Human impact on the ocean?

[Papa_Bear]

10% Truth 90% propaganda with a total lack of understanding science or nature! So with your glasses half empty why don't you all just kill yourselves and save the planet? So sad! It's about sustainability and nothing else, but to understand you have to get off your backside and see what your talking about! So let the pelting begin!

 

[Air On]

You guys realize one of the BIG ocean impact fixes the enviromentalists are looking at to save the oceans is a complete BAN on Scuba Divers right... Many of them blame divers for long term damage to coral, some more then global warming...

Ethanol won't happen... its too expensive for too little bang for the buck. Its a terrible energy source and takes more petrolium to harvest overall then it replaces.

Everyone should just go back to horses... granted then the Sierra Club will be blaming horse farts on Global warming.

I recall a Farmers alminac back in 1996 predicting a 15 year drought. Well its getting close to the end of that period and this winter was pretty cold Globaly. The actual numbers show we lost this winter alone more heat then was gained in the last century.

We got a lot more rain/snow here in Arizona this winter and its looking like we might have more then enough snow pack this year to keep the lakes at capacity all summer! That hasent happened for a number of years now.

All that aside... Not so distant history. Iceland was a lot more habitable durring the viking period. Even Greenland had a farmable settlement for a span of time... how much warmer we need to get for that to happen again? Not enough human impact to effect things back then...

Then records from the dark ages also point to poor crop periods were seasons didn't grow as well and were too short.

Looking at the middle east a lot has changed over the years, lush regions became blowing sand...

Hot Cold Hot Cold...

With a longer eye on history it almost seems like arrogance and ignorance that we could even make a noticable dent in the global temeratures... Do you realise the amount of energy involved in doing that? Only thing with that much power... is the sun. The proof is there that it has been more active in the last 15 years...

Can we cause damage... Poisons an toxins... sure but in the sceme of things we are less then fleas on a dogs rump... We might get a scratch but we certainly are not going to get the dog to break a sweat or roll over for us.

Don't get me wrong I'm more alt energy farmiliar then many of the experts out there now... seriously, my family was doing solar heating back in the 70s.

Id have wind generation at my house today if the HOA didn't block it. My family homstead in MO has been off the grid and all organic... forever! No plumbing on the place at all, you have to dip your water from the well and use an outhouse if you need to go. The cabin thats on the property was built from recycled lumber! So was the house I grew up in in WA that Dad and I built!

Many modern solutions are worse then the origional issue though, What Do I mean... Look at just solar panels. Know how many chemical by produces and energy you use to make a solar panel? Some of the worse metal comtamination and acids in thr world are from the wafer/electronics process. If the panel is a 10 year break even (most don't last that long) thats not counting the energy to make them or the impact of producing them.

So the sad thing is many of the helpful green ideas people are actually doing are worse then no action at all.

But hey, lets go plant a few geneticaly engineered fir trees that are too rapid growing to have wood thats strong or healthy. Then the bark beetle population will explode because the soft wood makes a great home for them. Then we prevent control burns that would kill the beetles and the trees die making even more fuel for bigger hotter wild fires that kill EVERYTHING and leave the ground steril and unable to support plants... So it rains and washes the ash and other gunk down into the rivers and ocean to poison more things then the petrolium fert. the farmers use...

Green stands for the cash the scam artist are making, not the actual environmental impact.
I like the think blue idea... that makes more sence.

If you disagree... I'll talk to my father for you, he probably can sell you a ton of carbon credits to make you feel better.

 

[seaducer]

I am not sure what all you are getting at, what any of those micro shifts mean to you, but we DO have a growing concern regarding global climate. Yes, there are natural shifts in temperature, but ice core data shows a rapid increase of CO2 levels over the last 150 years, and increase that normally takes 1000's of years.

I'll edit to add some links later...gotta get to work...

Ice Core Extends Climate Record Back 650,000 Years: Scientific American

New Antarctic Ice Core Data

 

[Guba]

I'm not certain where the last couple of posts materialized out of. Yes, I know that global warming is a major concern, but that is only ONE of the impacts affecting the "bigger picture". Nope, I'm not a "tree-hugger", but I do count myself as a scientist who believes in hard data. Therefore, I look at the Pacific gyre and it's millions of pounds of non-degradable plastic and its effect upon the marine life there. I look at the hypoxic zones and their impacts on benthic life forms. I watch the data concerning the marine "take" from fishing, including the millions of pounds of discarded "by-catch", and I wonder about the effects upon open ocean ecology.
Awareness isn't some knee-jerk reaction...it's a step toward understanding what is happening. Advocating that we all become aware of where our oceans are going and what is affecting them isn't a call to rise to arms or start pulling plugs. Promoting education about our oceans is the first step in good stewardship of one of the most important resources on the planet.

 

[on_two_wheels]

Some interesting articles and food for thought! As GUBA stated, education usually enlightens those around us to the reality of what's going on out there. It's up to all of us, as stewards of the oceans, to do what we can to influence changes.
First-ever Global Map Of Total Human Effects On Oceans
Jellyfish Invasion | Popular Science

Carolyn:sharks:

First, let me be clear and say that our impact is vast and bordering on irreversible. That said, the problem with these studies and such are they will have the outcome desired by those funding it. Often why they say, "we established models so we could estimate...."

Between damage to the ocean and rain forest (- 3% per year), this world is going to be like a scifi movie soon!!! We'll all be carting around our own synthetic O2 and/or living in massive bubble covered cities.