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I volunteer in coral restoration efforts, the article is complete junk science and is just another environmental disaster that the climate change gang is trying

by kls 7y ago

I volunteer in coral restoration efforts, the article is complete junk science and is just another environmental disaster that the climate change gang is trying to latch onto. If they succeed they will have successfully divert money away from critical research and restoration efforts to chase a fix that will certainly see our reefs die, while the true killer is ignored. There is very clear science on what is killing the coral reefs and it is not ocean warming: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190715164652.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190715164652.h... https://www.npr.org/2019/07/16/742050975/floridas-corals-are-dying-off-but-it-s-not-all-due-to-climate-change-study-says https://www.npr.org/2019/07/16/742050975/floridas-corals-are... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877343513001917 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187734351...

nemo 7y ago
Strangely, your articles largely agree with the summary of the article you're criticizing and don't really contradict it at all. "About 70-90% of all existing coral reefs are expected to disappear in the next 20 years due to warming oceans, acidic water and pollution"
the8472 7y ago
The articles you link say that it's not exclusively due to climate change (which is a superset of ocean warming), that doesn't mean climate change is a negligible contributor to the problem. And as the temperatures rise its contribution may rise. In fact the second article itself says that climate change directly causes some of that N:P imbalance.
javajosh 7y ago
Thanks for posting, because the other causes need talking about too. Sadly, nitrogen run-off isn't as easy to fix as people think, either. Farmers need an alternative.
- tracker1 7y ago
  Like crop rotation, nitrogen cycling, animal based fertilizers and quality testing? Animal fertilizers still contain nitrogen and require microbes that make it available for plant use... this is how nature evolved to work. Not flooding used up soil with lab grade chemical soup.
allovernow 7y ago
Climate change has really become a catch all for any negative environmental trends at this point.
jbattle 7y ago
I know it'd be better to attack root causes - but is it possible to 'fertilize' the reefs with phosphorous? I don't honestly have a great sense for the scale of reefs, maybe they are impractically large
CarelessExpert 7y ago
From your first link: > collaborators have discovered that the problem of coral bleaching is not just due to a warming planet, but also a planet that is simultaneously being enriched with reactive nitrogen from multiple sources. > Improperly treated sewage, fertilizers and top soil are elevating nitrogen levels, which are causing phosphorus starvation in the corals, reducing their temperature threshold for "bleaching." From your second link: > "What our study shows is that water quality and not just water temperature are important for coral survival," Meanwhile, the posted article says in its second paragraph: > About 70-90% of all existing coral reefs are expected to disappear in the next 20 years due to warming oceans, acidic water and pollution Seems to me like all of these sources agree: Climate change and pollution combine as culprits in coral reef die-offs, with in fact the latter exacerbating the effects of the former. It does appear that the scientists disagree on the relative importance of these two issues: > "Trying to clean up the beaches is great and trying to combat pollution is fantastic. We need to continue those efforts," Setter said in the release. "But at the end of the day, fighting climate change is really what we need to be advocating for in order to protect corals and avoid compounded stressors." Does that mean this article is "junk science"? Personally, I don't think so...
- kls 7y ago
  In the presence of warmer water the reef will not die, in the presence of the chemicals the reef will die. Ocean warming does allow the chemicals to mix more freely but is not the cause, nor will fixing it stop the process of reef bleaching. The Bikini Atoll reefs where nuked and they are now doing fine even in the warmer temperatures, what the Atolls lack is industrial level farming. Further Cuba, which is in the same thermocline as the Keys has seen no where near the die off as Florida has. This is due to less industrialized farming. If the chemicals are removed the reefs don't die.
  - CarelessExpert 7y ago
    > In the presence of warmer water the reef will not die, So, I scanned through all three of your articles, and none of them make the claim that coral reefs do not bleach when only exposed to temperature stress. They only state that pollution is an additional stressor that increases temperature sensitivity. That coral reefs "will not die" due purely to temperature stressors is a pretty huge claim. Do you have any citations that support this claim?
throwaway5752 7y ago
I am stunned if you are sincere: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)30804-8 https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)... This article got a lot of coverage last year. Even though it's not the full text, you might be able to find the full text of it or find ample coverage on science news sites. That is just cherry picking a recent, prominent result in a vast body of research into bleaching and marine heat waves. You are incorrect. Your links don't even support your statement. Pollution also contributes and is a problem, and if anything is positively correlated because of growing season changes. Acidification is CO2 dissolving in seawater and forming carbonic acid, it is precisely the same problem as global warming (CO2 pollution from human activity).
- kls 7y ago
  Then we should see bleaching and die-offs is most of the reefs around the world. There should not be a pattern of reefs dying off near industrial farming and reefs thriving in remote locations. Which is exactly the pattern that we are seeing. The Bikini Atolls are thriving, Cuba is thriving, Wakatobi Islands, Belize Barrier Reef are all thriving. The US (Florida and Hawaii), Australian, New Zealand are all dying. There is a pattern in the distribution of the die-offs.
jb775 7y ago
What do you physically do in regards to restoration efforts? I'm curious how that works, I've been scuba diving for years and it's crazy to see the coral slowly turning less and less colorful each year.
- kls 7y ago
  Mote marine and several other orgs have dives where they do reforestation. Many of them call on volunteer divers to plant the coral. My daughter is also studying to be a marine biologist with specialization in reef research.
Ambele 7y ago
It sounds like if someone invents or mass-deploys a controlled denitrification machine that turns nitrogen in the water into nitrogen gas, he could be made rich through government and state grants. The grants could be fully or partially funded through a fertilizer tax, sewage leak fines, and/or taken from current farming subsidies.

by kls 7y ago

nemo 7y ago

Strangely, your articles largely agree with the summary of the article you're criticizing and don't really contradict it at all. "About 70-90% of all existing coral reefs are expected to disappear in the next 20 years due to warming oceans, acidic water and pollution"

the8472 7y ago

The articles you link say that it's not exclusively due to climate change (which is a superset of ocean warming), that doesn't mean climate change is a negligible contributor to the problem. And as the temperatures rise its contribution may rise. In fact the second article itself says that climate change directly causes some of that N:P imbalance.

javajosh 7y ago

Thanks for posting, because the other causes need talking about too. Sadly, nitrogen run-off isn't as easy to fix as people think, either. Farmers need an alternative.

tracker1 7y ago
Like crop rotation, nitrogen cycling, animal based fertilizers and quality testing? Animal fertilizers still contain nitrogen and require microbes that make it available for plant use... this is how nature evolved to work. Not flooding used up soil with lab grade chemical soup.

allovernow 7y ago

Climate change has really become a catch all for any negative environmental trends at this point.

jbattle 7y ago

I know it'd be better to attack root causes - but is it possible to 'fertilize' the reefs with phosphorous? I don't honestly have a great sense for the scale of reefs, maybe they are impractically large

CarelessExpert 7y ago

From your first link: > collaborators have discovered that the problem of coral bleaching is not just due to a warming planet, but also a planet that is simultaneously being enriched with reactive nitrogen from multiple sources. > Improperly treated sewage, fertilizers and top soil are elevating nitrogen levels, which are causing phosphorus starvation in the corals, reducing their temperature threshold for "bleaching." From your second link: > "What our study shows is that water quality and not just water temperature are important for coral survival," Meanwhile, the posted article says in its second paragraph: > About 70-90% of all existing coral reefs are expected to disappear in the next 20 years due to warming oceans, acidic water and pollution Seems to me like all of these sources agree: Climate change and pollution combine as culprits in coral reef die-offs, with in fact the latter exacerbating the effects of the former. It does appear that the scientists disagree on the relative importance of these two issues: > "Trying to clean up the beaches is great and trying to combat pollution is fantastic. We need to continue those efforts," Setter said in the release. "But at the end of the day, fighting climate change is really what we need to be advocating for in order to protect corals and avoid compounded stressors." Does that mean this article is "junk science"? Personally, I don't think so...

kls 7y ago
In the presence of warmer water the reef will not die, in the presence of the chemicals the reef will die. Ocean warming does allow the chemicals to mix more freely but is not the cause, nor will fixing it stop the process of reef bleaching. The Bikini Atoll reefs where nuked and they are now doing fine even in the warmer temperatures, what the Atolls lack is industrial level farming. Further Cuba, which is in the same thermocline as the Keys has seen no where near the die off as Florida has. This is due to less industrialized farming. If the chemicals are removed the reefs don't die.
- CarelessExpert 7y ago
  > In the presence of warmer water the reef will not die, So, I scanned through all three of your articles, and none of them make the claim that coral reefs do not bleach when only exposed to temperature stress. They only state that pollution is an additional stressor that increases temperature sensitivity. That coral reefs "will not die" due purely to temperature stressors is a pretty huge claim. Do you have any citations that support this claim?

throwaway5752 7y ago

I am stunned if you are sincere: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)30804-8 https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)... This article got a lot of coverage last year. Even though it's not the full text, you might be able to find the full text of it or find ample coverage on science news sites. That is just cherry picking a recent, prominent result in a vast body of research into bleaching and marine heat waves. You are incorrect. Your links don't even support your statement. Pollution also contributes and is a problem, and if anything is positively correlated because of growing season changes. Acidification is CO2 dissolving in seawater and forming carbonic acid, it is precisely the same problem as global warming (CO2 pollution from human activity).

kls 7y ago
Then we should see bleaching and die-offs is most of the reefs around the world. There should not be a pattern of reefs dying off near industrial farming and reefs thriving in remote locations. Which is exactly the pattern that we are seeing. The Bikini Atolls are thriving, Cuba is thriving, Wakatobi Islands, Belize Barrier Reef are all thriving. The US (Florida and Hawaii), Australian, New Zealand are all dying. There is a pattern in the distribution of the die-offs.

jb775 7y ago

What do you physically do in regards to restoration efforts? I'm curious how that works, I've been scuba diving for years and it's crazy to see the coral slowly turning less and less colorful each year.

kls 7y ago
Mote marine and several other orgs have dives where they do reforestation. Many of them call on volunteer divers to plant the coral. My daughter is also studying to be a marine biologist with specialization in reef research.

Ambele 7y ago

It sounds like if someone invents or mass-deploys a controlled denitrification machine that turns nitrogen in the water into nitrogen gas, he could be made rich through government and state grants. The grants could be fully or partially funded through a fertilizer tax, sewage leak fines, and/or taken from current farming subsidies.