Bleaching? What bleaching?
Australian politicians pretend all is well with the Great Barrier Reef. Keep the tourist dollars coming and pretend
that being a major coal exporter doesn’t harm the environment.
Key habitats showed
“severe declines in abundance and condition”, populations of species such as
sharks, rays and dugongs were falling and water quality was declining. Hardly a
glowing endorsement of what Hunt says is the “best-managed marine ecosystem in
the world”.
Terry Hughes, a
professor at James Cook University and convenor of the National Coral Bleaching
Taskforce, says: “Water quality is important, but only for the bottom
two-thirds of the reef. The part that’s bleached to blazes was the most
pristine part with no coastal development – that’s the part Australia used to
argue to the UN that the whole reef should be kept off the danger list. Now
it’s wrecked – from Port Douglas to New Guinea.”
Hughes says there’s a
mismatch between Australia’s support for coalmining, the country’s endorsement
of a UN target to keep warming “well below 2C” and apparent concern for the
reef.
“Clearly if only 1C of
warming is enough for three bleaching events then we are kidding ourselves if
we think 2C is safe,” says Hughes.
The US
talkshow queen Ellen DeGeneres is bewildered her call to protect the Great
Barrier Reef has sparked a backlash in Australia.
DeGeneres
made headlines earlier in the week with the release of a video public service
announcement as part of the Remember the Reef campaign.
The comedian
was criticised by Nine Network’s Today Show co-host Karl Stefanovic and
bombarded with five tweets from the environment minister, Greg Hunt.
Solar Powered Atlantic Crossing
The aptly named Solar
Voyager is attempting to cross the Atlantic Ocean from Massachusetts, USA, to
Portugal, powered solely by the sun, in a 3000 km autonomous journey expected
to take about 4 months.
The Solar Voyager
measures more than 4 meters long and about one meter wide, and employs a custom
propulsion and electronics system, including a satellite-enabled tracking and
data transmission component that allows the team to monitor its operation and progress.
Texas Politicians Are Stupid – People Die
In Texas they pretend climate change isn’t real, but the
rivers still flood.
Texas and France have a number of things in
common. They’re roughly the same size. They were both republics. They have
delectable, widely loved cuisines. And, just last week, both were battered by
torrential rains and flooding turbocharged by human-made global warming.
What’s different between them? Plenty, to be
sure, but given that the recent deluge is the topic du jour, what’s most
interesting are the diametrically opposite views French and Lone Star state
officials hold about the climate change connection. For the French, it’s “Mais
oui, bien sûr!” But as far as the Texans are concerned, “It just ain’t
happenin’.”
More Anti-Zoo Propaganda
This is another load of crap from the anti-zoo crowd.
This time aimed at aquariums. Who
do these clowns think does the research and manages diversity for endangered
species. What a load of crap.
Aquariums can, of course, be centres for
conservation and research. But there is a special issue when we take children
to visit them. We are setting an example of how we think we should live, and
this might be done only by ignoring what’s in front of us, lying just beneath
the surface.
By taking children to these places, we are
communicating to them indirectly that it is acceptable to confine non-human
animals to small tanks that dramatically restrict their movement, and derive
pleasure from gawking at them.
Economic Value Drives Extinction Risk
The study shows underappreciated risk to marine species
similar to that of iconic terrestrial species, but elevated by key differences
in the sea. "We typically assume that if a species is reduced to low
numbers, individuals will be hard to find, hunters will stop hunting, and
populations will be given a chance to recover," said Loren McClenachan of
Colby College in the US. "But the extreme values of these species mean
that without significant conservation intervention, they will be hunted to
extinction," said McClenachan.
McClenachan, along with Andrew Cooper and Nicholas Dulvy
from Simon Fraser University in Canada, identified a taxonomically diverse
group of more than 100 large marine and terrestrial species that are targeted
for international luxury markets. They estimated the value of these species
across three points of sale and explored the relationships among extinction
risk, value and body size. They also quantified the effects of two mitigating
factors: poaching fines and geographic range size. The analysis showed a
threshold above which economic value is the key driver of extinction risk.
No comments:
Post a Comment