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A comment on Scientists record biggest ever coral die-off on Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

Re:Scientists record biggest ever coral die-off on Australia... by oska on Thursday December 01, 2016 @12:07AM (#13077313)
If you'd told Australians in the 70s and 80s that the Great Barrier Reef would suffer catastrophic impacts in 40 years time and the government would both deny and ignore it, they would have been shocked and in disbelief. Australia was a different country then. The level of climate change denialism and the severe fixation on ‘houses and holes’ (property speculation and mining) is hard to believe if you haven't lived here. The change in political culture started taking hold around the year 2000.
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Re:Scientists record biggest ever coral die-off on Australia... by danieltrembath on Thursday December 01, 2016 @12:18AM (#13077354)
I'm not entirely disagreeing with you, but I'm Australian and I was around in the '80s, and there were warnings for the barrier reef then too (in the context of greenhouse effect, and also CFCs and crown of thorns).

Sadly for your casual climate denier they interpret this as 'meh, they've been saying the reef will die for years, and it's still here'.

I don't agree with that thinking, and I understand that the threats then are a mix of the same and different ones now. But the '80s were no more enlightened on the matter than now.

Don't mind me. The older I get the more I grump at people's perceptions of the past ;)

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Re:Scientists record biggest ever coral die-off on Australia... by s_kilk on Thursday December 01, 2016 @08:06AM (#13079080)
> would have been shocked and in disbelief

Not directly related to your point, but I feel people are just constantly shocked and in disbelief about a whole bunch of things, and all that shock and disbelief amounts to practically nothing in the end.

People will stand there slack-jawed as the steam-roller barrels toward them. "Oh this is shocking", "I can't believe this is happening".

Incredulity is not a useful thought-pattern.

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Re:Scientists record biggest ever coral die-off on Australia... by ehnto on Thursday December 01, 2016 @02:33AM (#13077855)
My anecdotal response is that it's not denial that is the problem, but ignorance and indifference.

No one in my social circle talks about it. It might be on the news, but no one I know watches the news anymore either.

I am going to be honest and say outside of this particular HN post and a guy in a mall some months ago, I have not once been exposed to it.

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Re:Scientists record biggest ever coral die-off on Australia... by prawn on Thursday December 01, 2016 @08:20AM (#13079143)
I don't think it's as much ignorance as it is a specific reaction and pushback. I imagine we've all got someone in our social circle who pushes back against "political correctness gone made", or the green agenda or whatever else. Oddly, it's very rarely against the big end of town. Maybe that's because wealth is still something that almost everyone aspires to?

If not that, a feeling of helplessness? You can cut down on beef, but you can hardly convince everyone or stop industry lobbying against the environment.

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Re:Scientists record biggest ever coral die-off on Australia... by iamgopal on Thursday December 01, 2016 @12:40AM (#13077434)
What "Only Australians" could have done to avoid this ?
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Re:Scientists record biggest ever coral die-off on Australia... by aplummer on Thursday December 01, 2016 @12:55AM (#13077499)
The majority of the damage to the reef is actually crown of thorns, and runoff from dredging / mining operations - not climate change. Definitely not building a port could have helped.
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Re:Scientists record biggest ever coral die-off on Australia... by Tempest1981 on Thursday December 01, 2016 @01:30AM (#13077623)
I was curious, and found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown-of-thorns_starfish#Ecolo...

They are 25-30 cm starfish with up to 21 arms, and they damage the reefs. It does say that "warmer sea temperatures enhance larvae development", with this reference: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep08402

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Re:Scientists record biggest ever coral die-off on Australia... by cromulent on Thursday December 01, 2016 @02:35AM (#13077863)
This was interesting too:

"An autonomous starfish-killing robot called COTSBot has been developed and as of September 2015 was close to being ready for trials on the Great Barrier Reef.[84] The COTSbot, which has a neural net-aided vision system, is designed to seek out crown-of-thorns starfish and give them a lethal injection of bile salts."

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Re:Scientists record biggest ever coral die-off on Australia... by Tempest1981 on Thursday December 01, 2016 @01:35AM (#13077642)
More on dredging: https://fightforthereef.org.au/risks/dredging/

Also an issue in Florida: http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2016/06/17/from-miami-t...

"Florida is home to the U.S.’s only living barrier reef and world’s third-largest coral reef system"

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Re:Scientists record biggest ever coral die-off on Australia... by ra on Thursday December 01, 2016 @08:07AM (#13079082)
I'm not sure about that. CoT has been a problem for a long time. Silt is a problem close to shore, but the extent of bleaching in recent years is unprecedented in terms of sheer area of decimation: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-29/reef-great-barrier-ree...
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Re:Scientists record biggest ever coral die-off on Australia... by andrewwhartion on Thursday December 01, 2016 @05:47AM (#13078552)
Fertilizer run off from agriculture (mainly sugar cane farming) is also a huge problem [1]. Not sure if they're actually getting any better with this or not...

[1] https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/agriculture/sustainable-f...

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Re:Scientists record biggest ever coral die-off on Australia... by sqldba on Thursday December 01, 2016 @01:03AM (#13077534)
It pisses me off.

I bet those mongrels and everyone else rich have gone to visit it. But me? Now that I am old enough to have money to visit it it's gone.

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Re:Scientists record biggest ever coral die-off on Australia... by underbluewaters on Thursday December 01, 2016 @11:46AM (#13080779)
Go to the southern reefs. Heron Island for example. They are still in good shape and just as impressive as the northern reefs. Don't miss your chance.

https://twitter.com/ProfTerryHughes/status/72251222306772172...

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