Report: Coral reefs dying off

Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | 08/15/2003 | Mike Toner

[cogitator]

Read this any way you want to, but it may be a lot tougher to find Nemo in a couple of decades.

[Orion78]

Executive Order 13089. June 11, 1998 (PDF)

Was searching through a EO database and saw your post and this EO. I haven't read it.

[ChemistCat]

I believe this is true, but I also believe that the causes are far more complex than they CAN say--and that it WILL bounce back. The temperatures on this planet have fluctuated more, and over time spans far greater than our residence here. Kill off 90% of something, and the 10% that is left will prove capable of surviving and expanding again in the new conditions.

We have to remember that it does take a long time to make tigers...or coral reefs.

We are not the most responsible stewards a planet could have, that's for sure. You don't have to be an ecofreak to see that. However, the liberal ecofreaks want to see it as a black-and-white issue, with humans always at fault and always a problem. That's nonsense.

[JoeSixPack1]

Back in the 70's, in North Fort Lauderdale area, while doing 4 dives a week off the beach and teaching SCUBA, we would joke about how our local reef was slowly making it's way to fish tanks in Ohio (just phraseology, not picking on Ohio), 1 piece of coral at a time. Every tourist that had a seabag and a snorkel took something.

Now that coral reef is completely gone. Even the sand has flattened out.

I don't know about global warming, but I do know what a claw hammer will do to a mound of braincoral in the hands of a once-a-year tourist that wants a trophy.

[cogitator]

The EO just covers U.S. waters, but it's a start. It helped protect some of the reefs in the northern Hawaiian/Midway islands.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[Cold Heat]

Sound like the same thing I heard from Cousteau about 25 years ago. Same fears, same stats, same causes.

[Indrid Cold]

" In a separate report Thursday, scientists linked the mysterious decline of corals in Indonesia's Mentawai Islands in 1997 to massive wildfires that ravaged the region's tropical forests that year. Soot from the fires triggered a red tide outbreak, which in turn, suffocated the reefs. "

Umm, so Mother Nature had a wildfire which led to a red tide, which suffocated the reef. Why is this the fault of humans?

[johniegrad]

Pollution, overfishing and climate change

The Holy EnviroTrinity.

[Prodigal Son]

, but I do know what a claw hammer will do to a mound of braincoral in the hands of a once-a-year tourist that wants a trophy.

I've never understood why people do that. I rarely touch anything when I dive and when I do, I try to keep my contact minimal if it is on the coral (one finger, for example to keep a little surge of current from bashing me into the reef for example). Sometimes it's impossible of course, but I have never even considered smashing the coral to get a souvenir. I take my camera. All my souvenirs either come as photos or memories (later translated to dreams of being underwater in my sleep). I just can't get my mind around people intentionally busting up the reef for a paperweight or trophy. It's there living anytime you want to see it...

[cogitator]

Same fears, same stats, same causes.

I think we know more now, and the causes are more severe now.

This is an EXCELLENT article; if you're interested, I hope you will enjoy reading it, even though the title is a bit overblown:

Chilling prognosis from the deep: Our Oceans are Dying

The exchange with Congressman Dante Fascell (about 3/4 of the way down) is highly illuminating.

[joesnuffy]

The Club of Rome has a plan that will fix this...eventually

[KEVLAR]

These days the reef aquarium hobby is supplied in large part by corals grown in captivity.

[Rebelbase]

I followed the email log of a couple who sailed around the world in a 37' Ketch between 2000-2003. They spoke of visiting one Island off of Indonesia where the locals fish by dropping dynamite onto the reef and collecting the floating fish, with no clue they are destroying the very habitat that provides their food.

[Blood of Tyrants]

What they "forgot" to mention is that a very powerful hurricane in the late '80s badly damaged a lot of the the Jamaican reefs.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Humans? Hell, it was George Bush's fault! Everything else is.

[dion]

I wish there were more divers like you. It seems like everytime I go diving there the divers get worse. It used to be that one or two in the group would have "hangies" (i.e. let their gauges hang down and drag on the coral), on my last trip about half of the people did and there were a few divers who seemed to have no feeling in their legs below the knees because they just plowed right through any coral or sea fans that happened to come in contact with their lower legs or fins. Its a good thing they couldn't hear what I was saying to them through my regulator. I think scuba diving has gotten too popular and as a result is drawing in people who only like to be able to say they are "divers" and get lots of cool gear and don't really care about the ocean or its creatures.

[cogitator]

What they "forgot" to mention is that a very powerful hurricane in the late '80s badly damaged a lot of the the Jamaican reefs.

Hurricanes happen, and reefs get damaged, but if they reefs are healthy, they have less damage and they recover quickly. There are some rapidly growing corals like staghorn that take the brunt of hurricane wave damage by breaking up. If the staghorn is gone, then other corals get hit instead. (Jamaica is a mess anyway; it's probably the most poverty-stricken island country in the Caribbean after Haiti.)

[FierceDraka]

One thing the greenies seem to conveniently forget when issuing their screeching screeds, and that's that species come and species go. And that goes for entire orders, families, and even phyla.

If the corals go out, something else will come along to fill that ecological niche.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

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