IMAX Coral Reef Adventure...

[RonFrank]

I just saw the IMAX Coral Reef Adventure. Wow, great photography. ALL divers would appreciate this film.

I'd highly suggest it unless you are fortunately enough to live near such lush reef environments, and even then, IMO it's a very worthwhile flick.

Ron

 

[StSomewhere]

Howard Hall is friggin genius at making underwater films. Especially considering that the IMAX format allows only 3 minutes of unedited footage to be shot before the camera needs to be reloaded at the surface. Also "Island of the Sharks" is another good HH IMAX film, though it should have been called "Cocos Island and the Effects of El Nino". I wish the nearby IMAX would show either one of these on the giant screen, but we are far from deep water so its unlikely, though the DVDs are well worth the money, IMO.

One critisism you'll hear about "Coral Reef Adventure" is their comment that the reefs as we know them could be gone in 30 years given the current pace of global warming. As you may know, its suddenly very in vogue to pretend ocean and global warming is a vast left-wing conspiracy.

Interestingly, on December 7th Michael Crichton released a pseudo-fiction book in which global warming allegedly turns out to be a complete invention of ecoterrorists, who somehow have the ability to generate huge tsunamis to convince people that global warming is real. The real Asian tsunami happened 19 days after Crichton's book was released. (Feel free to insert your own conspiracy theory here.)

 

[Cabo31]

Just had to jump in.

There is absolutely NO EVIDENCE that the earth is getting warmer due to the "theory" of global warming. Just do a google search of global tempatures from say 1300 AD to now and you will read that the earth was warmer then than it is now!!!!! How do the environmentals explain that???? The average earth tempature rises and falls over many thousands of years, it is absurd to look at a miniscule period of time, say the last 100 years and conclude that the earth is getting warmer, when in fact it may or may not be, and that only over a period of say 1,000 or 10,000 years can you determine what it is actually doing. Since this is a board about Scuba, no one even considers the oceans, and what their ability is to effect global tempature change. That is the one big unkown, can they absord large quantities of heat, or not. I would think they can, stand in a cold shower with a heater blowing hot air on you, does it affect the tempature of the water in the shower....... or a bath tub full of cold water for that matter. How long would it take to heat a tub of cold water with a space heater on in the bathroom. Answer: A VERY LONG TIME!!!!! The environment is the same way. Some scientists claim we are coming out of a "mini" ice age, are they wrong and those that believe the theory of "global warming" are right????? Maybe, maybe not, one thing is for certain, what is a bigger headline in the news media. "Earth warming, oceans to rise 3 -8 feet, Millions of people to be forced out of their homes by rising ocean levels, Billions of $$$$ to be lost!!!!" OR "Earth tempature to remain about the same for the next 250 years or so, everyone go back to their normal everyday lives, life to remain about the same" I would think the first one would grab the most attention!!!!!

I'm not saying we should be careless, and we should conserve our natural resources to a certain extent, is the tempature of the earth going to get warmer..... YES. Is it going to get colder..... YES. Nothing you or I do is going to effect it much. When dinasours roamed the earth, was the tempature warmer than it is now???? You bet it was.

 

[derwoodwithasherwood]

Last I heard, current thinking is that melting all the available ice would raise ocean levels between 4 and 30 inches, not 8 feet. The 8' figure ignores the fact that ice expands as it freezes and most ice in the polar ice caps is located below sea level to begin with, not floating on top. Anyone who bought a plot on a mountain in the expectation of future beachfront property is bound for disappointment.

I've never heard any serious suggestion that global warming will affect plate tectonics and cause tsunamis but I have read many reasoned scenarios that global warming will affect climatic patterns like hurricanes and droughts. Some places may actually get colder as weather patterns change. Others may get much hotter than the average. Will climatic change affect us? Probably -- it wiped out the dinosaurs.

Does mankind's production of greenhouse gasses significantly impact the rate of global warming? Now that one is open for debate. Heck, there's still people who believe the earth is flat so I suppose anything is open for debate. But there is a lot of both scientific theory and measured empirical evidence that it contributes to the problem. Some of that empirical evidence may be coincidental but no one knows for sure.

It's kind of like deco theory -- no one can predict accurately exactly the limits for any individual, but there's lots of reasons to believe that there *are* limits and that there are reasonable steps that can be taken to avoid crossing the limits. Unlike decompression sickness however, there is no chamber available if we cross the line on global warming. We can't just hop on over to the moon and wait a few thousand years for the earth to sort itself out -- we (and our children) will have to live (or not) with the results.

Isn't that a pretty good argument for treading cautiously until we are more certain of the answers?

 

[Boogie711]

As one of the resident "Junk Science Debunking Experts," St. Somewhere, I can assure you that it's not just vogue today to discredit the crap that is the Kyoto protocol and claims of global warming - I've been doing it for years.

I assume you're familiar with the work of Ross McKitrick, which proves that the mathematics surrounding Michael Mann's "Hockey Stick Theory" are completely erroneous?

In any event, my big problem with the Coral Reef movie is the footage where they're grabbing the coral reefs. Rather hypocritical, in my mind.

 

[Rick Inman]

..ah, yeah...well, anyway, back to the movie...

I enjoyed "The Making Of" on the DVD as much as the movie.

 

[mike_s]

I just saw the IMAX Coral Reef Adventure. Wow, great photography. ALL divers would appreciate this film.

I'd highly suggest it unless you are fortunately enough to live near such lush reef environments, and even then, IMO it's a very worthwhile flick.

Ron

Is this the IMAX where the turtle is the "tour guide" and takes you through the reef??

 

[saying]

Hate to get involved with political discussions, but I can't help it.

Global warming or not, many of the people on this board have been diving for years. Decades even.

Are reefs less or more healthy now than they were 10 years ago?

 

[RonFrank]

Kicking up the sand, grabbing the reef, getting one's teeth cleaned by critters! But hey, I'm sure they try and be good. They are very GREEN, yes?

One of the things that I felt was a bit foolish was the dive to 300' to *inspect* the reefs. From a mass consumer appeal standpoint, the footage was rather lackluster compared to the shallow reef stuff. They did not even bother to discuss the difference between the shallow reef, and deep reefs, and my non-diving wife and kid were unimpressed with the footage.

As a diver it was somewhat interesting, but hey, the guy had already got bent once... not sure what earth shattering discoveries that 300' dive resulted in. IMO those types of explorations are better done in a submersible where it is safer, one can stay down MUCH MUCH longer, and go much deeper as well.

The other thing that did bother me was the *assumptions* on why the Reef was damaged, with the assertion that overfishing, and global warmer was a big factor, and then the discussion of the silt dumping into the ocean from the river, which IMO was MUCH more likely to be the real cause. The fact that other nearby reefs with similar water conditions and fishing issues were VERY healthy while the one at the mouth of the river was damages tells a LOT. Granted it appeared to be damaged from logging, so maybe the villagers/Government need to worry less about fishing, and more about logging.

Overall I REALLY enjoyed the film.

 

[RonFrank]

Is this the IMAX where the turtle is the "tour guide" and takes you through the reef??

No guide tour turtle...

This is the one where the guy got bent, and the divers blew into the school of sharks!! :11: