The Reef Ain't Dead

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Tillikum

Not sure what you mean by that, nor by the previous "Semper Fi" reference? What's in that glass on the table, or has it been emptied a few times today?

The question remains, why do nations and their leaders hand over control of their economies and all that follows from that, to a small coterie of global bankers. That they have done so is irrefutable, but what force impels them to do so? (Disclaimer: some self-education will be required)

Or you can peck at the global warming scratch thrown down on the floor for you, like most of the chickens do.

I get it.. you don't get the humour in watching the rats having to scuttle for a change..
As for the Semper Fi.. that's just me taking the piss out of the programming of many nations populations.. like N Korea, China, Russia and the Shining Light on the Hill.
Why you think these people are leaders baffles me, they sold out many years before they became 'Leaders' as they boosted their bank accounts and gained promotion... and if they buck the program/system they're eliminated.
Why was Gaddafi terminated.. cruelty to his people.??? Naah, he represented a threat to the current financial dominance in the world by daring to try for a separate continental monetary system..
Why did Kuwait antagonise and defy Iraq by bumping up fees to use their ports exhorbitantly then refuse to sell Saddam a deserted island in the Gulf so Iraq could build its own deep water port.. certainly not because it's half million population could take on Sadam but because it was told to and that it would be protected..
Iraq.??? that's what happens if you end a war without permission.
You people seem to think you choose leaders, you don't, your told which glove puppets you can choose from.. (Disclaimer: some delusional bubbles need bursting)
Like me your not a name, just another number..

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by aqfishing

The earth has only so many resources....the more we breed the worse its going to get.

Pity its not politically viable to tell people to stop breeding!!!

I call it the Dinosaur in the room no one wants to talk about!

It is being discussed.

The world population growth rate declined from 2.2% per year 50 years ago to 1.05% per year.

https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth

The problem is who much each person consumes and wastes.

https://sensoneo.com/sensoneo-global-waste-index-2019/

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by aqfishing

Our biggest problem is non of the above issues(climate change, fossil fuels etc...), it is population growth. Until we slow this down or go into a negative our problems will just keep escalating. So all you people who have more than 2 kids per couple, i.e one child per person, you have done more damage to the planet than any petrol head with a roaring V8 and no kids!

I laugh at these hippy greenies who live off the earth with hemp this and biodegradable that and a 0 carbon off the grid lifestyle....with their 5 children!

The earth has only so many resources....the more we breed the worse its going to get.

Pity its not politically viable to tell people to stop breeding!!!

I call it the Dinosaur in the room no one wants to talk about!

We'll China had a go for a while..
But it's kinda difficult with this growing move for human rights and the Anti abortion, anti contraceptives crowd intent on more souls for the Big Fella..
May have a chance if the world ever goes Atheist..

[Exile]

Originally Posted by jackdale

Name one climate scientist who says "the debate is over." Make sure your provide a citation.

This one was easy, except it wasn't just one climate scientist but an entire "union" of "concerned" ones.

"The consensus couldn’t be clearer. Climate change is happening. It’s caused primarily by the burning of oil, gas, and coal. If we do nothing, the world will become significantly less habitable.

We’ve lost precious time, but if we act now—decisively and dramatically—we still have a chance at avoiding climate change’s most catastrophic impacts."

Here's your citation: https://www.ucsusa.org/climate/science (Union of Concerned Scientists)

Hard to imagine a more profound way of saying "the debate is over" than claiming that, effectively, if we continue to debate rather than act we will face catastrophe.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Exile

This one was easy, except it wasn't just one climate scientist but an entire "union" of "concerned" ones.

"The consensus couldn’t be clearer. Climate change is happening. It’s caused primarily by the burning of oil, gas, and coal. If we do nothing, the world will become significantly less habitable.

We’ve lost precious time, but if we act now—decisively and dramatically—we still have a chance at avoiding climate change’s most catastrophic impacts."

Here's your citation: https://www.ucsusa.org/climate/science (Union of Concerned Scientists)

Hard to imagine a more profound way of saying "the debate is over" than claiming that, effectively, if we continue to debate rather than act we will face catastrophe.

Well, yes or no - is AGW occurring? Is climate change a thing? You've previously agreed that it's happening, and that certain countries reducing their contribution was a Good Thing, so no debate about that, right?

Unless I'm mistaken, your beef has been the extent to which there will be serious repercussions from AGW, and therefore the appropriateness of proposed remedies.

"if we continue to debate rather than act we will face catastrophe" ...This is true of all serious problems. A stitch in time saves nine. Ongoing discussion doesn't preclude any action. But that's your red line. You oppose action. On AGW, pollution, poverty. Scary stuff, ain't it?

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Exile

So it wasn't you who recently posted a science piece stating that all coral bleaching events beyond a few days result in coral death?

Nice piece of distortion. You're very cleverly conflating "coral" (a single organism) with "coral" (the ecosystem of many organisms). It's not in dispute that bleaching can kill individual organisms:

Among the global events that affect coral reefs, the increasing temperature of surface water is causing a widespread phenomenon, coral bleaching. Unique example, visible to the naked eye, of the impact of climate change on an ecosystem, coral bleaching is the result of the rupture of the symbiosis between corals and zooxanthellae symbionts. Although it can be reversible during the first few days, this bleaching effect inevitably leads to coral death a few weeks after the symbiosis is halted (Hoegh-Guldberg, 1999; Weis & Allemand, 2009). This phenomenon, whose inner mechanisms are still under debate, usually occurs when the temperature exceeds a certain threshold by 0.5°C

So yeah, bleaching can kill individual organisms. But not all the organisms in that reef may die, and when coral larvae later settle on such dead branches and resume growing on that spot, you have recovery. The more die from bleaching, the longer recovery will take.

And as far as Shellenger's list of alarmism goes, are you saying it's not you who, for e.g., supports the widely reported but unsupported conclusion that CC is making [weather] disasters worse, forest fires more frequent, and is accelerating species extinction?

Temperature rise, weather pattern changes, and more violent weather extremes were predicted, and have been occurring. But to satisfy you, I guess we need to have a few decades or a century of such changes, at which point you will finally acknowledge, through statistical analyses of historical data, that "Welp, I guess it did cause weather extremes."

But what about ...the big piece of the Antarctic ice sheet that's about to fall off, and of course the plight of the polar bears? Not you?

So, warming oceans and changing circulation hasn't substantially contributed to ice melting at the poles? Were the penguins jumping in unison to break off that Antarctic shelf? Are the polar bears melting Arctic ice with their breath?

So how exactly does one "defend" something which hasn't been established as scientific fact?

With more and better science.

But no, just like above, you cherry-pick. You endorse most if not all of the unscientific attacks against the scientific establishment, and have become adept at finding the few famous outliers, and cherry-picking their leavings for reasons or excuses for discounting the majority of the work done to date... or you simply scurry back to your safe place of "You're alarmist! You have an agenda! You're rude!"

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Well, You oppose action. On AGW, pollution, poverty. Scary stuff, ain't it?

Seems to me it's the glove puppets you elect are the 'Opposers'..
Take single use plastics.. production could be banned with a signature yet it is not because lobbyists pay big bucks to have things filibusted out of the ring.. and kicked down the road for a few years till something else can be pushed into the headlines.
Its not politically expedient..
Like the '64 battle with Ford, Dagenham for equal pay for women.. Ford railed against it, Unions agitated against it and the Prime Minister when pressed on his past promotion of Equal Rights for Women responded... "That was before I became Prime Minister".
So when you question peoples skepticism remember.. history gives one reason for it.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Well, yes or no - is AGW occurring? Is climate change a thing? You've previously agreed that it's happening, and that certain countries reducing their contribution was a Good Thing, so no debate about that, right?

Unless I'm mistaken, your beef has been the extent to which there will be serious repercussions from AGW, and therefore the appropriateness of proposed remedies.

"if we continue to debate rather than act we will face catastrophe" ...This is true of all serious problems. A stitch in time saves nine. Ongoing discussion doesn't preclude any action. But that's your red line. You oppose action. On AGW, pollution, poverty. Scary stuff, ain't it?

You have no idea what I favor or oppose, and I doubt anyone's interested in what "I" or "you" happen to believe. Try and stick with an adult discussion about the state of the science, preferably as applied to the GBR. If you can't do that there's always the fallback of trying to stifle the discussion with putting words in other peoples' mouths, rudeness, or running to the mods for censorship.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Nice piece of distortion. You're very cleverly conflating "coral" (a single organism) with "coral" (the ecosystem of many organisms). It's not in dispute that bleaching can kill individual organisms:
So yeah, bleaching can kill individual organisms. But not all the organisms in that reef may die, and when coral larvae later settle on such dead branches and resume growing on that spot, you have recovery. The more die from bleaching, the longer recovery will take.
Temperature rise, weather pattern changes, and more violent weather extremes were predicted, and have been occurring. But to satisfy you, I guess we need to have a few decades or a century of such changes, at which point you will finally acknowledge, through statistical analyses of historical data, that "Welp, I guess it did cause weather extremes."
So, warming oceans and changing circulation hasn't substantially contributed to ice melting at the poles? Were the penguins jumping in unison to break off that Antarctic shelf? Are the polar bears melting Arctic ice with their breath?
With more and better science.

But no, just like above, you cherry-pick. You endorse most if not all of the unscientific attacks against the scientific establishment, and have become adept at finding the few famous outliers, and cherry-picking their leavings for reasons or excuses for discounting the majority of the work done to date... or you simply scurry back to your safe place of "You're alarmist! You have an agenda! You're rude!"

Your article has a lot of good information about coral reefs, how and when they were formed, why they are so important to the planet, and what may be harming them. If readers are interested in whether it also overstates the effects of bleaching they can read it and decide for themselves.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by aqfishing

Our biggest problem is non of the above issues(climate change, fossil fuels etc...), it is population growth.

...

I call it the Dinosaur in the room no one wants to talk about!

I've come to regard the observation that "overpopulation is the biggest problem" as a disguised wish to return to the earlier times when we didn't understand how finite the planet is, and there were relatively few of us doing the large-scale exploiting, so we had zero concern for the long-term effects of anything we did. We could take any action without regard to its impact. Dig up and use anything! Build or make or refine anything! Bury or dump our waste anywhere! Out of sight, out of mind. Good times... Limitless growth! Ever-increasing prosperity! No end in sight.

Unfortunately, we don't have that luxury any more. Just about every significant decision must include an analysis of its potential impact on the planet. (that includes economic too, but on a longer time-scale than just the next few quarters.) Reducing population won't help any more, because everyone expects to enjoy a higher standard of living. So we have to figure out how to provide the highest possible quality of life for the most people, that's within the planet's capability to sustain indefinitely.

It's a challenge but I believe that it's achievable. And as most countries develop and achieve food security, better education, medical services etc, the birth rate goes down. Some highly-developed countries even have a flat or negative population growth rate.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Exile

You have no idea what I favor or oppose.

-sigh- you're right. Only you have the ability to discern the reasoning and motivations behind someone else's arguments. I'll try to keep that in mind.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Seems to me it's the glove puppets you elect are the 'Opposers'..
Take single use plastics.. production could be banned with a signature yet it is not because lobbyists pay big bucks to have things filibusted out of the ring.. and kicked down the road for a few years till something else can be pushed into the headlines.
Its not politically expedient.

I completely agree. All I can say is that personally, I try to find and vote for the puppets most likely to do the least damage. And I'm annoyed by the people here who won't acknowledge any of your observation.

[lestersails]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Sad to hear you consider my logic flawed and incorrect.. despite most of it being drawn from personal observation in various parts of the globe, 'scientific facts' and the acknowledged results of pollution but continue in your blind faith in the ability for humans to adapt with the aid of technology and ignoring the environmental damage while conveniently forgeting the fact we are part of the whole..

Not sure you disagree with me as much as you suggest. I think you may have missed my point. It was that nearly everything we do pollutes and damages the environment. Some misconstrue this to mean that we either need to go back to the caves and hunting and gathering OR it's hopeless and there is nothing we can do about it. Both are wrong. Everything we do harms the environment, more or less and it is this 'more of less' that is critical. My point was that we have to use technology to minimize pollution and other environmental impacts to get them back into the range of harm that our ecosystem can buffer/absorb. I believe it is doable and agrees with your point that 'we are part of the whole'. Spot on with that.

[boatman61]

To the last two posters..
You don't get a choice on gloves puppets.. Face it..
In the last two US elections Bernie Sanders was the people's champion funded not by Big Corprate/Tech but by $25 donations from the average Joe.. would have smashed Hillary and Biden but both times was ordered to stand down by the Hierarchy.
The change can only start at the top..
What's that millennium old saying..
"Young Men go to fight wars and change the world but, when the dust has settled and the smoke has cleared the old men rebuild it as it was.."

[lestersails]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

Now, I was a driller for about fifty years and if you blokes had drilled as many dry (hydrocarbon free) holes in as many nasty places as I had you would not be near as unquestioning and lack confidence as I am, and do, about the opinions and assertions of scientists.

Stunning logical fallacy. Because science can't predict some things (fossil fuel deposits) it can't predict anything.
Seriously?

So do you also disbelieve the scientific predictions of when the sun will rise tomorrow or what the tides will be?