7 ms·

Obituary: Great Barrier Reef

aplomb 10y ago
All living things have a beginning and end. If humans are around in 25mm years, there will no doubt be other forms of life to celebrate and enjoy.
- XJOKOLAT 10y ago
  I admire your optimism.
- kyriakos 10y ago
  The issue is that we caused the death, it didn't come naturally.
  - rvense 10y ago
    Yes... but for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.
  - functoriality 10y ago
    What is the difference?
    - throwaway-hn123 10y ago
      So you're ok with the thought of someone shooting and killing you tomorrow? You're going to die anyway, what's the difference?
- Angostura 10y ago
  We sit here causing mass extinctions, destroying beautiful complex ecosystems comprising interconnected relationships that that have taken billions of years to evolve and the the response is 'something will possibly crop up in a few more billion years?'
infradig 10y ago
The Reef is doing just fine, folks.
- raytracer 10y ago
  Did you forget `/s`?
triplesec 10y ago
This article commits a grave rhetorical error. The reef is not all dead (about 25% irreversibly I believe) but will be soon unless we stop most emissions. They don't make this clear at all. This leads readers to ignore and shy away from the issue further because we think it's too late. Humans like to pretend bad news isn't there and will jump on any excuse for cognitive avoidance.
- ohthehugemanate 10y ago
  it's because it is actually too late to do anything. If all human carbon emissions stopped tomorrow, the reef would still die. It would take 20 years or more for the environment to be able to support reef life again. At that point it might be a wonderful ground for a new reef, but there's no way the old one can survive that long. Anyway, that will only happen if carbon emissions hit zero tomorrow, which is obviously ludicrously implausible.
- sirtaj 10y ago
  The ocean reacts to temperature changes in the order of decades. The effect of things we do today will only really be apparent in approx. 20 years. Even if by some stroke of universal good sense we stop global warming today (this is not going to happen, of course), this only gives us hope for whatever's left unbleached at that time.
  - triplesec 10y ago
    That's a good point, but nonetheless the article doesn't provide any figures or estimates. So other readers can point to the continued life on the reef and say 'lies', and bury their heads in the sand too. Even if it will all be dead in 20 years, or 40. The article talks of 450[units] carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We're at 400 now. No data on when we get there nor graphs or estimates of when the rest dies off.
    - jfoutz 10y ago
      Roughly 50 ppm per 30 years. Early 50s was 300 ppm. That seemed to be the upper limit for a long time. There are a bunch of graphs around. It's seasonal and has a hint of an exponential. 1000 ppm starts affecting performance from co2 poisoning.
theGimp 10y ago
[The Australian Government] shortly after approving the largest coal mine in its history, successfully pressured the United Nations to remove a chapter about the reef from a report on the impact of climate change on World Heritage sites. Australia’s Department of the Environment explained the move by saying, “experience had shown that negative comments about the status of World Heritage-listed properties impacted on tourism.” In other words, if you tell people the reef is dying, they might stop coming. It's the other way around. If you tell people the reef is dying, they go en masse, which contributes to the bleaching greatly.
- niftich 10y ago
  The true answer is likely more complex. Australia is one of the top coal producers in the world, has one of the largest reserves of coal in the world, and coal's share in electricity generation and exports is very high. Ranking high on various quality-of-life indices, Australia's government is wise to protect coal's continued role in the economic system of the country. Sadly, drawing too much attention to the association between climate change, the Great Barrier Reef, and Australia's role in perpetuating climate change in its own (front)yard hurts its economic outlook and energy independence, which are valuable attributes in a world with dwindling resources. It's a shame that this maneuvering has to occur at the expense of the Reef.
kodroid 10y ago
Ignoring the errors in the article, what can we do? Due to the selfishness and shortsightedness of our race, I think the only way we are not totally screwed is if we (quickly) invent some tech that cleans up the atmosphere and oceans - not an easy task!
- lucozade 10y ago
  > if we (quickly) invent some tech that cleans up the atmosphere and oceans Unfortunately this is based on the same logic that says re-writing from scratch is optimal as there's no bugs in code you haven't written yet. As unhelpful as this may be, I would characterise our current state of knowledge as: we know enough about how our planet works to know that our planet's climate is changing largely due to our activity. We don't know enough to know what we can do that won't have (nasty) unintended consequences. It makes me sad that I can conclude this but I don't see any evidence that I can't.
  - adrianN 10y ago
    I think bringing CO2 down to pre-industrial times would be a pretty save bet. If we had a source of massive CO2-free power we could extract CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it back into coal, effectively unburning all the coal and oil that we burned so far. Technology that tries to undo climate change without that is what's risky.
    - pantalaimon 10y ago
      > If we had a source of massive CO2-free power we could extract CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it back into coal, effectively unburning all the coal and oil that we burned so far. aka photosynthesis
    - jsingleton 10y ago
      We already have this technology, burning biomass with CCS [^0] as just one example. Synthesising methane with solar/wind energy, burning it and feeding the exhaust into greenhouses to grow crops as another. It just needs deploying at scale. This is not a technology problem. It is a political/economic problem. And it can be solved given the will. [^0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage
femto 10y ago
Also covered this week on Catalyst, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's weekly science magazine show. Catalyst agrees with this article: the news ain't good. Prof. Terry Hughes, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies seemed especially pessimistic. Catalyst's website has an extended interview with him. http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4553792.htm http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4553792.htm
jsingleton 10y ago
The modern reef is relatively recent (thousands of years) and has been land during human history. There are aboriginal stories that recount when it rapidly flooded at the end of the last ice age, which may be more than just legends. This fate could await many of our coastal cities given the thermal expansion of the oceans (let alone if a large land-based ice sheet melts). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrier_Reef#Geology_and_geography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrier_Reef#Geology_and...
- mathattack 10y ago
  More than just legends. In the last ice age, people could walk much of what it now the Pacific Ocean.
caub 10y ago
Well, in a world where there are probably more pets than wild animals, cigarette smokers, overconsumption, nature can't really survive durably
woodandsteel 10y ago
Over the years I have seen about a thousand comments, blog posts, articles, etc that deny that human activity is causing the climate to get warmer. But I don't think I have ever seen even one from the same crowd that denies that human activity is causing the oceans to become more acidic. I guess they know it's true, but don't want to admit it.

All living things have a beginning and end. If humans are around in 25mm years, there will no doubt be other forms of life to celebrate and enjoy.

XJOKOLAT 10y ago
I admire your optimism.
kyriakos 10y ago
The issue is that we caused the death, it didn't come naturally.
- rvense 10y ago
  Yes... but for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.
- functoriality 10y ago
  What is the difference?
  - throwaway-hn123 10y ago
    So you're ok with the thought of someone shooting and killing you tomorrow? You're going to die anyway, what's the difference?
Angostura 10y ago
We sit here causing mass extinctions, destroying beautiful complex ecosystems comprising interconnected relationships that that have taken billions of years to evolve and the the response is 'something will possibly crop up in a few more billion years?'

infradig 10y ago

The Reef is doing just fine, folks.

raytracer 10y ago
Did you forget `/s`?

triplesec 10y ago

This article commits a grave rhetorical error. The reef is not all dead (about 25% irreversibly I believe) but will be soon unless we stop most emissions. They don't make this clear at all. This leads readers to ignore and shy away from the issue further because we think it's too late. Humans like to pretend bad news isn't there and will jump on any excuse for cognitive avoidance.

ohthehugemanate 10y ago
it's because it is actually too late to do anything. If all human carbon emissions stopped tomorrow, the reef would still die. It would take 20 years or more for the environment to be able to support reef life again. At that point it might be a wonderful ground for a new reef, but there's no way the old one can survive that long. Anyway, that will only happen if carbon emissions hit zero tomorrow, which is obviously ludicrously implausible.
sirtaj 10y ago
The ocean reacts to temperature changes in the order of decades. The effect of things we do today will only really be apparent in approx. 20 years. Even if by some stroke of universal good sense we stop global warming today (this is not going to happen, of course), this only gives us hope for whatever's left unbleached at that time.
- triplesec 10y ago
  That's a good point, but nonetheless the article doesn't provide any figures or estimates. So other readers can point to the continued life on the reef and say 'lies', and bury their heads in the sand too. Even if it will all be dead in 20 years, or 40. The article talks of 450[units] carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We're at 400 now. No data on when we get there nor graphs or estimates of when the rest dies off.
  - jfoutz 10y ago
    Roughly 50 ppm per 30 years. Early 50s was 300 ppm. That seemed to be the upper limit for a long time. There are a bunch of graphs around. It's seasonal and has a hint of an exponential. 1000 ppm starts affecting performance from co2 poisoning.

theGimp 10y ago

[The Australian Government] shortly after approving the largest coal mine in its history, successfully pressured the United Nations to remove a chapter about the reef from a report on the impact of climate change on World Heritage sites. Australia’s Department of the Environment explained the move by saying, “experience had shown that negative comments about the status of World Heritage-listed properties impacted on tourism.” In other words, if you tell people the reef is dying, they might stop coming. It's the other way around. If you tell people the reef is dying, they go en masse, which contributes to the bleaching greatly.

niftich 10y ago
The true answer is likely more complex. Australia is one of the top coal producers in the world, has one of the largest reserves of coal in the world, and coal's share in electricity generation and exports is very high. Ranking high on various quality-of-life indices, Australia's government is wise to protect coal's continued role in the economic system of the country. Sadly, drawing too much attention to the association between climate change, the Great Barrier Reef, and Australia's role in perpetuating climate change in its own (front)yard hurts its economic outlook and energy independence, which are valuable attributes in a world with dwindling resources. It's a shame that this maneuvering has to occur at the expense of the Reef.

kodroid 10y ago

Ignoring the errors in the article, what can we do? Due to the selfishness and shortsightedness of our race, I think the only way we are not totally screwed is if we (quickly) invent some tech that cleans up the atmosphere and oceans - not an easy task!

lucozade 10y ago
> if we (quickly) invent some tech that cleans up the atmosphere and oceans Unfortunately this is based on the same logic that says re-writing from scratch is optimal as there's no bugs in code you haven't written yet. As unhelpful as this may be, I would characterise our current state of knowledge as: we know enough about how our planet works to know that our planet's climate is changing largely due to our activity. We don't know enough to know what we can do that won't have (nasty) unintended consequences. It makes me sad that I can conclude this but I don't see any evidence that I can't.
- adrianN 10y ago
  I think bringing CO2 down to pre-industrial times would be a pretty save bet. If we had a source of massive CO2-free power we could extract CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it back into coal, effectively unburning all the coal and oil that we burned so far. Technology that tries to undo climate change without that is what's risky.
  - pantalaimon 10y ago
    > If we had a source of massive CO2-free power we could extract CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it back into coal, effectively unburning all the coal and oil that we burned so far. aka photosynthesis
  - jsingleton 10y ago
    We already have this technology, burning biomass with CCS [^0] as just one example. Synthesising methane with solar/wind energy, burning it and feeding the exhaust into greenhouses to grow crops as another. It just needs deploying at scale. This is not a technology problem. It is a political/economic problem. And it can be solved given the will. [^0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage

femto 10y ago

Also covered this week on Catalyst, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's weekly science magazine show. Catalyst agrees with this article: the news ain't good. Prof. Terry Hughes, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies seemed especially pessimistic. Catalyst's website has an extended interview with him. http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4553792.htm http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4553792.htm

jsingleton 10y ago

The modern reef is relatively recent (thousands of years) and has been land during human history. There are aboriginal stories that recount when it rapidly flooded at the end of the last ice age, which may be more than just legends. This fate could await many of our coastal cities given the thermal expansion of the oceans (let alone if a large land-based ice sheet melts). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrier_Reef#Geology_and_geography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrier_Reef#Geology_and...

mathattack 10y ago
More than just legends. In the last ice age, people could walk much of what it now the Pacific Ocean.

caub 10y ago

Well, in a world where there are probably more pets than wild animals, cigarette smokers, overconsumption, nature can't really survive durably

woodandsteel 10y ago

Over the years I have seen about a thousand comments, blog posts, articles, etc that deny that human activity is causing the climate to get warmer. But I don't think I have ever seen even one from the same crowd that denies that human activity is causing the oceans to become more acidic. I guess they know it's true, but don't want to admit it.