This is very depressing
- Thread starter Grajan
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nkw5
Contributor
This report was very depressing. I just feel lucky that I have seen some beautiful, healthy coral. Let's hope we can turn things around!
zeN||
Guest
Hard to believe the decline in our oceans Z
The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
of coping with a lot. I just hope it's not too much.
The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
that I feel man can just do as he pleases here. Neither am I so arrogant to think that we have the final say about what specie survives. What seems as fact today, may become quaint fiction tomorrow. The life force is so strong that few really comprehend it. The coelecanth is a perfect example of this.
Sadly, humans have proven to be essentially crisis managers- and then only when the crisis is so obvious that most people feel directly threatened. When there are NO more fish that can be eaten then finally the fishermen will agree to limits. When there are NO more reef fish we will ban slurp-gunning for aquariums. When there is NO more water to be drunk then we will shut off the supply to golf courses. When the ecosystem/ food supply chain finally collapses to the point where more than just folks in faraway countries suffer from hunger then we will finally agree on rational methods to control our own population. After all the irrational methods are done first of course. We also might look to an economic system that is not so wholly dependent on relentless growth. Think about biological systems as models for this.
Our brains ( collectively) are not good at responding with action to slow trends. There is always that nagging doubt about whether something is necessary. if history is any judge we will continue to do nothing until the decision to do something is removed from us and we will be forced to take actions which will be almost unthinkably expensive- and not in just monetary terms. Think about what happens when the new middle class in China in 2080 finds that the rice crop has failed for two years running...
Perversely we will hear of isolated cases where someone took action and a problem was solved. We will assume that someone else is solving OUR problems- when in fact the trend is unchanged. These isolated "good" things are used to somehow "excuse" lack of local action.
I am constantly amazed at how people feel that their personal decisions are wholly disconnected from the overall status of our world ecosystem.
What is so sickeningly funny is that the problems today are tractable and could be addressed without resorting to high tech or very high costs. The people of 2080 will look back at this time with the same incomprehension as we do at the time of Columbus and the atrocities that were committed then for gold- a pretty yellow metal. Our "decision making" will seem folly of the most idiotic kind.
We divers need to realize that WE are part of the problem. We bring our fancy toys into places that are in general wholly incapable of supporting large transient populations. Yes there is water and food for us but we scarcely dare imagine where the sewage goes. Or where the sewage from all the workers( drawn by the promise of a life fed by tourist dollars) that came to that slice of paradise is going. We should be prepared to pay a price to protect what we love. If you were a hiker and saw that the waste from the town you visited was strewn over the trails you would be incensed- action would HAPPEN. As it is, with our insistence that "dilution is the solution for pollution" the ocean will suffer until the degradation is nearly complete.
WE should INSIST that the facilities we go to make the utmost effort to reduce their load on the environment and WE should demand that of ourselves. The Caribbean has essentially NO real industry- it is ALL tourism ( and a bit of agriculture) that creates and can possibly solve this problem. For once we have some leverage. The PADI's of the world should realize that the demise of these reefs is essentially THEIR demise. With the survival instinct engaged who knows what might happen....
If you believe that article we have maybe ten years to make a dent.
Our brains ( collectively) are not good at responding with action to slow trends. There is always that nagging doubt about whether something is necessary. if history is any judge we will continue to do nothing until the decision to do something is removed from us and we will be forced to take actions which will be almost unthinkably expensive- and not in just monetary terms. Think about what happens when the new middle class in China in 2080 finds that the rice crop has failed for two years running...
Perversely we will hear of isolated cases where someone took action and a problem was solved. We will assume that someone else is solving OUR problems- when in fact the trend is unchanged. These isolated "good" things are used to somehow "excuse" lack of local action.
I am constantly amazed at how people feel that their personal decisions are wholly disconnected from the overall status of our world ecosystem.
What is so sickeningly funny is that the problems today are tractable and could be addressed without resorting to high tech or very high costs. The people of 2080 will look back at this time with the same incomprehension as we do at the time of Columbus and the atrocities that were committed then for gold- a pretty yellow metal. Our "decision making" will seem folly of the most idiotic kind.
We divers need to realize that WE are part of the problem. We bring our fancy toys into places that are in general wholly incapable of supporting large transient populations. Yes there is water and food for us but we scarcely dare imagine where the sewage goes. Or where the sewage from all the workers( drawn by the promise of a life fed by tourist dollars) that came to that slice of paradise is going. We should be prepared to pay a price to protect what we love. If you were a hiker and saw that the waste from the town you visited was strewn over the trails you would be incensed- action would HAPPEN. As it is, with our insistence that "dilution is the solution for pollution" the ocean will suffer until the degradation is nearly complete.
WE should INSIST that the facilities we go to make the utmost effort to reduce their load on the environment and WE should demand that of ourselves. The Caribbean has essentially NO real industry- it is ALL tourism ( and a bit of agriculture) that creates and can possibly solve this problem. For once we have some leverage. The PADI's of the world should realize that the demise of these reefs is essentially THEIR demise. With the survival instinct engaged who knows what might happen....
If you believe that article we have maybe ten years to make a dent.
On a June 2003 trip to the Bahamas, I found some very disturbing evidence of diseased and dying reefs in the Exumas and Cat Island.
dead and dying Reefs in the Bahamas.....
http://216.89.226.179/bahamareefs/
This Website is not finished yet, I have some video to add of reefs off Highborn Cay! The reefs off Highbourn Cay are also in bad shape!!
African Dust - Major factor in the demise of reef of the Atlanic?? This video is worth viewing
http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/african_dust/documentary/hi-res.html
http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/african_dust/gallery.html
dead and dying Reefs in the Bahamas.....
http://216.89.226.179/bahamareefs/
This Website is not finished yet, I have some video to add of reefs off Highborn Cay! The reefs off Highbourn Cay are also in bad shape!!
African Dust - Major factor in the demise of reef of the Atlanic?? This video is worth viewing
http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/african_dust/documentary/hi-res.html
http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/african_dust/gallery.html
The only positive suggestion to keep the Reefs of the Caribbean for dying that I have seen lately is the reestablishment of the long-spined sea urchin!
Check out
http://www.fknms.nos.noaa.gov/research_monitoring/reports/diadema/diadema.html
Techniques development for the reestablishment of the long-spined sea urchin, Diadema antillarum, on two small patch reefs in the upper Florida Keys
Check out
http://www.fknms.nos.noaa.gov/research_monitoring/reports/diadema/diadema.html
Techniques development for the reestablishment of the long-spined sea urchin, Diadema antillarum, on two small patch reefs in the upper Florida Keys
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