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Two years after a 35-year plan to save Australia's Great Barrier Reef was released, the country is being told that it is failing to meet the targets:
The United Nations cultural heritage body UNESCO urged Australia on Saturday to accelerate efforts to save the Great Barrier Reef, saying long term targets to improve its health were unlikely to be met.
Progress towards achieving water quality targets has been slow, and Australia was at risk of falling short of its 2050 goals, UNESCO warned in a draft assessment of world heritage sites prepared ahead of a meeting in Krakow, Poland, in July.
"The World Heritage Centre and IUCN consider that the implementation of the Plan will need to accelerate to ensure that the intermediate and long-term targets of 2050 LTSP (Long-Term Sustainability Plan) are being met, in particular regarding water quality," the report said.
Australia's Reef 2050 Plan was released in 2015 and is a key part of the government's bid to prevent the World Heritage Site being placed on the United Nation's "in danger" list.
Also at The Guardian.
Meanwhile, experts have called for a new approach to coral reef conservation in the "Anthropocene":
In a paper [DOI: 10.1038/nature22901] [DX] out Wednesday in the journal Nature, more than a dozen experts from around the world say that coral reefs are likely to undergo major changes as a result of continued climate change and other human activities, like fishing. But while future coral ecosystems might look a lot different than they do today, from the species they contain to the places they live, they aren't necessarily doomed. In fact, accepting this transition and helping them through it might be the best — and even only way — to save them.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Tuesday June 06 2017, @12:32PM (2 children)
Acidification is a theory tossed out by the climate-panic crowd, because dissolving CO2 in water changes the pH. You'll find articles showing the shells of molluscs dissolving in seawater, but if you read the fine print, these articles make some drastic assumptions. Funny, how there were molluscs millions of years ago, when there was massively more CO2 in the atmosphere that there is today.
Realistically, there are three potential issues with the Great Barrier Reef:
- Coral bleaching. This happens when the coral organisms are under some sort of stress, and can be reversed if the stress is removed. There are a lot of different potential causes: warmer water, colder water, disease, changes in sunlight - basically, any sort of sudden environmental change. It's something that happens naturally, but not normally on the scale that has happened the past couple of years.
- Coral disease. Coral is subject to various diseases; these come and go in waves, just as do diseases for other species.
- Starfish and other predators. Various critters like starfish, parrot fish, and other critters eat the coral. Currently, the starfish population around the GBR is apparently booming.
The climate-panic crowd is eager to lay the current problems at the feet of global warming. It's worth noting, though, that other groups have other drums to beat: The reef is dying because of sediment runoff from mining. The reef is dying because of pesticides from agriculture. The reef is dying because dredging is disturbing currents and stirring up sediment. The reef is tying because of pollution.
The point is: There are rarely any simple answers. Likely, the reef's current problems are a combination of various factors. But a complicated answer makes for lousy click-bait headlines.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday June 06 2017, @09:44PM
Irrelevant. Organisms adapt and evolve. The truth is that climate change and pollution are not critical problems for organisms, as long as they have sufficient time to adapt or perish. Same for human beings. At some point this planet is going to heat up. A lot. Natural progression of our sun will make the Earth uninhabitable sooner than later. IIRC, as a planet we are at least middle aged.
Acidification of the ocean is a fact, and not really tied to global warming or climate change. Meaning, we can discuss it entirely separate from climate change, and just discuss it as pollution alone. Science tells us that we can't release that much CO2 without altering the chemical makeup of our air and oceans. It's just fucking duh that the CO2 will dissolve into the ocean, and that we will get warmer. Plants will be really happy, but a lot of other things won't.
It's the rate of change that is the problem. People will continue to be stupid and think that our actions couldn't possible affect a planet this big, but that is the Big-Planet-Delusion that most people have. Possibly compounded by the God-Will-Take-Care-Of-It crowd.
We're responsible for the reef being bleached and dying. Period. The question is what do we do about it. The answer most likely, since money and power speak louder than morality, compassion, and empathy, is that we will continue at even faster rates than before.
The tombstone for Earth will read: Died from disease. The disease of money.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday June 07 2017, @12:57AM
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian-Triassic_extinction_event#Marine_organisms [wikipedia.org]