probably "Michal Catazaro, energy lobbyist whose clients include American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, Hess, Devon Energy, and Encana Oil and Gas" in charge of "Energy Independence".
On his opinion, the nearest I can find is this:
http://www.nationalcenter.org/Climate-Gate.html
"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
Benefiticial effects????? Really? Well it is making the coral WHITER, and I guess that is what Trump wants.
(List of Trump transition leaders):
Defense & National Security, led by Maj. Gen. Bert Mizusawa.
Immigration Reform & Building The Wall, led by Danielle Cutrona, counsel to Sen. Jeff Sessions.[46]
Energy Independence, led by Michael Catanzaro, an energy lobbyist whose clients include American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, Hess, Devon Energy, and Encana Oil and Gas.[46][47]
Tax Reform, led by Jim Carter, a lobbyist employed by Emerson.[46]
Regulatory Reform, led by Rob Gordon, who serves as staff director/senior policy adviser for the House Natural Resources Committee, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.[46]
Trade Reform, led by Rolf Lundberg, a lobbyist and former employee of the Chamber of Commerce.[46]
Education, led by Gerard Robinson of the American Enterprise Institute.[46]
Transportation & Infrastructure, led by Martin Whitmer, a lobbyist at Whitmer & Worrall whose client include the American Association of Railroads, National Asphalt Pavement Association and the Utilities Technology Council.[46]
Financial Services Reform, led by Brian Johnson, Chief Financial Institutions Counsel for the House Financial Services Committee
Healthcare Reform, led by Paula Stannard, former deputy general counsel and acting general counsel of HHS and currently a lawyer at Alston & Bird.[46]
Veterans Administration Reform, led by Bill Chatfield
Protecting Americans' Constitutional Rights, led by Ken Klukowski, senior counsel and director of strategic affairs for the First Liberty Institute.[46]
In the late 1960s, Jacques Cousteau documented dead coral regions in the Red Sea in his book Life and Death in a Coral Sea. This during a time when people thought we were slipping into another Ice Age.
I'm totally sick of the hyperbolic propaganda. Stop lying.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
"Ice Age Fallacy, is to allege that scientists showed concerns about global cooling which did not materialise, therefore there is no need to heed current scientific concerns about climate change.[58] In a 1998 article promoting the Oregon Petition, Fred Singer argued that expert concerns about global warming should be dismissed on the basis that what he called "the same hysterical fears" had supposedly been expressed earlier about global cooling.[59]"
"Illustrating this argument, for several years an image has been circulated of a Time magazine cover, supposedly dated 1977, showing a penguin above a cover story title "How to Survive the Coming Ice Age". In March 2013, The Mail on Sunday published an article by David Rose, showing this same cover image, to support his claim that there was as much concern in the 1970s about a "looming 'ice age'" as there was now about global warming.[60][61] After researching the authenticity of the magazine cover image, in July 2013, Bryan Walsh, a senior editor at Time, confirmed that the image was a hoax, modified from a 2007 cover story image for "The Global Warming Survival Guide".[58]"
i.e. you've been led to believe there was a scientific consensus on global cooling due to falling temperatures in the 50s,60s and 70s, and you were likely shown fake Time magazine covers to illustrate this, and thus you are supposed to ignore the scientific consensus on global warming.
But the temperatures didn't fall in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, so even a cursive check on the facts shows you how you've been misled.
http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/
Disclaimer: I'm a physicist at James Cook University, where this study was published. My mother used to work at AIMS 20 years ago, my sister works for CSIRO in marine research, and my cousin-in-law is currently the Coral Reef ARC's COO.
These are results published by the Australian Research Council Centre for Coral Reef Studies. Prof. Terry Hughes, who runs this centre at JCU, has basically surrounding himself with like-minded people. The self-citation rate for articles published by the centre is remarkably high, and I quite frankly don't trust Prof. Hughes to do unbiased research, or to critically analyse his own work. There is a pretty strong monoculture of reef research, and I believe it's a pretty serious problem. One of my physics lecturers wrote a rebuttal letter to Prof Hughes that was leaked to the press, and was disciplined for it (one more strike and he's fired). I would really like to see a little more diversity in the people that study this topic.
That said, I have no reason to doubt the truth of this study. The die-off is real, and is unprecedented in modern times, and elementary physics tells us that increased temperatures due to climate change can only make it worse, not better. My mum's old boss from AIMS, Charlie Veron said in a seminar 10 years ago that the reef is probably doomed, and that even if we manage to stop all CO2 today, there's enough inertia that very little of the reef will survive.
Ain't life grand.
Perhaps you or another reader can address this question. It is my understanding that natural cycles cause ocean temperatures to vary by a few degrees from year to year. While I'm not familiar with that region specifically, El Nino / La Nina goes about three degrees above or below the average (a swing of about 6 degrees, roughly).
It's also my understanding that the difference between now and 200 years ago (which could be related to global warming) is less than one degree.
Am I mistaken? If not, it seems to me this article is ignoring the much larger natural variations in order to blame the die off on the much smaller increase which might be global-warming related.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is a perfect example of how fake news gets promoted as reality. I believe Donald Trump will be able to limit how this type of news gets spread, his path has been chosen by GOD and blessed by Jesus Christ!
In an age where a person can't even speak his mind without even the least semblance of privacy what does this matter?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
... this time.
Plus, this is James Cook, they're not known for thinking. They still think the barrier reef is 1/2 the size that it is, and therefore are always alarmed.
So put this where you want to, its just more 'scare them to fund me' self-serving 'science'.
Probably the "best" way to fix it is making the alive corals something profitable, like artificially raising the price of something that lives off it tremendously via marketing, de beers style.
16ms later monsanto would come up with a heat resistant coral and profit off it.
Besides their beauty, reefs shelter land from storms, and are also a habitat for myriads of species.
Coral reefs are not just beautiful, though; they constitute only perhaps a few % of the oceans' environment, but they support something like 25% or more of all life in the sea, so we really do need to protect them.
The Australian Liberal Party says there is not problem with the Great Barrier Reef. Therefor there isn't.
Carry on.
So, since it's ruined anyway. Better to leave the bight alone and let them drill in the gbr instead.
How ridiculous. More 'climate change' nonsense from 'Climatedot'...
www.wattsupwiththat.com
www.climatedepot.com
None of which are reliable. Fake news sites all. Any damage to the reef must be due to illegal Chinese trawling.
Coral thrive in warm water. Global warming should be a boon.
Let's see how much career changing bravado you have after taking on a mortgage and a couple of kids.
Getting career advice from a bean-bag sitting, overpriced latte-sipping millennial is like getting sex advice from the Vatican.
Asia's enormous and growing carbon footprint has nothing at all to do with it:
https://www.theguardian.com/en...
When your electricity rate goes from 0.07 to 0.18kWh in less then 10 years, and people have problems keeping the lights on? \
The cost of energy in constant dollars has been going down, not up.
Here's a graph of energy costs. Electrical costs have dropped from about $0.026/kWh (equal to $0.21/kWh in today's dollars) in 1960 to $12.67/kWh today.
http://www.eia.gov/outlooks/st...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Trump Admits 'Some Connectivity' Between Climate Change and Human Activity
Now let's subtract 30% of that due to the dollar being depressed against every other western country.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. The dollar was 1 Euro in 2000; it's 0.94 Euro today. https://www.google.com/finance... The dollar was106 Japanese yen in 2000; it's 113 yen today. https://www.google.com/finance... And the dollar has actually risen against the pound: https://www.google.com/finance...
I don't see how that can be described as as being "depressed".
...You apparently have no idea how small houses are here.
Since in an earlier post you said "Good thing I'm not American", I have no idea where "here" is.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
That's like a Bantu-babe ghetto babymoma reporting on birth-control methods. "How much is the next one worth ...?"
20 years ago, when I first started reading /., the discussions following a post were relevant and literate, and free, for the most part, of politics.
This discussion is typical of how much /. has deteriorated: the vast majority of the initial posts have nothing to do with the original post but instead consist of snarky political comments on Trump.
Come on, mods, do your job and remove the incessant whining by those whose candidate did not win the last election, and keep the postings on topic!
Otherwise, what was once a great place to come for intellectual discussion will be utterly irrelevant and a complete waste of time as a source of any useful information.
The planet is not coming back to old normal and we got to do what we have to do to mitigate the effects right?
Where does Fukashima fit into all of this? Is it nearby? Are there currents delivering radiation to the reef?
Actually, it does. This is something non-scientists really really don't understand, because they're all familiar with all the hero scientist stories and not so much with the actual process of science. I love the hero scientist stories, too, but the final, and the most important part of science is that you have to explain your results to other scientists, and get them to understand it and understand and credit the evidence.
Wrong.
The only thing that matters is being able to reproduce the proof independently. If the results proving a theory are unable to be duplicated independently it's nothing more than an unproven hypothesis.
Exactly. That is how you get scientific consensus, when other scientists can duplicate your reasoning and follow your results, and compare your results to results from others (often, from others in different fields).
This is what we call scientific consensus.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Corals can relate to DC Democrats.
Table-ized A.I.
The "bleaching" phenomena was first identified in the 1970's, well before 1980. The major causes of coral death in the area are: chemical runoff from pesticides, muddy water from boat traffic and other runoff, coal mining in the area, and storms. All of those things contribute to increase in temperatures and are not specifically "global warming". Here's an article from a few years ago with more information: https://www.theguardian.com/en...
I am no expert on this but I wonder what impact the Fukushima disaster had on the reef? Could any of this acceleration be due to the radioactivity in the water and subsequently in food sources in the ocean?
Those weak little polyps that can't survive just need to die off. Only the ones who can take more extreme temperatures deserve to survive.
Stop cuddling the little polyps.
So, to believe the post, if the coral is dying off because the water is getting too warm, it stands
to reason that coral will start flourishing in areas that formerly had cold waters, but now the
water is warming up enough to support coral growth.
Is to do something (pull yourself up by your bootstraps) that is literally impossible.
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I'm not sure what you're talking about.
Apparently you don't. Because in Canada, 1CAD=0.72USD, and 1CAD=0.69EUR, 1CAD=0.59GBP You figure out that 30% depression works in yet?
Up and down. The Canadian dollar was $(US) 0.69 in 2000, it's $(US) 0.744 now-- no long term difference.
30% down if you pick the right points.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Thanks for the info.
Good, that answers my question.
I wrote:
I don't know where you're getting your lack of information from, but it's certainly not from real science sources.
and the answer is, you get your information about science from youtube videos.
OK, got it.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com