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This is so incredibly sad, and I feel so helpless that this is slipping through our fingers. I fear I’ll never get a chance to see a coral reef in real life, an
by bb123 6y ago
This is so incredibly sad, and I feel so helpless that this is slipping through our fingers. I fear I’ll never get a chance to see a coral reef in real life, and it looks almost certain that my children won’t. Is there anything we can do as individuals to help? I tried looking into conservation efforts but it seems like any amount of money we could hope to donate isn’t going to make a drop of difference to sea temperature change. Coral reefs aren’t like tigers or pandas, they’re just too delicate and complex to survive in any human made environment.
- foobiter 6y agotigers and pandas have such small natural habitats now that they’re effectively extinct in the wild; i’m not advocating for it, but it seems like nothing outside of large scale ecoterrorism can do anything fast enough to save our charismatic megafauna for anything other than morbid exhibition
- PurpleFoxy 6y agoLarge scale ecoterroism sounds good. Bomb the houses of those burning the forests. More effective than Facebook posts asking them to stop.
- lenkite 6y agoActually, wild tiger population has doubled (in India) in the last 12 years. https://www.businessinsider.in/science/environment/news/indias-tiger-population-has-nearly-doubled-in-12-years/articleshow/77220681.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/science/environment/news/indi... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-49148174 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-49148174
- foobiter 6y agoit’s easy to double when numbers are under 5,000. Many ecologists are not as rosy as the indian government about this... 95% of their range is gone at this point and there’s not a lot of genetic diversity; a single disease can wipe out of the population. We’d need nearly 100,000 tigers to have the diversity to avoid this, and we’re not on track for that by a long shot. https://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/april/tigers-genetic-diversity-041814.html https://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/april/tigers-genetic-div...
- shrubby 6y agohttps://imgur.com/a/Yy59VjX https://imgur.com/a/Yy59VjX there is no land for wildlife populations to grow as we're using the land for the meat.
- jghn 6y agoThis is one of those areas where percentage and actual count tell different stories. "doubled" vs "increased by about 1000" are very different stories when viewed in the context of "all the individuals of a species across the globe"
- astockwell 6y agoVote.
- minimalist 6y agoThis is a weak, low-effort responce. There is only so much that can be done by governmental mandate. People have become used to unsustainable lifestyles and it takes lifestyle changes at the individual level to shape our broader impact.
- Ancalagon 6y agoUnfortunately this is the correct answer and I’m just now realizing it. Basically this means everyone going mostly or entirely vegetarian, restricting air travel, clean transport and energy and reduction of general production of crap (not only because the crap itself produces warming but also the shipping).
- paulcole 6y agoI get downvoted everytime I say this, but if someone wants to make a difference: 1. Don’t eat meat. 2. Don’t get in airplanes. 3. Don’t drive a car. 4. Live in as small a house/apartment as you can. 5. Don’t have kids. It turns out that when people ask, “But what can I do?” What they really mean is “What can I do that won’t really inconvenience me that much?”
- iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y agoI realize you're trolling, but there is a positive way to approach this, by looking at what we can do to allow us to maintain quality of living in a sustainable way. Cowering in the dark might be one answer, but why would you want to live that way. Let's invest our energy in understanding how we can do the things that make life worth living, while ensuring that future generations can as well.
- paulcole 6y ago
- globular-toast 6y agoYou've already reproduced so you've already struck your blow and it's too late to take it back now.
- Igelau 6y agoIf no one reproduced, there wouldn't be any point to conservation, you dummy.
- hnnameblah365 6y agoThis is an incredibly anthropocentric perspective and possibly not one shared by the person you're replying to, so the name calling is out of line.
- Grimm1 6y agoUntil we find something capable of the level of creation and higher order thought we are, preferably without some of our negatives, then being anthropocentric is the only logical view to have.
- globular-toast 6y agoWhy? Who says creation and higher order thought is a good thing?
- Grimm1 6y agoI do. Moral and ethical relativism does not protect you from having to stake a claim on a set of thoughts and values and standing by them. You're more than welcome to think not of course, however this is definitely a more common thought than not. There's a larger shared set of values that people tend to hold even if it's not objective and I think you'd have to go to great lengths to prove me incorrect regarding those things being good to the majority, and even greater lengths that the opposite thought is good at all.
- 6y ago
- PurpleFoxy 6y agoIt’s too late to save the reefs. It isn’t too late the rest of the environment. Maybe the reef dying will be a wake up call for the world. But probably not.
- refurb 6y agoEverything I read tells me that it’s too late. Even if we stop all CO2 production tomorrow there will be severe climate change due to the CO2 already released. Seems like the best idea is to just enjoy the time we have left.
- porb121 6y agoThat's quite simply not true. If we stopped all CO2 production tomorrow, we'd by well under 1.5 degrees of warming by 2100.
- refurb 6y agoNot what I’ve read. It will slow things down and yes, would be under 1.5 degrees, but there will still be massive upheaval.
- SamPatt 6y ago"Enjoy the time we have left" Please. What a joke. Read the IPCC reports. They are projecting massive increases in the wealth and health of the whole world in all future emissions scenarios. Some scenarios are just worse than others, but all are better than today. The world has been improving for centuries. The idea that we need to "enjoy what time we have left" is absolutely insane. It's pseudo-science Yes, human impacts on the environment cause problems. No, they aren't going to cause human extinction. Read "Enlightenment Now" or "The Rational Optimist" for some perspective.
- ghiculescu 6y agoI think your timelines are a bit off, the article claims it’ll be gone in 2100. Your kids will be fine, regardless of your views on if it’s true or not.
- ghiculescu 6y agobtw if you want to see the reef in real life, it’s easy! From any major airport in the world you can probably get to Brisbane for $1000 USD return. Then Brisbane to Cairns is around $100 AUD return. You could win back the cost of your flights at the Cairns Casino, the best (worst) attraction in town! It’s far away from most people and it’s not cheap, but if you want to do it, spend the rest of this year saving up and do it when Australia opens its borders.
- greeneggs 6y agoYou just have to be able to live with yourself, given that your trip (and presumably your lifestyle more generally) is destroying the very thing that you are visiting to admire. That's beyond me.
- ghiculescu 6y agoNo it’s not. Most damage comes from cyclones.
- TheRealSteel 6y agoCivil aviation is 2% of global carbon emissions. It's also one of the hardest things to make clean. Flying is not something people should feel guilty about. We actually can, and probably should, keep civil aviation -- especially seeing as we need to implement carbon capture anyway. Heating your house and eating meat contribute far more to your personal carbon footprint than flying, unless you fly much more than usual.
- adrianN 6y agoAviation makes up a small percentage because globally almost nobody can afford to fly. For me, taking a flight to Australia and back is a good way to double my carbon emissions for the year.
- xwdv 6y agoWe could perhaps make 3D scans of the reefs and create VR simulations to give people the sense of being there.
- puppable 6y agoIn a certain way, thinking about this solution just makes me feel more ill...
- cocoa19 6y agoI feel we're focusing on the wrong thing here. The primary reason we want healthy ecosystems is so they can sustain human life in the long term. Personally I don't care if I ever see the reef, the Amazon or any other ecosystem. I'm pretty much interested in sustainable ecosystems to ensure human welfare.
- somishere 6y agoWon't directly help, but you can contribute some time to help us better understand the current state of (some key reefs on) the GBR: greatreefcensus.org