Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (169855)	8/25/2005 1:57:43 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Respond to of 281500

Not worse than other places, if you consider Cozumel for example, but hell of a lot more frightening since they are so important to our ecosystem. Here are some research reports, not that anyone listens. Feel free to google the topic. Australia's Great Barrier Reef said threatened by rising sea temperature MIKE CORDER, Associated Press Writer Sunday, February 22, 2004 A new report warns that rising ocean temperatures will kill most of the coral on the Great Barrier Reef by 2050, an official said Sunday. The report by Queensland University's Center for Marine Studies said the Pacific Ocean is getting too warm too fast for the survival of the world's largest chain of living coral. ... "Coral cover will decrease to less than 5 percent on most reefs by the middle of the century, under even the most favorable assumptions," said the study, excerpts of which were published in the weekend edition of The Sydney Morning Herald. "There is little to no evidence that corals can adapt fast enough to match even the lower projected temperature rise," it said. ____________________________ And from nova.edu Abstract IS IT TIME TO GIVE UP? Robert W. Buddemeier Kansas Geological Survey, University of Kansas buddrw@kgs.ukans.edu The world’s coral reefs show rapid decline as a result of environmental change. Coral reef communities and organisms are stressed, potentially mortally, by (a) rising temperature, (b) rising atmospheric/surface ocean CO2 levels, (c) rising human populations, and (d) local aspects of climate change other than temperature. Further increase in all of these stressors is certain; the future rates and magnitudes of items a-c can be estimated with confidence to be substantially greater than changes in the recent past. A recent NOAA press release stated, "…bleaching and die-off was unprecedented in 1998 in geographic extent, depth, and severity…In some parts of the Indian Ocean, mortality is as high as 90 percent." On the basis of this information, it is logical to conclude that coral reefs are doomed -- probably within the next few decades. We face the ethical and practical dilemma common in human medicine: when to discontinue heroic life-support measures for a terminally ill patient. With limited funds available for all conservation and research, the answer must be: sooner rather than later. It is time for comprehensive, objective assessment of the prospects for the global coral reef ecosystem, and of the feasibility of effective human intervention. The assessment must be scientifically rigorous and external to the "coral reef community." A multi-disciplinary NAS panel, or its international equivalent, is appropriate. Funding agencies should facilitate the assessment by shifting resources from reactive "body count" monitoring and research to studies of survival, adaptation, and acclimatization, with various scales and perspectives.