Snorkelers yanking on coral

[ljpm]

With half the barrier reef dying due to global warming it seems weird to criticize a relatively few inexperienced or ignorant divers. If you really want to do something, discuss climate change with your friends.

Trust me I do. Almost to the point of being annoying (ok, maybe past the point of being annoying). The problem is that most people have made up their minds and will not change no matter how much evidence you provide.

 

[stgcph]

With half the barrier reef dying due to global warming it seems weird to criticize a relatively few inexperienced or ignorant divers. If you really want to do something, discuss climate change with your friends.

I assume you are not implying, that because half the reef is dying we can just go ahead and destroy the other half?

Discussing climate change is good in order to hopefully raise awareness and alter mindsets, but sadly that will have no real-world effect in the shorter perspective.

In the meantime we can all do whatever little we can to take care of the (water)world.

 

[tilikum]

The oceans are dead, we just refuse to acknowledge that fact.

 

[stgcph]

The oceans are dead, we just refuse to acknowledge that fact.

If you are right then we are dead, we just refuse to acknowledge that fact.

 

[tilikum]

Overfishing, pollution, and poor human interaction with the environment all lead to one foregone conclusion.

 

[Doc]

The walking dead. A lot of that going on, nowadays.

 

[USdiver1]

It is an education issue, we all need to be educated. When I look back over my four decades of diving, I see many poor interactions (spearfishing, lobstering) directly resulting to harm to marine life, and lots of other interactions with probable harm to marine life (wearing gloves, sun blocker, U/W photography, O/W checkout dives). I've tried to reduce my personal impact on the marine environment when diving, and continue my learning on how to better protect what remains.

 

[tilikum]

You are wasting your time.

 

[Altamira]

A problem that I see is that many DMs think (probably correctly) that most of their divers and snorkelers really like to see the critters up close and handle them as well. That bad behavior probably leads to more tips from their divers who either are not aware of, or don't care about the damage they are causing to corals and other critters than the tips they are going to lose from me. On a number of dives last year, the DM, who no doubt thought I was afraid of the octopus, was so insistent that I handle the critter he wanted to show me, that he persisted until I gave him the middle finger. Too bad I did not have a cattle prod!

 

[scrane]

I assume you are not implying, that because half the reef is dying we can just go ahead and destroy the other half?

Discussing climate change is good in order to hopefully raise awareness and alter mindsets, but sadly that will have no real-world effect in the shorter perspective.

In the meantime we can all do whatever little we can to take care of the (water)world.

You assume correctly.
But I maintain that the people and organizations that control power on policy are the ones who will determine whether the seas and the creatures that occupy them have a future.