miskairal

Today at abc news Australia

"Scientists hold grave fears for Great Barrier Reef"
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200601/s1559317.htm

terry

Pick up a copy of "Coral reef adventure" DVD.

If you don't feel like crying at the state of the reef's within 5 mins of
starting watching.......

wayne sallee

It said 5% dammage. That's not a grave percentage.
I wonder if the damaged areas are in areas where the coral
diversity is high, or low.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets
Wayne@WaynesPets.com

miskairal

Terry - I don't think I could

Wayne - I thought that too about the 5% but this time it could be 10%
which would make a total of 15% and next time....
I remember as a child all the worry about the crown of thorns starfish
destroying some of the reef and then more recently the runoff creating
too many nutrients. All adds up. I would be ashamed as an Australian if
the Great Barrier Reef were to die off b/c of something we could have
prevented.

Hello Miskairal,

In my view 1 % is a complete disgrace, never mind Wayne saying 5 % is
"not a grave percentage". Each small amount destroyed will take years
to recover, if it ever does. Obviously there will be climatic effects
over a period, but what we now see in the Polar regions suggests that
the changes are permanent, and accelerating each year. Meanwhile,
politicians sit on their fat arses, living very well at the taxpayers' expense, debating .......


It won't be Australia's nor Australians fault if it happens, the
effect of global-warming is created by all the world's citizens (with
some being more guilty than others !) Regards, Fishnut.

miskairal

Now people here are complaining about the eyesores created by windfarms
generating electicity. Sometimes I'd just love to ring a few necks! I go
to cities now and smell the fumes from the cars and none of the city
dwellers can smell it - they think I'm weird.


True but there are still things Aussie's can stop doing to help prevent
it. I still wonder if global warming would be occurring without humans
here but that still doesn't excuse the damage we are doing. Yes, I like
electricity and I like driving my car but they (scientists and
governments) can still provide cleaner ways of using both. Oh and lets
not forget how they try to blame it on the cows farting! You can't tell
me that the discoloured skyline over every city I travel too isn't
worse. China's boom is a worry as I doubt they will control much of
anything and just have sooooooooo many people.

pszemol

Being an eyesore is not the only con of the windfarms.
They are not a perfert way to produce electricity either.
And the influence of high intensity infrasounds generated
by windfarms are discussed in places like Holland, where
windmills are very popular already...
Same goes for water dams, ethanol powered cars etc.
You can make a long list of pros and cons for each...
There is not such thing as clean energy source, period.

wayne sallee

Some loss of reef areas is completely natural.

One example, is how after a reef dies, it gets covered in
algae, then the algae grazers come in, and take care of
that, and then coral polyps and othe creaters come in and
start repopulating the area, and then you have a *very
diverse* reef. As time goes on, some corals start winning
over other corals, and eventualy you have a reef that is
prdominately one species of coral, then it gets some
diseas, and a large area is wiped out, and the process
starts all over again.

In our reef tanks, if we did not trim our corals, our reef
tank would become nothing but one coral taking up the
entire tank, and a lot of dead skeleton underneat the
shaded growth of the one coral. Not only that, but that
one coral taking over the entire reef tank, would
eventualy die because it would reach the surface of the
water and try to keep growing.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets
Wayne@WaynesPets.com

Yes, point taken, but wind and wave power generation do not leave a
residue unlike coal, oil, & nuclear fuels. On balance, I think that
they should be promoted wherever possible. A recent report on U.K.
television stated that the price of electricity from windfarms was
twice the price of electricity generated by some other methods. This
is complete crap. Unfortunately they did not give the ****ysis of
costs to arrive at this assertion, but although a windfarm may not
look attractive, but requires little maintenance cost after it is
setup, and produces little pollution, and could be easily removed
or replaced after its useful life.

Regards, Fishnut.

pszemol

To be honest, I would rather live near the nuclear plant and take this
very small risk of a catastrophe than to live near the windfarm and
bear the infra-sounds EVERY SINGLE DAY AND NIGHT of my life...
But this is, I guess, a personal preference only... :-)