See https://www.kqed.org/science/1357320/scientists-and-fisherme....

"Compared to red urchins ... [purple urchins are] smaller, less meaty and not worth fishing for. And they're voracious eaters of kelp."

https://www.kqed.org/science/1357320/scientists-and-fisherme...

I realize there are plenty of ethical issues surrounding an attempt at genetically modifying an entire species. Perhaps doing so would be irresponsible? It’s not my area of expertise.

Funding especially is an addressable issue; Patagonia, for example, donates to kelp restoration activities in SoCal and would presumably donate to similar efforts in NorCal if asked.

Say we push too far and endanger our species - we're doomed, but the planet will recover just fine. It has plenty times before over billions of years.

I went deep sea fishing in Florida a few months back. It took forever to get to a place where there were actual fish. I asked the captain why, basically, he knows where there are large shipping container wrecks and that is where all the sea life is.

Thing is, building coral and sea life is super simple [same with killing it]. You literally can just lay down wire grids and get things moving [1].

[1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-26/scientists-discover-ga...

That is just simply not true. While it might be helpful to lay down structures for sea life, ocean acidification [1], algal blooms [2], and climate change are all contributing to mass death of sea life, and fast enough where we will see many species go extinct in our lifetime (bluefin tuna will be there soon [3]).

Even related to your own fishing story, check out the fish sizes and diversity in the 1950s compared to now. [4]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algal_bloom

[3] https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/07/060724-blue...

[4] https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2014/02/05/257046530/b...

[1] http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/t4890e/t4890e03.htm

Edit: A couple of extra spaces removed

No. First you need an unpolluted area of ocean with the right conditions. And even then, thinking like yours can create more problems than it solves. Just look how the Osborne artificial reef actually led to an environmental disaster and massive cleanup effort.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/22/florida-retr...

> The tires, which were dumped before recycling was possible, will be trucked across the state to Florida’s west coast and burned for energy at a Wheelebrator Technologies renewable waste plant near Tampa, owned by private equity firm Energy Capital Partners.

We could recycle the tires, but fuck it, let’s burn them instead so this is an unmitigated disaster.

Also, "recycling " tires isn't necessarily green because it takes enormous amounts of energy to shred them. While burning them releases energy.

Objectively, tires that have been underwater for decades probably are not a great raw ingredient for making bouncy surfaces for playgrounds or quiet asphalt.

But incinerating them even with emissions controls really only recovers a little bit of the embodied energy, and still makes me feel all table-flippy.

I'm still trying to figure out what they mean by that. The plant is generating renewable waste? Or it's fed by a 'renewable' source of waste? I don't think tires are a renewable resource.

It only takes a few degrees of temperature more and it seems that the young spores can't settle anymore. Brown algae have evolved to stand cold waters.

To exploit wild seaweed as a resource to feed millions of cows would create a plethora of new problems. Nobody would agree to abonate their meadow or orchard with a product with a high content of salt for example.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/seaweed-farming-and-its-surpris...

The episode even talked about how the increase acidification is really good for growing kelp.

Not really. Kelp grows at 3+ inches a day. Coral <1 inch per year.

Also, the rest of the trophic web that the kelp forms the basis for is hosed. Since they are one of the most productive ecosystems, it's kind of a big deal.

Kelp die-off is a problem, but it's a temporary and addressable problem.

Look... statements like that, don't help any serious arguments for climate change.

To practical-skeptics, you might as well have written "IDK BUT WE BETTER FAVOR SOME COMPANIES WITH TAXES TO BE SAFE" which is a real annoyance of mine.

Esp considering other commenters pretty much ruled out your assumption.

The failure of climate-control laws to get passed should send a clear signal that debate is actually the only place where "climate change is happening" can win.

The sad truth of climate change is that debate is beside the point, it’s pure power dynamics. Massively rich and powerful entrenched interests simply don’t care about debate or consensus, they just want to keep profiting until the bitter end. They’re not really related to the keyboard warriors online who for ideological or psychological reasons want to endlesssly “debate” the issue.

Is that a skeptics' thing? The answer is, water vapour is yet another positive feedback. https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/vapor_warming.htm...

Twenty years ago, maybe. Today it’s like your racist uncle who always wants a “reasonable discussion about immigration” that would make a National Front member blush. You can’t blame the rest of us for figuring out the game and refusing to play.

But actually, California Fish and Wildlife DO know what’s going on:

“Environmental stressors included impacts from a toxic algae bloom off the Sonoma coast in 2011, a widespread sea star disease in 2013 that was followed by an explosion in the sea urchin population, and the warm water conditions that have persisted offshore since 2014. In 2014 and 2015, coastal water temperatures along the West Coast rocketed upwards due to a combination of oceanographic features: the “Warm Blob” in 2014, combined with a strong El Niño that began in 2015.”

https://cdfwmarine.wordpress.com/2016/03/30/perfect-storm-de...

Climate change seems like a religion. “We don’t know why x is happening, so we’ll just say it’s God’s will.” That’s about the most anti-science attitude possible and it’s being embraced by people who purport to care about science. But, in the case of California kelp, we actually do know what is happening and it has nothing to do with long term climatic events — the warm water was due to cyclical ocean activity: La Niña and that combined with a sea star disease and toxic algae caused this problem. And notice, the problem didn’t exist in 2010. So global warming for hundreds of years, but it had little impact on kelp until just magically in 2015 — that was the tipping point for kelp? This is the sort of nonsense that makes me detest the global warming crowd. Clearly global warming isn’t the cause of the California kelp issue, yet, predictably, that issue gets added into the propaganda machine.

Let’s say climate change isn’t the cause of Absolutely Every Natural Phenomenon.. but there are those that would make policy as if it were. A half degree rise in temperature — assuming that is actually true, isn’t going to cause a massive kelp die-off, considering Pacific ocean temperatures fluctuate by far more dramatic amounts routinely due to El Niño/La Niña. The ocean is far more resilient. Pollution is a far more dire danger. Chemical runoff, trash dumping — far more toxic to the ocean than anything else.

But, it easier just to spout “climate change” and the “woke” folks will just nod knowingly, actual causation or proof be damned. And we just continue along the socially acceptable path of blaming capitalism for all the world’s problems without actually doing much to solve anything.

> … due to climate change, or at least warmer ocean water from further South that we've had for the last 5 or more years, has caused the kelp to die off at a rapid rate

Do you know what's normal? Abnormal weather. Exceptional circumstances happen all the time, weather conditions do not follow a bell curve.

I am not at all denying climate change, but you can never point to an event and shout about it. It's a long term statistical trend, not a few coincidental events. It's one variable out of many that cause every weather event.

Warmer water is absolutely not related to climate change when you're talking about small scale short term events.

https://www.nap.edu/catalog/21852/attribution-of-extreme-wea...

I think you got your "not" in the wrong place. No, climate change isn't the only thing, however it can be, along with human caused acidification / pollution.

The fact is this systems are so complex and so integrated that we do not know "absolutely", but we have a good idea.

But hey, if it isn't absolute, lets carry on destroying our planet, we have a backup plan after all... oh wait

It’s neither informative nor helpful to dismiss such individual articles as being non-indicators of global warming because they don’t cover all the other evidence at the same time.

Some of them, like a coin landing perfectly sideways will just go on Youtube. Some of them will end up in the news.

I'm not saying "hey this is definitely due to climate change", but ridiculing the suggestion that an event apparently linked to increased ocean temperatures might have something to do with climate change seems a little off.

You say "...it's not climate change, it's [X,Y and Z]." But you list things that are perfectly consistent w/ dire warnings from consensus scientific community that global warming is _definitely_ real and _probably_ anthropogenic (tho this latter is less important).

Then (paraphrasing), "things have been getting warmer for a long time so it's ridiculous that there was a tipping point in 2015".

And you detest people who don't follow this "logic".

Next we have a half-baked strawman arg about blaming capitalism...

You're right that pollution is a massive problem, but while true it's also (nearly) irrelevant to the question of ocean temp.

I strive to avoid feeding trolls, but posts like this that only look substantial on the surface are even more corrosive and imho worth calling out.