Coral Reef Die Off

fishes2889

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It seems pretty grim thought about global warming killing off the coral reefs, but we have to consider that coral reefs have survived under harsher conditions millions of years ago.....

Steve
 

MarvinsReef

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interesting... I hope the corals can acclimate themselves and adjust to sea water temp.. I wonder how plausible that is...
 

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im gonna go ahead and copy paste what i wrote on RC about this.

Humans are responsible for aprox 3.2% of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere anually (from about 5-6 billion tons).. The earth naturally releases 90billion tons of CO2 from our oceans and around 60+ from our vegetation. so around 150-160 billion tons total.

Carbon dioxide makes up only 5-7 percent of all the greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere. The most common, and the gas which absorbs more thermal radiation, is WATER VAPOR, accounting for about 90-95% of ALL GREENHOUSE GASSES...

How, in just over 100 years of industrial revolution, polluting only a miniscule fraction of the carbon dioxide, and an even smaller fraction of total greenhouse gasses, did we cause global warming?

Also
I think global warming is a real event, we just aren't causing it. The earth goes through heating and cooling cycles, it looks like we are at the begining of a warming cycle. Our 5% contribition is probably having little to no effect on the total temperature changes going on.
 

twon8

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im gonna go ahead and copy paste what i wrote on RC about this.

Humans are responsible for aprox 3.2% of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere anually (from about 5-6 billion tons).. The earth naturally releases 90billion tons of CO2 from our oceans and around 60+ from our vegetation. so around 150-160 billion tons total.

Carbon dioxide makes up only 5-7 percent of all the greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere. The most common, and the gas which absorbs more thermal radiation, is WATER VAPOR, accounting for about 90-95% of ALL GREENHOUSE GASSES...

How, in just over 100 years of industrial revolution, polluting only a miniscule fraction of the carbon dioxide, and an even smaller fraction of total greenhouse gasses, did we cause global warming?

Also
I think global warming is a real event, we just aren't causing it. The earth goes through heating and cooling cycles, it looks like we are at the begining of a warming cycle. Our 5% contribition is probably having little to no effect on the total temperature changes going on.

we are not the entire and sole cause of it, but we are certainly piling on the problem and are not part of the solution at the moment. 5% is a significant amount. and plants and vegatation absorb CO2, not release it, and by continuing to cut down forests we are hindering the earth's ability to naturally balance itself out.
 

Voltekker

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In the daytime yes,due to photosynthesis,but every plant also respires & releases carbon dioxide-same reason your PH in the tank will tend to fall at night,as more CO2 than O2 is being released.
 

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Heres somones reply on rc.

"we're at the end of an ice age, this means everything is warming up and ice will melt and the planet will get hot.
after that the planet will cool down, water will freeze and half of the planet will be covered in ice and the people alive at that time will be blamed for global cooling.
it happened before and will happen again, with or without us.
this planet had many events where 30-40% of all life was wiped out, there were events where more then 90% of all life was wiped out, were there once were rainforest are now desserts and were there once where oceans are now mountains and all that without us ever being involved.
this planet is 5 billion years old, life exists for only 500 million years and has gone through some dramatic changes.
a lot more changes within the next 5 billion years will come, with us or (but most likely) without us.
btw, "they" just found that the polar caps on mars are thinning, who's to blame for that ohh, hold on a minute, haven't we send a remote control car over there? here we go."

Easier for me to copy paste :p
 

twon8

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and I find it interesting that a lot of the people who deny global warming are also those who deny an earth older than a few thousand years.
 

Azurel

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Actully at night they do relese CO2 in small amounts. In the latest Discover magazine there was an article about how large forest areas they have discovered that these areas relese methane gas along with O2. They then took a look from space and found that across the world there are large pockets of methane gas over expansive areas of vegitation which they never knew that before.......In the new Coral magizine it has an article about how the oceans (they found out through a study) releses more methane gas then any one specific contributor on the planet. Now we are not being a proper care takers of our world but, the doom and gloom that the secular left like AL Gore are pervaying isn't totally accurate either. Can we do better absolutely, are we as big a contributor as purposed? No, but we ain't helping either.
 
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Voltekker

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Right where not helping. Most people who do not believe the global warming stuff actually believe this blant is billions of years old.
 

twon8

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Actully at night they do relese CO2 in small amounts. In the latest Discover magazine there was an article about how large forest areas they have discovered that these areas relese methane gas along with O2. They then took a look from space and found that across the world there are large pockets of methane gas over expansive areas of vegitation which they never knew that before.......In the new Coral magizine it has an article about how the oceans (they found out through a study) releses more methane gas then any one specific contributor on the planet. Now we are not being a proper care takers of our world but, the doom and gloom that the secular left like AL Gore are pervaying isn't totally accurate either. Can we do better absolutely, are we as big a contributor as purposed? No, but we ain't helping either.

i agree with you here, the truth is somewhere in the middle, and we really don't know enough to be certain either way, but imo we have a responsibility to be over careful with the earth. i saw the thing about methane
 

Azurel

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I just saw a show on NG about global warming.....The leading expert on the subject found thorugh his research that the actual oddity is the last 10,000 years. In the last 10,000 there has been an over all stability in the enviornment which according to polar and glacier ice core samples should not have happened. According to his 15 years study of the ice core samples the earth before the last 10,000 years went threw a signifigant change in weather and had great effects on the enviornment every 10-15 years. So in the end his study showed the the true abnormality is the stability of the evironment that we live in today of which there is no explination for why the Earth became as stable as it has which allowed us to prosper along with every other creature on the planet.
 

gflat65

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I do't think there is any doubt that global warming is a cycle. We have millions of years of cycles that seem to point at that. however, to assume that we as humans don't really add anything to it is absurd. The cycles we know of on global warming are large time frame cycles. Over the last hundred years of industrialization, we have created and added back to the earth millions of tons of waste that would not have come about in nature in the forms we are creating. That is a variable that no one can accurately fill in because there has only been 100 years or so to study it. I got into a nice little argument with one of my favorite people from the SPS forum on this and his stance was, we'll, we're humans and the top of the food chain, so why should we care what we do (paraphrasing, of course). It is a trend and will reverse eventually, but to say that we aren't helping create worse peaks and troughs is an assumption I don't think anyone can make (or the level of that effect at this time). He kept saying 'prove it to me'. I kept saying prove what I say isn't right. It's almost a lose lose argument. We just need to be responsible and take what we need and care for what we disrupt. Being a greedy society and species, that isn't likely... We, as hobbiests, need to all have at least some level of conservationist in us, for the sake of our hobby if nothing else.
 

Azurel

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Think of how much zoanthid corals we have saved from the oveans just on this site...Insignificant probably compared ot the whole industry...But we are a start... What they don't or can't take into account because they really can't or measure is the effect of Volcanic activity, even when a active volcano is dorment it still releses gas into the atmosphere. When MT. Pinatubo blew up in the Philippines it released more dust and gas into the atmosphere then the 100 years of industialization. If you remember correctly it changed the sunsets world wide for 6-7 years because of the dust and gas. We are also apporching a peak in volcanic activity world wide there really is noway to measure that effect on the over all enviornment. Can they really measure the effect of the continuous relese of gases that the Hawiian islands put into the atmoshphere? Or the eefect of Montserrat in the Caribbean? Then you have to measure how does the forest fires effect this along with numorous other factors that have to be accounted for. We do have an effect on the enviornment but, nature has an even bigger effect on itself then we will give it credit for.
 

twon8

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great points, gflat, coralnutz adn azurel; bush's problem lies in rove's attention to the christian right. when they believe the rapture is coming soon what reason to conserve would there be?

its amazing how the words conservative and conservation have diverged so greatly since teddy roosevelt.
 

gflat65

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I agree that nature causes the vast majority of global warming, but if we know we are adding to it and causing a potential escalation, it makes sense to limit those additions to the cycle. I love analogies (especailly when I'm skipping work and have little else to do ;) ). Imagine you've got a bum right shoulder. It's been bad for eight years, so you've learned to deal with it. Over the eight years, you start to find that there are certain things that make the shoulder hurt worse (like throwing a football or working on your car, etc.). You continue to throw footballs and work on your car (because you gotta have fun and be able to get around, right). Slowly, you degrade your right shoulder (you're right handed in this analogy ;) ) to the point that lifting a pitcher of tea out of the fridge, or worse yet, pushing a soap dispenser to wash your hands becomes impossibly painful. At that point, you have continued to allow the shoulder to degrade by continuing the things that you know hurt it, so you have to have surgery. We can't perform surgery on the earth... I'm not saying we need to shut down the world for some R&R, but we do need to be mindful of the fact that we are adding to the equation that already has so many variables. If we can reduce the effect of those variables, it certainly can't hurt anything (well, some big business may be out some money for having to make changes to reduce pollution, but businesses can be rebuilt).
 

gflat65

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Yeah, twon, I thought about the word conservationist and the original parallels to the word conservative when I wrote that. They are seemingly 180 degrees out from one another now.
 

Azurel

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"helped line the pockets of big oil"

Do you know how much of this money is being made over seas? 70% of Mobil profits these last 2-3 years have come from over seas sales that's just Mobil. If is a failicy to think that these oil companies have made thier profits here at home. Do you know that China and India and Taiwan account for 70% of the worlds oil consumption right now? Why? Because there countries are growing at a 20-30% rate right now. There are more industrial equipment being used in China then anywhere on the planet. What you also have to realize is that when a country like China, India, Tiawan become industrial you have to have oil reserves of which neather of these contries have. So thier up take of oil becomes 2-3 fold because they are using more becoming industrial and for security purposes you have to have a reserve. IF you start out with nothing you will consume more. Where do they get this oil from? Anywhere they can get it and from what ever company will sell it to them. It would be foolish for any oil company not to recognize that and not sell it to them just to hold down profits so they don't look like they are gouging. There have been over 13 studies done on oil prices in the last 20 years and not one study(independant or government funded) can show where the oil companies have gouged the price. The problem isn't the President, but those on wall street that at every turn find away to bump the price per barrel....OBl makes a video up goes the price, a bomb goes off in the Indo pacific, up goes the price per barrel....That's the problem then you have mostly Arab countires incontrol of the supply worldwide along with other fruits like Hugo Chavez.
 

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