More Bad News for Caribbean Coral Reefs

[Mr B]

Sunspot activity works on a 11 year cycle, Approx,
I forget where I read that, But it is only recent,
And it does effect the worlds weather and climate intensity,

That works out roughly the cycle of our drought and flood Extremes in Australia, 11 years,

Up untill about 30 or so years ago, our weather was thought to be a local event, Not connected to what was happening in the rest of the world,

But with modern technology, the internet and instant world wide information, we now know what happens here in one area, is also connected to the whole wide worlds weather and it is all connected as one big over all system,

I personally think the **** is going to hit the fan in a big way in less than 20 years,

The developed countrys are going to find out the hard way what big business has been doing and hiding for years,

No amount of huge Bribes and pouring money into secret pockets to suppress their nefariuos activitys is going to hide people dying in mass numbers and with very strange and new diseases,

I am not talking back of the beyond rural area's. I am talking about the water people drink in the big citys, which comes from the back of beyond rural area's.

The water catchments, There will come a time in the very near future when this will happen,

And a lot of the other crap now hidden by cash payments will then be up for public scrutiny,

It will not be hidden then, and no amount of money can be spent to suppress it,

CO 2 may be a big player, But a whole lot of other gases, toxins ETC will on the table as well,

There is another side to all this, what about the gases and other as yet unknown substances that will come out,

Just because it is currently unknown and we cant test for it,
Doesnt mean to say it is not there at present, and is a very big problem already,

The way Chemical, Drug and Oil companys are mixing new chemicals together and getting new unknown chemicals, with who knows what side effects, its more than a problem,

There is a lot more wrong with the world than our leaders are going to tell you, and they will keep it under the carpet as long as possible, Or the big money cant keep it there,

Look at the world as a whole picture and every thing that is going wrong in it, put them all together, and see what you come up with, Its quite frightening,

CO2, is just so insignificant when you lump every thing else in with it, If you care to look for it, and it is all there for your perusal,

[jackdale]

Re: The Sun

The earth's energy comes from two sources: the sun (the biggy) and geothermal (small)

As to the sun being a contributor to current climate change. Climate scientists recognize that sun, plus some geothermal activity, is the source of heat and energy. The sun can affect climate in two ways; one is by its activity. Solar activity is has been declining since a peak at about 1960. The relationship of the sun to the earth is another way the sun can affect the earth. One theory is that of the Milankovitch Cycles, which should place us in a cooling trend. The Solar Institute at Stanford University also dismisses the sun as a contributor to global warming.

[hellosailor]

If heat is being absorbed into the oceans, does this mean I will be able to buy my lobster pre-steamed right off the boat soon?

China is simply doing what the first and second worlds already have done. Britain and Italy denuded their forested land, much as Haiti has, but unlike Haiti they've recovered some of it. London in the late 1800's had coal smog so badly it blocked out sunlight--very much what some Chinese cities are experiencing today, from fuels and cars. The Chinese are taking steps to address this, because a sick and dying populace is a negative asset, even for a repressive government. If someone somewhere else shows the initiative to solve some of these problems first, no doubt the Chinese will quickly steal it and adopt it.
But considering how many other folks have already despoiled large swaths of the world, who is to deny the billion Chinese their fair share of it?

[Lake-Effect]

Wow. I go to bed after a bun-fight, and wake up to see a conversation broke out. Awesome! Really.

Responding to these points:

Originally Posted by Lagoon4us

To set the record straight on my thoughts on our mutual predicament.

1) Climate is changing as it has before.

There has been a natural cycle to the earth's climate. The question is whether the cumulative and on-going byproducts of human industrial activity has /will exaggerate the cycle... or disrupt/destabilize the cycle.

2) We are parasites in and by nature (pun intended).

Alone among all of earth's inhabitants, we no longer struggle just to exist. The bulk of our activities go to satisfying desires and self-fulfillment. We have developed the ability to wreak great changes to the planet. And we have the luxury of choosing among several different options.

So to that extent we are outside of nature. We have the luxury and the ability to choose. This makes us responsible for our choices.

3) The development of China and Asia may well tip the balance of pollution to total disaster unless EV transport is taken up and pollution reduced heating employed (can't see that happening).

We can't shake our finger at the developing world for wanting to live as we do, consuming 5 times the energy, per-capita, that they do.

The first world has rushed in to exploit the lower-cost, regulation-light manufacturing of the developing nations. So they started out polluting in order to make cheap stuff for us, and now they have a domestic market with demands of their own.

The wealthy countries have an obligation to undertake the development of more efficient technologies and processes that we can provide to the developing world, so that they can move past the low-tech, polluting technologies they're stuck with. And we need to lead by example, reducing our own overall demands so that more, cleaner energy is available to developing nations, and our demands don't force other nations into unsustainable activities.

4) Tourism both commercial and private is killing the natural beauty of places, i suspect this would be the greatest threat to the subject matter of this thread.

Yes there can be bad tourism. Bulldozing mangrove swamps to dump in a beach and a resort is not good tourism. But, tourism is also one of the bright spots. Tourism has been recognised by most as a sustainable industry, given proper management.

Take reefs. Where a reef has been recognised as a tourism asset, steps can be taken to minimize damage: prohibit anchoring, provide moorings, licenced dive operators with a strict code of practice, and so on. Create protection zones and require all unauthorized traffic to keep clear, even naval minesweepers.

Unfortunately, one of the big threats to reefs is the CO2 situation, which has markedly increased the acidity of the oceans. Acidity reduces the ability of shell-generating organisms to generate their outer bits.

As tourists, I think (hope) most cruisers are responsible tourists, we appreciate our special places for their natural qualities, not for their access to cracked ice and duty-free retail.

5) Eco-tourism must grow but it's not cheap and once again by nature humans demand cheap.

All tourism should be low impact. It doesn't make sense to permit tourism that will ultimately damage the attractiveness of the destination. See 4.

6)Fossil fuels will continue to be burnt, gas is way better BUT fracking will kill the water table by the very nature of the mechanics of extraction, my home town is installing 8 gas trains at present, i have experience knowledge here.

Fracking seems dubious; I'd like to see more long-term analysis of its utility and effects. I've also heard that the potential recoverable oil/gas is much lower than the overall size of the locked-up resources.

Lower demand would make the more extreme extraction methods economically impractical.

7)I believe climates largest driver is radiation in all forms from our sun.

Virtually ALL energy on the earth came from the sun, whether direct, or stored as wood or oil. So... yes. Human action can now influence how and where that energy gets directed and stored. CO2 output is like putting insulation around the earth; more insulation, more retained heat.

8)A severe cooling may well answer all the worlds pollution by lowering the population immensely, it's happened before and methinks it shall again.

We are gaining the ability to observe and predict the climate direction, and we have the luxury of choice. If we throw up our hands, or ridicule our scientists... we've still made a choice.

I was thinking this morning how ironic that this sort of debate should happen here. It's a cruising forum, and cruisers are mainly white, western, middle-aged or older, and affluent by world standards, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that there's so much self-satisfied, "damn tree-hugger", "I've got mine, Jack" sentiment... but as cruisers, most of us are already the masters of living within a modest energy budget (such as refrain from using our microwaves, hair-dryers and electric toasters away from shore-power ), and we enjoy more than most the natural beauty of the planet. As it is NOW. Are we so selfish that we aren't interested in preserving all this for future generations?

[hellosailor]

Lake?
Refrain from using microwave ovens, which can be powered by renewable energy, and use less efficient fossil fuels to boil the kettle? Which also pollute more?
I only ask that to point out that what seem like fast easy solutions and rational choices, often are exactly the wrong ones to make.

Save the reefs? Mmmm....I suspect it is that developed-world-affluent-white-majority that is doing a lot of the ecotourism to far off places. And that many of them have been to DisneyWorld more often than to the reefs. Where Disney has a whole team working on how to entertain the folks while they are in line, because so many of them come so often, there's always a monster line.
Those same folks would probably be quite happy to see the reefs in an aquarium setting (wait, isn't that the casino hotel Atlantis in the Bahamas?) where they could be preserved while the oceans cook and fizz. Matter of fact, I think the Miami Seaquarium is already offering folks "hard hat dives" in a large reef tank at $100 a shot.
Preserve it for future generations? Is the convenient aquarium display arguably better preservation than moving those tourists halfway around the world with fossil fuels?

Anyone seen Superman lately? The guy just isn't to be found. There are no more phone booths for him to change in. But from everyone else's point of view, the lack of phone booths is normal, and no loss.

I'm not arguing one way or the other, just saying that we're total fools for not studying what the consequences of of changes will be, before we make them.

"Ready, FIRE!, Aim."

[Lake-Effect]

Fire in the hole!

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Lake?
Refrain from using microwave ovens, which can be powered by renewable energy, and use less efficient fossil fuels to boil the kettle? Which also pollute more?

(I was only referring to using microwaves while away from shorepower)

How many minutes do you need to run the genny to recharge the batteries to make up the power to run the microwave? Your genny puts out unicorn farts instead of combustion byproducts? Conversion losses would dictate that it's more efficient to simply burn a fuel to heat the water than to run the fuel through the chain to run the microwave.

But microwave ovens are pretty useful and fairly efficient as appliances go, so maybe I shouldn't pick on them. Conceded. But toasters, hair-dryers...

I'm not arguing one way or the other, just saying that we're total fools for not studying what the consequences of of changes will be, before we make them.

Most of the useful changes have 1001 other benefits besides the CO2 situation, and are benign changes. The biggest losers in a comprehensive ecological upgrade are companies who depend on easy profits from exploitation and unsustainable development. Pollution abatement, process improvement, alternative energy, these are the growth industries of the immediate future.

[Andrew Troup]

Hmm - after pondering for a bit, I took it from what hello wrote that he was imagining using solar panels to get the juice for his microwave when away from shore-nuff power.

But --- wouldn't it be more efficient to use that same juice in an immersion element, like an electric jug?

I know microwaves are remarkably efficient, but I can't see how there could be any more efficient way of heating liquid with 'tricity than exploiting resisitive losses in an immersed element

I'd love to know if there is, though...

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

But --- wouldn't it be more efficient to use that same juice in an immersion element, like an electric jug?

Immersion heating (on a boat) would be fairly efficient... IF you had a 12v element; a 120v immersion heater would immediately incur conversion losses. But if you need heat, it's most efficient to turn fuel directly to heat by controlled combustion.

It would be an interesting experiment to compare the efficiency of a microwave vs immersion element. It's just comparing the energy taken to boil two identical cups of water in the same conditions. Science fair project, anyone? Bueller?

And, my blessings upon anyone running whatever they want, if it's strictly on renewables (wind, solar, bio-fuel... maybe). If you're running everything ultimately from diesel via the genny, it ceases to be as efficient or benign. Still, I think cruisers are on the whole already pretty efficient with energy.

[SURV69]

We're all being scammed in the name of Global Warming . . . okay.

But that doesn't mean that Global Warming doesn't exist. It just means, as always, people take advantage of anything they can for their own benefit . . . and, for certain, there's a lot scamming too.

I for one, absolutely believe that Global Warming is occurring . . . I think we might be part of the problem . . . but, maybe not.

Does it really matter? Should we ignore Global Warming, just because we might not have had a big enough impact to actually have caused it?

Until someone can positively show me that mankind has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Global Warming, I tend to feel we(as a species of animal), should do what we realistically can.

If we don't change our ways while populations grow ever larger at the expense of our "piddly" attempts at ruining the earth, eventually, even if we're not the cause . . . yet . . . we might be the "actual", cause sometime in the future.

AND, you know, after all is said and done, it's us(and all the animals of earth), that will suffer.

The earth could not care less about us "parasites", on it's surface!

It was here before us and it will be here after us.

[Kenomac]

Have any of the climate experts figured out how much carbon dioxide has been produced in order to keep this tread alive and the CF computer screens a glowing?

How many more polar bears must die while CF members debate the end of all life on earth as we know it???

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Have any of the climate experts figured out how much carbon dioxide has been produced in order to keep this tread alive and the CF computer screens a glowing?

How many more polar bears must die while CF members debate the end of all life on earth as we know it???

Thanks for doing your part.

(based on net personal and social benefit received vs energy input, I would argue that computers and the communications infrastructure are the most efficient system we've ever built. except maybe when used for trolling forums.)

[Andrew Troup]

Here's some things I would like my polititicians to be trying to persuade us to do, in my own country (different places have different problems and different opportunities, and I think it's not for others to preach how to resolve these)

1) Devolve infrastructure: wean us off big power grids, big sewerage, big oil, municipal water (to bring water to us) and stormwater drains (to take water away from us).

We're currently rebuilding an entire city. Two years after everything got buggered by a wee shake or three, it's impossible to predict within half an hour how long it will take to reach a given destination because we're still digging up the roads everywhere to bury massive new sewer and stormwater pipes etc etc

It's hard to fathom when, a hundred years from now, it's perhaps an even bet that half the city will be abandoned to the sea and the rest will be quickly reverting to a ghetto.

Low-lying coastal cities like this should be lightening their footprint. New buildings should be modular and transportable and relatively autonomous. The window of opportunity to pre-empt sea level rise over that timescale has pretty much closed already; that battle is already lost.

2) We have a small population, relatively urban, and a phenomenal rainfall along the windward side of the alpine chain. We could realistically aspire to eventually power the entire country 100% renewably, with a combination of hydro*, local solar, wind possibly (very windy region) and geothermal.

(*with reversible turbines allowing pumping water uphill for power storage: at present we're often spilling surplus water in one part of the country while lakes are approaching their lower limits elsewhere)

3) Wean us onto public transport: put a sinking lid on private car use (including electric, unless or until batteries are developed which do not entail an intolerable hidden production burden of fossil fuel.)
Develop new forms of public transport, hand-in-hand with new forms of commerce (eg: come up with a new model whereby on-line selling is normalised, and retail space transitions to showrooms, funded by the on-line sellers, becoming the place people go to handle goods and enquire about their attributes.
This means they don't have to take the goods with them when they go, which means they don't need a big car: deliveries by night to secure lobbies in or near private residences using lightweight, silent vans - powered by fuel cells from a state-run hydrogen network, possibly?)

4) Lightweight urban roading: Cycles, walking, light rail.... Roadways would be concrete liftable access panels to access slimmed-down services. Electric on-demand ropetows up steep hills for cyclists, skate(board)ers etc..

These are just some of my random thoughts and no doubt the model is riddled with holes and inconsistencies, but it's hard to imagine anything less satisfactory than business as usual.

We've wasted an opportunity for government to take a lead: we tend to have relatively high quality governments by world standards, and it's demoralising to reflect that in this modern first world country, democracy has evolved to such an extent and in such a direction that the line of least resistance has absolute rule, and immediate benefits to individuals invariably triumph over long term benefits to society as a whole.

Our government is very much the obedient servant of our people, and our people know exactly what they want.

They want what they've already got, but they want lots more of it.

[Andrew Troup]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Immersion heating (on a boat) would be fairly efficient........ But if you need heat, it's most efficient to turn fuel directly to heat by controlled combustion.

Sure, but that's reverting to the assumption of using non-renewable, fossil fuel.

If we used only solar electricity, even for heating duties, it would perhaps expose just how much of a luxury heat is .... I wonder if we would drink as many hot drinks, for one thing?

I might have to have a cuppa while I think about that one...

[s/v Jedi]

Don't you guys know yet that global warming is caused by the worms?! Google it if you don't believe it

What they don't clearly tell you is that worms are bred and used by farmers to enrich the soil so in the end it's still man-kind doing this....

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Don't you guys know yet that global warming is caused by the worms?! Google it if you don't believe it ...

I didn't, so I did.

"... There was a hypothesis that earthworms were having a positive effect on the greenhouse balance, but they don't," said co-author Johan Six, a plant sciences professor at UC Davis during the study who is now a professor at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. "I would never say you have to take out the earthworms because of greenhouse gases. It's just that you cannot give them credit for reducing greenhouse gases..."

Read more at ➥
Global worming: Earthworms add to climate change