Scientists Warn of Coral Bleaching in Caribbean

[mrdawson]

"Financially motivated"--so by this I am going to guess you mean that we should start charging compainies to make gasoline vehicles. Perhaps we could levy more taxes and fines on an area of our economy that is already maxed out (only about .10 of every dollar that you spend on gas goes to the gasoline companies...given their recent media attention about their profits...imagine what the federal and state governments must be making on the taxes?)

You all can throw every advanced degree in ecological studies. But falling just short of actually being G-d or Mother Nature, your authoriy to tell me that the sky is falling is absolutely unfounded. Scientists practice science for the sake of science. As a result, they create their own self-licking ice cream cone. I think that if I worked for the EPA, I too would be telling everyone how bad it is and all the plans to save our children, otherwise, I might be out of work.

Don't get me wrong, I believe is reducing unnecessary pollutants and species protections, but I think people get carried away. 6 billion people may seem like a lot, but I believe that in every instant where an area is on the verge of over population, the earth reacts in turn by "down sizing."

If you feel better about sticking to every business owner because they make money, then go ahead and lobby away. Just be sure that you are sure what you are saying is actually going to make a difference.

Sorry for the long winded response....I have to go and get ready to dive Cozumel and Grand Caymen in two weeks...

If you wanted to know what I meant by "financially motivated" you should have just asked me first before ASSuming the wrong conclusion. This has nothing to do with penalizing them. By financially motivated I mean that car/oil companies will never change unless it becomes profitable for them to do so. And because selling gas powered vehicles and oil is very profitable at the moment and they don't need to change their current infrastructure (which would be expensive) to keep doing so, they won't change. In short, they have no reason to change until they can make money by changing.

Six billion seems like a lot? I think you have no concept of how large a number that really is. If you counted to one billion, counting one number per second, it would take nearly 32 years! Multiply that by six and it would take nearly 192 years to count to six billion. Also, we are not over-populated quite yet, but our populations are very concentrated. If I remember correctly, it's been estimated that the population would eventually (in who knows how many years) plateau at around 7.5-8million, based on the earths primary production capabilities.

You also make me out to be some kind of environmental alarmist. I'm just trying to give you the facts as we know them so far, which seem to indicate a large contribution from humans to the current warming trend. I can't say for sure we are causing this, but the evidence seems to point that way. You choose to ignore this information since you feel your own gut opinion far out weighs critical examination by thousands of others over the past hundred or so years. So basically, you're going to refuse anything anyone says unless it comes from "God" or mother nature herself? Alrighty then. Clearly there is no point in trying to explain the current facts when you disregard them anyways. So until you can make a response based on facts rather than your instinct or what you think are facts, I will no longer respond.

Have fun on your trip...

 

[LavaSurfer]

Yes.... This is true of course... There are natural cycles of warming and cooling through history (ice ages... and then the period the dinosaurs lived). What worries scientists is that there has been a steady trend of gradual warming despite the natural warming/cooling cycles, and the rate of the warming is faster than it has ever been.

I don't want to say that science is not accurate as I have a science and engineering background but there were no measurements taken during previous ice and warming periods. We can draw conclusions based on studies and make estimates but nothing beats good data. One good test seems to be gas analysis of ice cores at different depths but they even contradict. An example is the Carbon dating process. It’s accurate when you taking millions of years with an acceptable level of error but by no means is it an accurate method of measurement. The accuracy is relative.

On thing science does know is that historically CO2 levels were high and O2 level were low. There were a lot more greenhouse gasses in the Triassic and Jurassic eras than there are now. But then you read another study and they contradict and say Methane was high, O2 was low and CO2 remained stable. Which is right?

What I am trying to say is what might be happening "COULD" be completely normal and on the other hand it might be abnormal in historical cycles. No one really knows for sure. I do know that in the past volcanoes put out lots of nasty gases and burned a lot of carbon materials and that had to create gasses. Even the worst cars could not pump out the volumes of gasses several hundred volcanoes can pump in a day.

Maybe we are this eras volcanoes!

 

[archman]

What I am trying to say is what might be happening "COULD" be completely normal and on the other hand it might be abnormal in historical cycles. No one really knows for sure.

The "can't be sure" argument is one of the most popular anti-environmental (and anti-health) tactics currently in use by politicians and corporations. It plays upon the inherent nature of the scientific method to be unable to "prove" anything. Drives us scientists nuts...

But back to climate change. This is a rather simple quandry. Assuming there is climate change, here are the options.

1. Don't do anything.
2. Do something.

Option #1 puts everything in nature's hands. It's the ecologically irresponsible approach. Even arguing that climate change is entirely natural in origin, the change is still disrupting human populations worldwide. Not doing anything to curb it is irresponsible to the people. Sitting around hoping that things will naturally "get better" over time... that's VERY theoretical and the potential pitfalls are enormous.

Therefore, taking an analytical approach to the overall problem, the only useful plan then becomes option #2. From here, the next questions to answer would be, where do we divert our attentions, and how much effort do we make?

 

[sea_dragon]

it is really sad to see that we as humans are going to distroy all the beauty in this world

 

[Chad_Ordelheide]

Answer me This!!!!

We live in a world where every ecosystem is being encroached upon by humans...Many of those ecosystems are on the verge of utter collapse! To name a few, Amazon, Kilimanjaro, Antarctica (The treaty that protects is up soon??), Multiple African Jungle habitats, Central American forests, Puerto Rico's Rain forest, Galapagos,....on & on. If fact, someone name an ecosystem that hasn't been encroached upon? How can anyone be ignorant enough to say humans aren’t making an impact. usnadiver03 said: The earth is cyclical in everything, tides, weather, everything. We cannot stop it, we cannot retard it we cannot even speed it up.

Maybe the earth could take care of itself...survival of the fittest, yadi yadi; but I don't think it ever counted on a species as destructive as humans into the equation. Unless mandated and enforced, humans will destroy and occupy every piece of land. They will then exploite all it's resources...but I'm sure that wouldn't effect the ecosystem, would it?

 

[H2Andy]

chad, my friend, you are so wrong

it's not us. it's all the other species that have cars emitting CO2 into the atmosphere,
and who have overfished the oceans, and who are burning rainforest.

why doesn't anyone blame THEM??

all i hear is "us us us." please. that's just leftist eco-nazi babble.

 

[archman]

...If fact, someone name an ecosystem that hasn't been encroached upon?

My apologies if I snip this out of your full post, Chad. This is a question that came up on an expedition series I worked on.

We (our oceanography lab) used to think that the deep sea was essentially pristine, at least until about five years ago. Then we started recovering quantities of manmade trash in our seafloor trawls. Almost every single one. As far as we know, that's a relatively recent phenomenon, at least in the Gulf of Mexico.

 

[DennisS]

We (our oceanography lab) used to think that the deep sea was essentially pristine, at least until about five years ago. Then we started recovering quantities of manmade trash in our seafloor trawls. Almost every single one. As far as we know, that's a relatively recent phenomenon, at least in the Gulf of Mexico.

The deep sea is definitely not pristine, physical oceanographers use freon as a tool for dating water. They know when freon was introduced and samples in the water column show whether freon is present or not at the various depths.