Is the ocean broken?

like

 

There is much that is new. And it will continue for another generation, or three. This is a very slow-moving train wreck. We humans don't handle problems very well that require the cooperation of many people from all over the world.

Yes, that does seem ridiculous.

Understandably, the less-developed countries would like to bring up their standard of living to developed-world levels. Maybe we can develop cleaner technologies that we can share with poorer countries, so that they don't have to rely cheap coal.

References, please. Don't be like Yob and make wild statements with no supporting evidence.

Main sources of carbon dioxide emissions


Source: Le Quéré, C. et al. (2013). The global carbon budget 1959-2011.



Source: CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion (2012), International Energy Agency.


Source: IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

 

Freshwater fish are in "catastrophic" decline with one-third facing extinction, report finds

• New research shows that one-third of all freshwater fish now face extinction
  
• "Nowhere is the world's nature crisis more acute than in our rivers, lakes and wetlands...They are the aquatic version of the canary in the coal mine..."
• Migratory species have dropped by more than three-quarters in the last 50 years
• Larger species, known as "megafish," have declined by a "catastrophic" 94%
  
• Threats include habitat destruction, hydropower dams, over-abstraction of water for irrigation, various types of pollution, overfishing, the introduction of invasive species and climate change

The report was coordinated by the World Wildlife Fund.

 

Over fishing? And CO2 is a good gas increases growth of plants. Greenhouses intentionally maintain much higher concentrations of CO2 inside. There is no scientific proof CO2 affects climate. It's only a panic narrative for the doomsayers vying for control.

 

Ditto.

 

Again, you added nothing new and I would like to agree with you, but then I would be wrong like you are.

 

We do have high tech solutions, they're called reactors, but everybody is scared out of their wits to use them.
However the biggest obstacle to the use of any type of "higher tech" solutions in 3rd. world nations is the lack of, (for want of a better term,) "brain power" to safely operate and maintain much of anything beyond a diesel generator.
Its not a secret, look at a world IQ map, and the massive scale of corruption at all levels.
The smart people leave those countries as fast as they can to go to 1st.>2nd. world countries to make the bucks.
The UN sends in aid, (overwhelming from US taxpayers,) and 90% of it goes to graft, kickbacks, and bribes,, nobody in their right mind wants to invest in such a scenario,, (except China, and they extract payment for sure).
We also have a situation in that ~80% of the people born on the planet live in that belt/swath, from Africa to China that I spoke of earlier,, the long term scenario for those areas is only getting worse.
And this is the part that few will admit to; better than 1/2 of the population of the world is busily cutting down every tree, bush, weed, and plant that they can find in order to make charcoal to burn for heating and cooking, or to clear for farmland.
It would actually be better for ecology if we could furnish fossil fuels to these people,, and clean water.

 

Right on.

 

Definitely get everyone clean water.

You are also implying that they wouldn't be cutting down their forests of they had fossil fuels to heat and cook with? Remember, you also said they were clearing for farmland. Fossil fuel availability would only increase their need to clear more land by making it easier and cheaper to work larger farms.

When I was in high school, 40 plus years ago (over 2 generations) it was reported that we were cutting down our rain forests at a rate of a football field every 2 seconds.
Twenty years later, I heard the same statistic quoted again. In twenty years, we hadn't gotten any more efficient at cutting down rainforests.

Currently:
As reported in the Guardian (Football pitch-sized area of tropical rainforest lost every six seconds https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/02/football-pitch-area-tropical-rainforest-lost-every-six-seconds) "The amount of pristine tropical rainforest lost across the globe increased last year, as the equivalent of a football pitch disappeared every six seconds, a satellite-based analysis has found."

As reported by the BBC ('Football pitch' of Amazon forest lost every minute https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/science-environment-48827490)
"An area of Amazon rainforest roughly the size of a football pitch is now being cleared every single minute, according to satellite data.
The rate of losses has accelerated as Brazil's new right-wing president favours development over conservation."

Conservation.org (Deforestation: 11 facts you need to know https://www.conservation.org/stories/11-deforestation-facts-you-need-to-know) reports:
"Every single minute
About 36 football fields’ worth of trees are lost every minute due to deforestation."

Funny how the later is the only one still using that old number while the former two sources, even though they don't agree with each other, both report an increase in the rate of loss, yet the reported rate is significantly lower than the one I heard 40 years ago.

"Despite their immense value, since the 1960s, nearly half of the world’s rainforests have been lost." - Conservation.org

About 20 years ago, a university math professor and I did a rough calculation based upon the football field every 2 seconds number. We estimated the amount of rainforest based upon a calculation of the surface area of the Earth, pulling out the the size of the tropics by latitude minus 80% for water, cutting that in half to be conservative, since we had no idea how much of the tropics is actually covered in rainforest and came up with a scenario of cataclysmic loss of rainforest in approximately 500 years. This, we figured, gave humanity plenty of time to develop the technology to find and develop another planet(s) to plunder. So don't worry about the rainforest.

The fishing, now I'm worried about that, because the cycles of shifting subterranean magma inside the entire planet are causing the magnetic poles to shift, volcanoes to blow, tectonic plates to move, el Niño and la Niña to warm up and undermining the ice sheets. All leading to a warming of the arctic waters that are killing cold water fish while over fishing is ruining the fishing in the warmer regions. Grouper and snapper are going deeper to find cooler water, leaving slim fishing in the depths above 100 feet.

Let's put a stop to the irresponsible commercial fishing and open it back up for us sportsmen. We are not the ones who created this problem, but we sure have to pay for it while commercial fishing fleets get bigger. Perhaps if we raised more cows, sheep, pigs and chickens, you know, made our farms bigger, instead of eating fish.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

^ Will, you make some good points.
Up here in the PNW the salmon fishing is pretty bad, unless you can go offshore,, but the causes can partially be laid at the feet of political issues that we can't discuss.
It does seem, (I can't claim precise knowledge,) that the populations that rely heavily on fish for their diets are those who have little suitable land area for the raising of cattle, etc.
The issues of "wood" bother me,, as a boatwright and guitar player, I wonder about the nice species of hardwoods that are getting harder to find, (at least at reasonable prices).
Some areas that are being denuded of good quality woods many times lack the infrastructure to transport the timber to market, and this is a loss-loss situation for everybody.
Whilst their are now laws/regulations, covering the burning of rainforest(s), their is a problem with "poaching", so to speak of timber.
Ah yes,, the fond memories of Indian Rosewood, and real Burma Teak,, and the heavy/dense Mahogany from SA.

 

Hmm. More land animals you say ?

Cows. "According to one report, an estimated 70 percent of deforestation in the Amazon basin can be attributed to cattle ranching."
Jan 2021:
"Lumpy skin disease: The deadly pandemic that has taken root among India’s bovines
in recent years, the disease has spread to territories beyond the endemic areas. In 2015, it made an incursion into the European part of Turkey and Greece.

The next year, it created havoc in the Balkan and Caucasian countries and Russia. However, since its arrival in Bangladesh in July 2019, LSD is spreading across Asia in epidemic proportions.

According to a risk assessment report by FAO, the disease spread to seven countries till the end of 2020 — reaching China and India in August 2019, Nepal in June 2020, Taiwan in July 2020, Bhutan and Vietnam in October 2020 and Hong Kong in November 2020.

At least 23 countries in south Asia, east Asia and southeast Asia are now at risk of LSD, which is emerging as a trans-boundary animal disease, it says."

Pigs
USA Feb 2021:
"On 13 January, 2021, a child under 18 years of age in Wisconsin developed respiratory disease.Sequencing of the virus by CDC revealed it is similar to A (H3N2) viruses circulating in swine in the mid-western United States during 2019-2020. "

China July 2020
"In their influenza virus surveillance of pigs from 2011 to 2018, the researchers found what they called "a recently emerged genotype 4 (G4) reassortant Eurasian avian-like (EA) H1N1 virus. In their paper, they call the virus G4 EA H1N1. It has been ticking over since 2013 and became the majority swine H1N1 virus in China in 2018.""


Chickens : Russia Feb 2021
"A H5N8 strain of bird flu has been detected in humans for the first time, among seven workers who were infected at a Russian poultry plant in December."

Europe Feb 2021
" Egg prices rising in some areas of EU as bird flu wipes out laying hens
Around 5 million birds have already been culled in Poland, the European Union’s largest poultry producer"

Australia: Aug 2020 :
"Tens of thousands of chickens and an untold number of emus will be euthanized as Victoria battles multiple bird flu outbreaks.

Key points:
Six Victorian farms are dealing with bird flu outbreaks, which could result in a $23m loss for an ASX-listed company
One of the impacted farms is home to 8,000 emus, some of which will have to be euthanized
Containment zones have been established, and farmers nearby are growing increasingly nervous for their flocks
A strain of the virus was first detected at a free-range egg farm in Lethbridge, north-west of Geelong, in late July.

As of this week, infected birds – including emus, turkeys and chickens – have been found in six poultry farms."


It looks like Fish aren't the only ones in trouble.

 

The 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse may soon come to a town near you.
Free admission to the show.
Don't worry about the price of popcorn because there probably won't be any.

 

I agree, we need to pursue nuclear much more vigorously, while also expanding solar and wind. They complement each other well.

Solar and wind farms can be operated at a much lower level of competence than a nuclear reactor.

Sadly, we in the west are not immune to graft and corruption either. We've just had 4 years of incompetence and corruption. France's Sarkozy was just sentenced to jail for one year for corruption. Italy's Berlusconi and Israel's Netanyahu should also be in jail. And the list goes on...

If they have affordable clean electricity they can cook, heat, and purify water with it. Much better than coal or oil.

 

I'm expecting Yob (or even yourself) to sneer over the use of the word "may".

 

Climate change will continue to widen gaps in food security, new study finds

• Researchers assessed global yields for 18 of the most farmed crops—wheat, maize, soybeans, rice, barley, sugar beet, cassava, cotton, groundnuts, millet, oats, potatoes, pulses, rapeseed, rye, sorghum, sunflower and sweet potatoes—representing 70 percent of global crop area and 65 percent of global caloric intake
  
• The researchers investigated temperature variations, but didn't examine precipitation patterns or other weather phenomena like flood or drought
• Their statistical models yielded oddly symmetrical results: they predicted that countries with already high yield for a crop will, on average, benefit from a 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature while countries that currently struggle with that same crop will struggle even more with their yield
  
• Generally the countries with low existing productivity also expected a high negative impact of climate change...these happen to be mostly non-developed countries
  
• Countries adversely affected were typically found in sub-Saharan Africa, and certain countries in South America and South Asia

The study was published in Nature Food