Obituary: Great Barrier Reef
outsideonline.com
outsideonline.com
1000 ppm starts affecting performance from co2 poisoning.
Average for the last decade was ~2.25ppm/y
1000ppm by 2100 is probably not going to happen, but considering the significant lag behind the effects, it's starting to look more and more likely that we will hit 1000ppm at some high point, perhaps in the 22nd century, before it starts going down again.
Regarding the poisoning comment, that's not very accurate. It's true, there is reduced performance at high CO2 levels, but 1000 is probably the lowest bound for the most sensitive people and the effects aren't really noticeable until high teens. You can still function indefinitely at those levels.
"With no force on earth capable of preventing the oceans from continuing to warm and acidify for centuries to come, Veron had no illusions about the future."
I feel you're missing the point of the article. The reality is that the reef effectively has a terminal illness and there's little anyone can do now.
Stage 5. Acceptance.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
For context: Many shelled organisms (cnidarians - corals, brittlestars, sea urchins; molluscs - shellfish) build shells from CaCO3, either as the polymorphs calcite or aragonite. Other options for shell material are silica (SiO2; e.g. some radiolaria, siliceous sponges) or chitin (C8H13O5N; e.g. shells of crustaceans). Animals make their skeletons from hydroxy apatite Ca5(PO4)3(OH).
The unknown for coral is the rate of change of temperature.
[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120401160101.h...
Totally understand that - but the article is written from the point of view that its already dead, which it of course is not, which will cause people to ignore the article. If I was diagnosed with a terminal illness today, I would not write to everyone I know saying I was dead, I would say I was dying.
I guess I'm happy to grant the author a little artistic license to make his point.
I can understand that you might think other people would be misled by the rhetorical structure... but I encourage you to not get upset at imagined misunderstandings on behalf of others. (Not that it's wrong, it's just makes your life a little less happy)
The problem is, global warming is largely an issue _because_ of the "misunderstandings on behalf of others", so in this case, it is a real issue.
It's the other way around. If you tell people the reef is dying, they go en masse, which contributes to the bleaching greatly.
Ranking high on various quality-of-life indices, Australia's government is wise to protect coal's continued role in the economic system of the country. Sadly, drawing too much attention to the association between climate change, the Great Barrier Reef, and Australia's role in perpetuating climate change in its own (front)yard hurts its economic outlook and energy independence, which are valuable attributes in a world with dwindling resources. It's a shame that this maneuvering has to occur at the expense of the Reef.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrier_Reef#Geology_and...
There's also still some establishments that keep the economy and power grid going, but they'll be gone within 50 years if this keeps up. There's also rising economies that don't give a fuck because they're trying to catch up with the rest of the world.
So yeah, I guess I take offense to blaming everyone. I see this "baw humanity sucks" far too much - that's both insulting to yourself (do you suck? are you causing climate change?) and to those that try and make things better for all of us.
From my perspective, on the whole, there are much less people who are providing even part of a solution than there are who are contributing to the problem. The race as a whole has an extremely negative impact on the planet and its co-habiting species. I am extremely indebted to those who have devoted their lives to finding solutions to this problem, but they seem to me very much the minority.
> There's also still some establishments that keep the economy and power grid going, but they'll be gone within 50 years if this keeps up. There's also rising economies that don't give a fuck because they're trying to catch up with the rest of the world.
Yup. Most of the major governments around the world and the largest corporations. Many of the rising economies are in this positing due to the selfishness of the historical actions of the leaders of countries with strong economies.
> So yeah, I guess I take offense to blaming everyone. I see this "baw humanity sucks" far too much..
Well, it think it is the majorities fault at the moment. Yes its not a productive viewpoint, but an accurate one.
> that's both insulting to yourself (do you suck? are you causing climate change?) and to those that try and make things better for all of us.
"suck" is your wording, but yes I am selfish in terms of my environmental impact, much like the average person in any developed nation. I engage in activities which have negative effects on the environment without balancing these effects. From the thousands of people I have met in my life, I cant think of one who has a positive net effect on the environment - hence, people are stupid, including me :p
The UK govt just overruled local govt and forced acceptance of fracking in two locations. To meet the Paris accord that they signed, no new fossil fuel fields can be developed. To meet 1.5C they need to use no more than 1/3 of current fields[1]. Aus just opened a huge new coal field.
In doing that they've probably negated all the recycling and economising of every UK household. That single act makes it hard to see the point of continuing any individual effort. We're not doing enough, we're not going fast enough.
So whilst you and I may not suck, the folks that control the big levers seem to. There will come a point, I know not where - perhaps already passed, but soon(tm), where it's too late. That will be difficult to explain to my children. I'd prefer not to need to.
[1] https://newrepublic.com/article/136987/recalculating-climate...
If you're a tremendously talented athlete on a bad team (think mid-2000's Kobe Bryant), it doesn't matter how well you play. Your team still loses.
You may very well be the global environmental MVP. But for Team Homo Sapiens, it's an L. There's talks though by assistant GM Elon Musk of a possible expansion team on Mars.
Unfortunately this is based on the same logic that says re-writing from scratch is optimal as there's no bugs in code you haven't written yet.
As unhelpful as this may be, I would characterise our current state of knowledge as: we know enough about how our planet works to know that our planet's climate is changing largely due to our activity. We don't know enough to know what we can do that won't have (nasty) unintended consequences.
It makes me sad that I can conclude this but I don't see any evidence that I can't.
Technology that tries to undo climate change without that is what's risky.
aka photosynthesis
This is not a technology problem. It is a political/economic problem. And it can be solved given the will.
[^0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage
A lot of the CCS technologies I've seen focus on carbon-neutral energy generation. But we need to be going carbon-negative even if it costs some (solar/wind) energy.
Problem here being that we grow things with potash, which is derived from fossil fuels afaik.
Hint: Such politicians will not have an R next to their name. Denying climate change is part of their core platform: https://prod-static-ngop-pbl.s3.amazonaws.com/static/home/da...
But I don't think I have ever seen even one from the same crowd that denies that human activity is causing the oceans to become more acidic. I guess they know it's true, but don't want to admit it.