Coral Reef Protection & Restoration

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Johan Leopard51

I’ve long since given up convincing people about the environmental benefits. At work I have MW solar and MWh battery systems and I just explain that I now have cheap, reliable energy. That it has lower emissions is the cherry on top. That it annoys the heck out of the climate change deniers, is the icing on top of the cherry

Some might say that I am a CC denier, it is happening.. however it's my opinion that CC is just a whipping post to deflect from all the other causes of nature's impending demise..
Kinda like smoking was the cause of all cancers rather than industry's rush for profits with the likes of asbestos, chemicals polluting ground water, air pollution from traffic, cosmetics, sunscreens, hell even our beloved non stick cookware.. poor people don't have fertility problems, they can't afford the crap the West can.. why destroy multiple industries when one demon is more than adequate..
Everything has a 'price'.. even your batteries and solar panels..

[Johan Leopard51]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Places like the Seychelles etc should look more toward the massive increase in tourism and the resulting high pollutant effects before climate change methinks..

Seychelles economy is overwhelmingly dependent on tuna exports and tourism. So what the chinese/taiwanese/spanish fishing trawlers take and what the cheap flights bring

[boatman61]

Yeah great.. considering last year's tourist numbers were 3.5 times the islands population and likely up to X4 this year its no wonder the ecosystems not what it was 40yrs ago.
Hell I remember living populated reef in Antigua with schools of barracuda swimming beneath the frigate I was on back in the 60's.. look at it now.
The islanders will likely be joining the Ballearics and Canary islands in protesting the tourism overflow before long when they realise they're not the ones benefitting, just the foreign owners and investors.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Johan Leopard51

Seychelles economy is overwhelmingly dependent on tuna exports and tourism. So what the chinese/taiwanese/spanish fishing trawlers take and what the cheap flights bring

According to the World Bank:
“Seychelles has Africa's highest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, at $15.8 billion (2022).
Its economy is highly dependent on tourism (31% of GDP and 41% of exports), and fisheries, and climate change poses long-term sustainability risks.”
➥ https://www.worldbank.org/en/country...elles/overview

See also:
“New World Bank Group Strategy for Seychelles to Focus on Inclusive Growth and Resilience to Climate Change”
➥ https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/pr...and-resilience

[GordMay]

The United Nations, scientists, and governments made an urgent call, on Wednesday, alongside the U.N. COP16 talks on biodiversity, for increased funding, to protect coral reefs, under threat of extinction.

Research, this year, shows that 77% of the world’s reefs are affected by bleaching, mainly due to warming ocean waters, amid human-caused climate change. It's the largest and fourth mass global bleaching on record, since 1999, and is impacting both hemispheres.
The previous record, from the 2014 to 2017 mass bleaching, affected just below 66 percent of the world’s reef area.

While a coral bleaching event does not automatically result in corals’ death, they increase these ecosystems’ vulnerability, to marine disease and starvation, which could, eventually, lead to mortality. The longer corals are bleached, under various stresses, the more difficult it will be for algae to return.

At least 14% of the world’s remaining corals were estimated to have died in the previous two global bleaching events.

“This event is still increasing in spatial extent and we’ve broken the previous record by more than 11% in about half the amount of time,” said NOAA Coral Reef Watch coordinator Derek Manzello. “This could potentially have serious ramifications for the ultimate response of these reefs to these bleaching events.”

After the emergency session, the governments of New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France made new pledges, totaling around $30 million, to the U.N. fund for coral reefs, established in 2020.
By 2030, the fund seeks to leverage up to $3 billion, in public and private finance, to support coral reef conservation efforts. Around $225 million has been raised to date.

Next year, a U.N. ocean conference will take place, in Nice, France, and countries are being urged to pledge more to the U.N. global fund for coral reefs, with the aim of mobilizing an additional $150 million in donations, by the conference.

Scientists had previously projected that coral reefs would cross a tipping point, at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 F) of global warming, whereby up to 90% of reefs would be lost. The latest record bleaching adds to growing evidence that reefs have already passed a point of no return, at just 1.3 C (2.3 F) of warming.

This would have dire implications for ocean health, subsistence fisheries and tourism. Every year, reefs provide about $2.7 trillion in goods and services, according to a 2020 estimate, by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network.

“NOAA confirms 4th global coral bleaching event” ~ NOAA, April 15, 2024
➥ https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/no...leaching-event

[barnakiel]

We will go soon and the reefs, the whole nature, will promptly adjust to our absence.


Or rather semi absence.


Depending on the style in which we go, the reefs will recover or die out. But in the vast scale of the Universe, does that truly matter.


I wonder how often we pause to think that when we watch another 'save the planet' Netflix series, we are actually doing just the opposite ?


Hey hey. I am old and a pessimist.


Will please some smart Z come along and deny my logic ?


barnakiel

[Leadfree]

it is a morally bankrupt stance to take to assert that 'the Earth will recover when humans are extinct.' The Earth may indeed recover, but the species which are lost are lost forever, and they had rights to exist just as much as humans.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

We will go soon and the reefs, the whole nature, will promptly adjust to our absence.
Or rather semi absence.
Depending on the style in which we go, the reefs will recover or die out. But in the vast scale of the Universe, does that truly matter...

As the nihilist said on his death bed, “Here goes nothing.”:
A nihilist, an apathist a world-weary cynic, and an absurdist, walk into a bar.
The bartender says "Sorry, we don't serve minors in here."

[Johan Leopard51]

Originally Posted by GordMay

According to the World Bank:
“Seychelles has Africa's highest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, at $15.8 billion (2022).
Its economy is highly dependent on tourism (31% of GDP and 41% of exports), and fisheries, and climate change poses long-term sustainability risks.”
➥ https://www.worldbank.org/en/country...elles/overview

See also:
“New World Bank Group Strategy for Seychelles to Focus on Inclusive Growth and Resilience to Climate Change”
➥ https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/pr...and-resilience

If I were a benevolent dictator sunning Seychelles I would:

Go Saudi-style on drug industry - it is a problem.

Re-jig the fishing allocation and go high tech on foreign trawlers. Fly over, give 20 minutes warning to abandon ship, then fly over with a Hellfire.

Go enormous on solar and wind and storage. Most Seychelles energy comes from burning heavy oil! It is not just filthy it is prohibitively expensive - as in USD0.5/kWh. They also rely to an extent on desalination, an energy intensive process - so running desalination off solar and wind would be a form of a battery - kills three fish with one spear.

There must also be a way to combine enormous floating barges with solar and grow high intensity fruit & vegatables under the solar. Food is very expensive due to scarcity of flat land - a LOT is flown in. The floating solar food farm can develop coral nurseries in its shade and then move a mile to next spot.