The daily life of corals is a constant battle against erosion. The reef builders patch up holes in their shells, left by nibbling sea creatures, using a mineral called calcium carbonate. To keep up with repairs, corals in the wild usually require three times as much of the mineral as sheltered corals grown in laboratories.
Before the industrial revolution, says Ken Caldeira of Stanford University, 98% of all corals lived in waters above the required calcium carbonate threshold.
But the situation is changing, according to Caldeira, who has built a model to study how greenhouse gas emissions tinker with the chemistry of open water oceans.
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Oceans are becoming saturated with Co2 and corals are suffering for it. This is important because corals play a very important role in the health of our oceans, which in turn plays a very important role in the health of the web of life in our oceans, which then plays a vital role in our own health. Mitigating carbon emissions is now key: how many times does it have to be said?
The impasse between what politicians in this country want and what this world now needs is vast and bringing dangerous consequences to us. We can no longer afford to ignore scientific warnings regarding the deterioration of our oceans, and we cannot wait until politicians see it as politically expedient to do something or until we have passed the point of no return.
Besides carbon mitigation and freezing emissions, I believe we need a major global tree planting initiative to be undertaken. Planting trees in areas of great deforestation can help to return many of the carbon sinks that have been lost to us from illegal logging practices and overconsumption. This would then hopefully help to balance the amount of Co2 in the atmosphere instead of most of it being soaked up by oceans. This is a human made catastrophe and only humans can reverse it. Hopefully, it is not too late.
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- JanforGore
- added this
- added September 06, 2008
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...Humans are the largest emitters of CO2....Humans are behind all of the problems facing Earth....this is just a recommendation from a Moustache.....please do not be offended.....everyone should pair up in twos....just like Noahs Ark.....each bring one coin....decide a heads and tails....flip two out of three....winner kills the loser.....no hard feelings....world population is divided in half in one day......if you have better ideas....please let them be known.......just leave Moustaches out of this...it is not our fault.....Golden Ruler.....Richard...
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- HITLERS_MOUSTACHE
- 4 months ago
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Sustainable Reefs: A Gift for the Future
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- JanforGore
- 4 months ago
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Along with rising temperatures the coral reefs and oceans also have to deal with chemical and nitrogen rich rivers dumping into them worldwide. This causes giant algae blooms which wreak havoc on the ecosystem.
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"Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are rising at an alarming rate, and new research indicates that soybean plant defenses go down as CO2 goes up. Elevated CO2 impairs a key component of the plant’s defenses against leaf-eating insects, according to the report.
Leaves grown under high CO2 lose a vital defense pathway, said plant biology professor and department head Evan DeLucia, an author on the new study."High Co2 levels affecting other plants.
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Sometimes I wish humanity would have a global near death experience. An event that would cause us to change on a dime. The business as usual attitude is not going to be sufficient if we are to fix these problems for the next generation.
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there are none so blind as those who cannot see.
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schobiz: yes, agreed. Seems we humans need that in order to wake the hell up to what is really important.
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- JanforGore
- 4 months ago
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we're all gonna die.
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Eventually, yes. But until then, don't you think we can find better things to do with our lives than being defeatist? This is of course a very bad situation, but it is one of our own making. If we truly love this planet and wish to save it and ourselves all it takes is the will to do it.
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- JanforGore
- 4 months ago
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There is nothing defeatist about being a realist....but it seems that most humans are deafitist....not listening or caring about what is happening.....we are all racing through the Universe on a ball of fire....if that upsets people....and scares them it is very understandable.....humans will be annihilated.....so will most of the life on this planet....it is not a matter of if...only when......and it has happened a myriad amount of times in the past...oil.....it is a beautiful cosmic dance...but that does not mean you should not enjoy and protect the beauty of this planet......we must have solutions......the first part of solution is ...Sol.....that is the place to start.......Golden Ruler...Richard
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- HITLERS_MOUSTACHE
- 4 months ago
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Shobiz is unfortunatly right. We humans never really react unless something catastrophic happens.
American citizens need to lead the world again by interacting with the world, volunteering instead of just throwing a dime into some charity to make them feel good. As a young person I can tell you that generally we want feel bad about situations but are hardly informed about anything. Schools need to work better to inform students about global issues, news organizations need to focus more on global issues also. Parents need to talk to their kids about global issues, not just "sex ed".
Anyways, kinda rambling on. But I think our whole problem boils down to not being informed.
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planting trees is an excellent idea!
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- shroomfairy
- 4 months ago
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The Republicans have endorsed gasoline instead of carbon-neutral biofuels in their platform. Drill and kill is their motto. This includes cellulosic biofuels. More CO2 to come.
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Humans are too small a part of Co2 to create this. There is nothing humans can do about this. This is created by the sun spots and animals and leaves create more Co2 then humans.
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- rockstarmillionaire
- 4 months ago
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rockstarmillionaire: And who is cutting down all the trees that are contributing in a large part to the concentration of Co2 in our atmosphere that is then in turn absorbed by the oceans? Knomes and fairies? Give me a break already. If you don't want to do anything then sit on the sidelines and spout ignorance and not accept responsibilty. You are now in the minority.
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- JanforGore
- 4 months ago
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It amazes me to see some of the responses......I do not know who is counting cows or humans....or which one emits the most obnoxious gases....I do know that if any other animal on this planet was running the show....it would be an improvement......Golden Ruler...Richard........
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JanforGore: it doesn't matter who is cutting down the trees if the trees are causing the co2. If you're just going to cause problems and don't want to read any contrary data then don't have your myths subsidized and make the rest of us pay for it. You go and talk to the sun about having too many sunspots and let the rest of us work on the environment where we can. and here's some reading for you to do in the meantime.
http://current.com/items/89139646_the_mystery_of_global_warming_s_missing_heat
http://current.com/items/89139655_proved_there_is_no_climate_crisisYou're forgetting the basic foundation of being able to test whether global warming is manmade. the theory says that if global warming is caused bygreenhouse gases (which c02 from man is less than 1% of) then the troposphere (which greenhouses are in the middle of 10-12 kil up from surface) should warm more
rapidly than the surface. John Christy, whom won a
NASA medal of Scientific Achievement in 1991, an award
from the American Meteorology Society for advancing
the ability to monitor climate, was a lead authoer on
the UN's Climate Change (IPCC) said there are two ways
to take temperature. One from satellite and the other
weather balloon. A weather balloon has proven this
theory isn't happening.-
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- rockstarmillionaire
- 4 months ago
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Trees take in Carbon Dioxide.....give off Oxygen....they are your best friends and they do not care if you are intelligent or not......leaf....... them out of this argument.....Golden Ruler....Richard
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- HITLERS_MOUSTACHE
- 4 months ago
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i strongly believe that the earth shall have a near death experience which shall be a huge wake up call for all of us. it's really sad that when people die and animals get displaced i hope we can take it.
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The human races has utter and totally destroyed the earth and technology(at its current stage) can not live with nature in harmony,Ask anyone between the two most will say nature but most are not willing to give up
technology for the earth.we live in manner of "live fast,die young"but are not the ones dying,sometimes I just wish the human race would just die out(or better yet never existed) "in the book the earth the human race appears in the last sentence" there is a reason that we are the last
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- UnDeAdPoPe
- 4 months ago
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Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting the results to change.
