Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

Yes, unfortunately this comes at no surprise. Scientists have been predicting such an event for years. People hear it all the time, but I don't really think most grasp the gravity of the whole situation. It is a sad day when our world is bereft of animals that have existed in such a form as to be successful for hundreds of millions of years. I believe such habitats are on the brink of an extinction at this point.

I agree. They've also been trying to warn about global warming for years, but people tend to think these warnings are from environmental extremists. It amazes me that we refuse to see something until it's too late to change.
But I think the same is true for anything natural, really...from rainforests to reefs to ...the air.

I'm not a pessimist....but a realist.

Well I think that we are definitely at fault but in the same instance I think we will recover. Mother nature has a way of adapting and hopefully sooner than later corals will adapt. Look at the corals at the geothermal vents, that is some hot ass sulfur ridden water.

Don't get the intent of this message wrong I hate to hear about stuff like this as much as anyone one else. Besides being a aquarium nut I am an avid diver and mourn the day I can no longer see these reefs in the wild.
But I take comfort in the fact that nature is tenacious. If the reefs die off they leave an opening that will be filled by something else. The seas are warming up now but, during the ice ages think how they must have cooled off. The last ice age, known as the mini ice age because it only lasted a few hundred years, only ended about 200 years ago. The seas recovered. 99.999% of all the species that have ever walked the earth are extinct. Things go extinct others things rise up to take their place. life on earth is unstoppable. If we nuked the earth until it was a smoking black rock. in a couple of million years it would be covered in life that evolved from the few bacteria that we weren't able to get.
The death of a reef is a sad, sad thing. We should do everything in our power to stop their destruction. If they do we can still enjoy the pieces of them that we preserve in our tanks and just imagine what will come next to take their place.

This sounds like an evolution speach

and i have to agree with it. When we are long gone and the waters are still warming you will see reefs pushing farther up the east coast and in the gulf that you don't see now. Just like when there was ice down to the gulf.

Well we all have our opinions.

not an evolution speech at all. I design control systems for a living. I write programs to control machines. Some times it is extremely difficult to even a simple system to perform the way it is supposed to. This is why I am completely amazed at a system that can respond and even thrive no matter what conditions you throw at it. Whether it evolved or it was designed to be this way, its adaptability is amazing. No matter how bad we beat it up it will come back, sometimes in surprising new ways. Theology has no place in this forum, so please do not think I am on some soapbox about some deep philosophical subject. I am just a guy talking about reefs.

The reefs will survive, just evolve like everything else. Case in point.



On a serious note, life seems to find a way to survive. Look at the thermal vents, this goes to show life can adjust to anywhere. Fish and corals existing where the water is toxic to other life, the heat of the water kills other life. There again these creatures have to live in these surrounding or will die.

http://www.firstscience.com/site/articles/darklife.asp

Now back to the reef thing, yes the sea is changing, getting really hot out there. Our climate is indeed changing and probably our fault. The more the media brings it to our attention the more likely we will take more action. New cars are being developed and since there is money to be made in electric/hybrid cars they will make it and will probably end up cheaper than the gas counterparts. Things do not change overnight, gas will be here for a long time. As we give up our gas cars, others will drive them until they end up in the junk yards. Regulations will have to be passed to make them more expensive to drive, to ween people off the gas cars. Kind of like cigarretes. Tax the hell out of them to make people quit.

casey wrote:Well we all have our opinions.

And that is what the forums are for. Not one should slam the next guy, everyone has there opinion. Opinions should be heard even if not everyone agrees. I like a good discussion as much as the next guy, even encourage it here.

Life will take hold again--not necessarily as we recognize it, though. When the reefs are gone, there will be something there to take their place. All the species that perish as a result--there will be more that can take their place. Species that don't rely as heavily on the reefs will thrive and something new will take hold. I don't think we will see it in any of our lifetimes, but it will be there, as it has been for quite a long time.

Hopefully something even more interesting as the reefs still hold secrets we have not unlocked. Too be we will not see what is evolves into.

Snoop... that is so unfair to Yoda.

Snoop... that is so unfair to Yoda

I have to agree with Drew.

DannieH42 made a very valid point and I appreciate the positive thinking of all of you. I agree to this fact as well. Nature has a way of filling in the empty spaces. However, I think there will come a time when the damage outweighs the ability to recover. Not in our lifetimes, but....

For some reason, my biggest issue with all of this is the necessity to admit some personal responsibility that we, as humans, have in the acceleration of the damage. Not a blame game, we all certainly benefit from the things that caused this in the first place. Some of it certainly was a natural process, but......

Most people would be happy to support research into better energy methods, but until we demand it the companies and the government will keep pushing these ideas under the rug. They have been for years. Now they're starting to see the support for biodeisels and other fuels as well as vehicles. These ideas have been around for a long time, and I think we all know what happened to them.

We also have to be willing to change. Sooner or later, we're going to have to be willing to give up a few things, even driving smaller cars. We're going to have to make a concious effort to stop being a throw away, must have it all society. It's not all up to the big companies, it needs to be everyone doing even a small bit. I know it sounds kind of cheesy, but it's true. We, in this country as a whole, are a very wasteful people. We just need to recognize that and try to rectify it.

For the record....I'm not a pessimist. I consider myself a realist.

Here is an article I stumbled across that I think fits the discussion.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220