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RIP the Great Barrier Reef - It's Dead Jim and we are all responsible

V

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
NPR

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In the past 18 months, Edmondson has watched as two-thirds of the coral along this 400-mile northern stretch of the Great Barrier Reef has turned white and died. Rising ocean temperatures have caused the single greatest loss of coral ever recorded along the reef.
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"I did not expect to see a loss of corals to this extent in my lifetime. This has come sooner than we had hoped," says Terry Hughes, director of the Coral Reef Center at James Cook University in Townsville, along the midsection of the reef.
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"Close to half of the corals on the Great Barrier Reef have died in a period of about 18 months," Hughes says. "This is the new normal."
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its-dead-jim.jpg
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We've seem to have passed the point of no return on some of this due to climate change at a much faster rate than anyone could ever predicted.
 
P

ponpo

( ≖‿≖)
Stories like this are pretty depressing. What are individuals supposed to do besides retweet news stories and say "dam...."? Even voting accordingly does nothing depending on where one lives.

Seems like stories like this will just be the norm until it's well beyond being too late and people form FF7 Avalanche style militant environmental groups.
 
K

kingslunk

Member
I'm glad I got to see it. Glad I picked scuba diving the reef 2-3 years ago over checking out New Zealand. Sad such a beautiful piece of the world is gone :(
 
M

milanbaros

Member?
Before I react can somebody with good knowledge on these things tell me how irreversible/unusual this is?

Is it a one time thing? Dead and done, or is widespread death of the coral a usual process (e.g. forest fires) and climate change has made this particular event worse than normal.
 
S

Sulik2

Member
So many things coming to a head on the planet right now. Ocean temperatures rises and acidification are the two scariest for long term ramifications of life on the planet. Humans are such a failure of a species, sacrifice the planet for capitalism and greed.
 
A

Arials

Member
obijkenobi said:
Relgion is used to justify this with comments like "God gave us the Earth to do as we please"
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Saganator said:
Plenty of religious people believe god gave us fossil fuels for us to use
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So this is about the American Christian right?

It all loops back to profit, if they didn't have a god to believe in they'd just find another way to justify it to themselves for as long as it is profitable.

How About No said:
"Even if we were accidentally destroying the earth God would sort it out anyways"
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This isn't the same as doing it in the name of religion, which was the claim in the comment I quoted. No one is pumping oil out of the ground because a religion told them to.
 
M

Mivey

Member
Look at the bright side.
It makes the movie "Finding nemo" a lot shorter.
Marlin: "Where is Nemo?"
"Oh, he went to the great barrier reef, but died because he couldn't find any food."
Fin.
 
S

Steejee

Member
People give me looks when I say I'm not having kids, add this to the pile of reasons why - both not wanting to bring a kid into this situation, nor to contribute to the situation by adding another resource consumer.

At least when we're all gone it can slowly rebuild itself.
 
MrS

MrS

Banned
I guess we can remove Great from its name now, right?

We will be ashamed of our words and deeds
 
S

Shredderi

Member
Beyond sad and scary. And all for more and more money for people who don't need more of it. For as long as I can remember I have always felt completely powerless in the face of this. Would be great if someone who cared about this got some near omnipotential mutant power and could instantly do something about these things.
 
T

Tigress

Member
obijkenobi said:
Relgion is used to justify this with comments like "God gave us the Earth to do as we please"
Click to expand...

It's stuff like this that makes me wish there was a god so he could yell at them for that he meant for us to take care of the earth and not destroy his creation when he said the earth and animals were ours to take care of and not that we could just destroy it at our whim.

But those fuckers would probably just decide that it was a fake God put there by liberals :/. Even if he sent them to hell ("those evil liberals, god will free us and reign hell on them!").
 
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