Whether it’s war, rape, storms, depression, etc., there’s almost nothing that doesn’t get blamed on CO2 nowadays.
One of the favorites in the climate blame-game is the alleged dying off of coral reefs due to global warming from man-made CO2..
But that is turning out to be false, too. The online Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes today that climate change is not responsible for the dying off of the Caribbean coral reefs after all, citing a new report by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The IUCN writes (emphasis added):
Climate change has long been thought to be the main culprit in coral degradation. While it does pose a serious threat by making oceans more acidic and causing coral bleaching, the report shows that the loss of parrotfish and sea urchin – the area’s two main grazers – has, in fact, been the key driver of coral decline in the region. An unidentified disease led to a mass mortality of the sea urchin in 1983 and extreme fishing throughout the 20th century has brought the parrotfish population to the brink of extinction in some regions. The loss of these species breaks the delicate balance of coral ecosystems and allows algae, on which they feed, to smother the reefs. […]
‘Even if we could somehow make climate change disappear tomorrow, these reefs would continue their decline,’ says Jeremy Jackson, lead author of the report and IUCN’s senior advisor on coral reefs.”
Surprise. Another climate myth gets debunked.
Climate change: “an excuse for doing nothing”
Next is a nice video featuring the report’s lead author Jeremy Jackson who explains the significance of the report. He makes a surprising comment on climate change.
At the 3.48 mark, Jackson states:
There’s nothing in my report, except the realization that climate change hadn’t been as severe as we feared so far, that’s new. The fact and the thing about climate change is that it is an excuse for doing nothing. You know if it’s all those goddamn gringos in the north that made things bad, then I don’t have to do my job.”
He’s right. What Jackson hopefully realizes is that with just a fraction of the money that is spent on the bogus problem of climate, it would likely be enough to solve all the Caribbean coral reef problems.
Also read here at WUWT.
Looks like FAZ is on a roll now that Schmiermacher – oops, Schirrmeier’s dead. Maybe they try to become a non-leftist paper again. Or maybe they don’t have a new controller for now.
“Climate change . . . does pose a serious threat by making oceans more acidic and causing coral bleaching, ”
This doesn’t make a lot of sense – it sounds like a standard refrain to remain a member of the climate team.
Good analysis John.
Unfortunately the Green response is to BAN fishing in all it’s forms – saving it for our Grandchildren they say – for what, so THEY can NOT fish as well???
As an Angler who has fished some spots on the great Barrier Reef, I am acutely aware that Recreational Anglers are part of any solution, rather than being the problem. Yet Greens RAIL at us.
Thanks, Pierre, well spotted. I’ve said for many years that killing parrotfish is a major cause of reef dieoff … see my post called “Floating Islands” for details. Ahhh, vindication is sweet …
w.
PS—First word should be “Whether”, not “Weather”.
Egads, left off the link …
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/27/floating-islands/
w.
Oh dear! Fixed.
Your assignment: Write an article in which these four words occur.
Lego, Shell, Greenpeace, Climate Change.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/07/04/Religious-fundamentalist-Greenpeace-tries-to-take-the-fun-out-of-Lego
Makes you wonder, when will Western idiots actually be ashamed of admitting they’re members of Greenpeace.
You put a bunch of idiots together in one room, and they quickly amplify each other’s idiocy.
[…] Caribbean Coral Reef Die-Off Not Caused By Climate Change After All […]
[…] Coral Reef Die-Off Not Caused By Climate Change After All, Expert Report Writes! – See more at: Caribbean Coral Reef Die-Off Not Caused By Climate Change After All, Expert Report Writes! One of the favorites in the climate blame-game is the alleged dying off of coral reefs due to […]
The ICUN stated “While it does pose a serious threat by making oceans more acidic and causing coral bleaching…”
Why would ICUN say ‘…making oceans more acidic’ when it should say ‘making oceans less alkaline’? The answer is ICUN is trying to maintain political correctness.
The oceans are alkaline not acidic. ICUN implies the oceans are already acidic. So where does ICUN suggest the sea is acidic? I would love to know.
Mervin, this is just pure semantics. To say something is getting ‘more acidic’ is the equivalent of describing something as ‘getting warmer’. Your subject doesn’t have to be warm already to become warmer – it could be cold! In the same way, seawater doesn’t have to be acidic to become ‘more acidic’ – as you rightly pointed out, seawater is actually very slightly basic (alkaline). However, it is not incorrect to say that it is becoming more acidic/less alkaline.
I think the scientific community have adopted the term ‘ocean acidification’ to try and simplify the concept for general readership – just like this badly written article has tried to simplify Jackson’s report on the status of Caribbean reefs. Since you clearly value accuracy over mass simplification, might I refer you to the actual report (you can download it here: http://gcrmn.org/gcrmn-publication/status-and-trends-of-caribbean-coral-reefs-1970-2012/)- then you can read it yourself and make up your own mind!
Also its the IUCN, not the ‘ICUN’.
I think the claim that the ocean is getting more acidic from more carbon at a time it is releasing CO2 into the air because it is (supposedly) warmer makes no sense. During the ice ages the oceans had absorbed far more CO2 from the atmosphere. I also seriously doubt the ocean is homogeneous, and so you can always find one location that is doing one thing, and another location that is doing the opposite. The data available from the ocean are just far too scant to make any conclusions.
Chemistry books define pH 7 as neutral, i.e. not acidic/not alkaline. Anything above 7 is alkaline, and so one cannot say it is becoming more acidic when we see movement in the alkaline range. An analogy with temperature is erroneous. We cannot say it is getting snowier because the temperature has moved from 8.00°C to 7.95°C. The choice of the term “acid” is dubious, and very likely has to do with the enhanced dramatism effect.
Personally, I vote for the phrase “Neutralising the ocean”
[…] bring this story up to the present, over at his excellent NoTricksZone website, Pierre Gosselin points out a press release from the International Union of Concerned Scientists (IUCN) entitled From despair […]
[…] Caribbean Coral Reef Die-Off Not Caused By Climate Change After All, Expert Report Writes! […]
[…] Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung quotes a statement from the organisation (translated by NoTricksZone), which […]
[…] Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung quotes a statement from the organisation (translated by NoTricksZone), which […]
[…] never caused warming Coral Reefs are Not Endangered Due to Global Warming ? News of Interest.TV Caribbean Coral Reef Die-Off Not Caused By Climate Change After All, Expert Report Writes! C3: ? Are Coral Reefs […]