Posted on 11/14/2002 4:52:21 AM PST by anniegetyourgun
"Camel's Nose in the Tent" seems more appropriate these days.
The goal is noble, however, Gubbermint at federal, state, and local levels is notorious for land grabbing to protect The Environment For The Children (tm).
For that reason alone, this designation worries me. 'Pod
"Our coral reefs are in crisis," Bodman said. "Around the world, nearly 27 percent of our reefs are already gone. And if this alarming trend persists, another two-thirds will be lost within the next 30 years. Simply dropping an anchor with its cables, chains and other attendant equipment can cause severe and permanent damage."
Annie, while I've got no problem with the decision to place certain reef areas off limits to commercial vessels and other activities, the GOP is not going to do themselves any favors with buereacratic boneheads, like Deputy Commerce Secretary Sam Bodman, making wild, Chicken Little comments like the one above.
I'm in the aquarium industry, and know a thing or two about corals.
Full disclosure: Unscrupulous individuals in other countries (particularly the Phillipines and Indonesia) have certainly damaged reefs while collecting specimens for the aquarium trade. It's in the interests of the industry, and Los Angeles is at the center of Indo-Pacific importation, to discourage such practices as best we can. I can tell you, without going into details, that considerable effort is expended in that regard, though we have a long way to go.
All that said, the idea that reefs can be "permanently damaged" is ludicrous. Given sunlight and clean water, reefs will regenerate. Tropical storms often do enormous damage to coral reefs, and have done so for hundreds of millions of years. Yet we still have reefs. Storms are to coral reefs as lighting-strike wildfires are to forests. As forests naturally regenerate, so do reefs regenerate.
Corals can propagate like weeds. Artificial reefs grow on every well-lit ship or plane wreck in the tropics. Broken corals don't necessarily die, as corals are colonial animals which can reproduce both sexually and by fragmentation.
I'm not saying that reefs don't need reasonable protections and stewardship, but BS notions like "permanent damage" and "nearly 27 percent of our reefs are already gone... another two-thirds will be lost within the next 30 years," are going to come back and bite us later if we allow them to go unchallenged, just as deforestation alarmism has for the past two decades.
BTW, I'll bet the statistics just quoted rely on projections based on El Nino-related coral "bleaching," which has falsely been attributed to the Global Warming Hoax.
Pinging the science list, as I thought this might interest some of you.
See #27, above.
Thanks for the ping
If we don't reign in the rhetoric, it could be. Certainly, reasonable regulations on pollution, overfishing, aquarium collection, anchorage, etc., are not out of line.
But alarmist screechings about "vanishing coral reefs" ought to be considered in this context:
Sessile coelenterates (corals) have survived ice ages, changing sea levels, and the Cretaceous extinction.
I'm sure there will be no problem. GeoBushSenior likes to go bone fishing north of the Keys. He's makes a trip most winters with some of his sons and their families.
Yes. We were west of Key West toward the Dry Tortugas. There were some breathtaking coral formations. When I was there it was legal to take Lobster (there was a size minimum), and we got quite a few. Not sure if it is still legal to take them, or if they are seasonal.
'COURSE not...they've been yelling for so long about how George Bush is going to destroy our environment that they don't DARE say much about it. The best they can hope for is that no one will hear about this.
Thanks posting this. BUMP!!
There were many pictures shown of whitening coral, etc.
Is this a true phenomenon? 'Pod
They've freaked me out to the point where I trust nothing they do anymore.
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