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Could pumping cold water save coral reefs ?


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The earth has been much warmer than this multiple times in the past to the point we didnt even have ice caps.

I'm against propping up coral reefs because the temperature rise humans have caused is still insignificant. Let evolution take its course to harden that sea life up.

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How Wolves Change Rivers... is a fascinating documentary that shows how nature balances itself rather quickly when humans mingle less in the process and withdrawa their activities from an area.

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I've heard that the general biostasis of coral reefs are, in very large part, dependent on water temperatures.

Much like home gardening can be positively or negatively affected by temperature.

 

Edited by pallidin
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Isn't that sort of thing the opposite of allowing nature to be natural? If the reef can't live then it is time for it to die. This is common throughout time. Heck, the Guadalupe Mountain range in west Texas is actually a fossil reef. I guess if they had been around back then they would have wanted to build a dam around them and pump sea water in to keep it alive. I don't think that is the "natural" way to let nature go. Reef, like all living things, live for a finite period and then die. THAT is just the way it is. No matter WHAT the cause is, the if climate get warmer things have to adapt or die. 

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Parrot fish eat coral....

maybe thats part of the answer?

 

 

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While I agree that's a pretty dumb idea for a variety of reasons, it's probably worth considering the issue a bit more seriously.  Them oceans cover 71% of the earth, and their eco-systems can be rather important to not only our economies (tourism, fishing, etc), but the entire well-being of the planet.  If, for example we had either huge algal die offs or 'blooms', those could spread and be very, very serious for the planet... If you aren't sure why, you probably should read up on marine biology and understand the huge contribution that the oceans and denizens make to our atmosphere and the planet in general...

Yes, nature can indeed be self correcting.  It isn't always, however.  When you look at the entire eco-system of the sea and the food 'webs' that exist where various species are dependent on others, there may be 'substitutes' that can move in to occupy new niches, and 'small' changes may have almost zero effect, or they may equally have very large and serious outcomes.    Handwaving about "she'll be right" and letting politicians make the decisions based on things like the economic benefits of coal mining in that region, combined with very loose controls that allow pollution to add to the reef problems, and then thinking that an ocean cooling system would work...?  Maybe not such great thinking.

 

It's like the old saying - at some point we may (will?) discover that we can't eat, drink or breathe all that money..

Maybe now's a good time to have a good long think about why there isn't life on Mars.  And the Moon, Venus ... ...

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How would one go about regulating such a process so that it didn't cause shock to the system.

Any who have tended even a small fresh water fish tank will know the incredible impact of temperature shifts on live fish, let alone the impact of temperature shifts on far more sensitive coral in salt water conditions.

Really curious what mechanism they could be considering that would introduce the temperature shift gradually and evenly enough to not cause shock and further harm. 

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On 4/11/2017 at 1:04 PM, DanL said:

Isn't that sort of thing the opposite of allowing nature to be natural? If the reef can't live then it is time for it to die. This is common throughout time. Heck, the Guadalupe Mountain range in west Texas is actually a fossil reef. I guess if they had been around back then they would have wanted to build a dam around them and pump sea water in to keep it alive. I don't think that is the "natural" way to let nature go. Reef, like all living things, live for a finite period and then die. THAT is just the way it is. No matter WHAT the cause is, the if climate get warmer things have to adapt or die. 

While I don't disagree entirely with your premise, there are more than 7 billion people alive today who rely pretty heavily on the existing food chain. The demise of the reefs are a weather vane pointing to a potential system collapse. Humans will no doubt survive as a species, but we may be setting ourselves up for a rough couple of decades (centuries?) in the not-too-distant future. The good news is we may well have staved off the next ice age for at least a few more centuries.

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I understand what you mean about the cost of a major change in our biosphere but...

Imagine a person standing in the middle the left side of a two lane country road. That person is looking down the road and sees a BIG truck coming fast straight towards him. Soon about all he can see is the front of that truck. It is getting CLOSE and is blocking out almost every thing that he can see as far as down the road that he is standing in the middle of. SUDDENLY he realizes what is about to happen so in a rush he proposes that they put big mirrors on the side of the road positioned so that even when the truck is inches away he will be able to see around it. 

Most of those of us standing on the side of the road can't understand why he doesn't get the heck out of the road. The rest rush to put up mirrors so he can see. In the end the truck indeed will probably run right over the man. The point is that he was so focused on looking down the road that he forgot that he was on the road and needed to see what else was on the road with him!! 

Reefs come and go. The temperature rises and falls. The ice advances and retreats. Entire species are wiped out; sometimes entire biospheres go down. We need to stop focusing so totally on looking into the distant future and start deciding what WE need to do. Mankind, if it is to survive, needs to do one of two things. He can either stay in the middle of the road and adapt (Jump really high or lay down really flat!} or get out of the middle of the road! 

In the end if we stay on this one planet we are eventually going to get wiped out as a species. That is just the way it is. There are just too many totally natural things that can and WILL eventually happen and if we are here only when they happen we will be extinct. If we are going to stay here only then we need to change ourselves and prepare for the forthcoming disasters by becoming a lot less specialized. Adaptability will be our only hope. We need to reduce the population by 75% to 90% and decentralize our population centers. Make primitive survival techniques a common knowledge base. Move some parts of our population to the less friendly parts of our planet. Coastal areas are bad in almost any situation. At this time most of the biggest cities in the world are in coastal areas and often also in the most seismically active places. That is the truck on the road! 

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Coral vomit.  
 

Quote

 

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Just now, seeder said:

Coral vomit.  
 

 

Wow that was cool to see and informative. Thanks.

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