At Current Warming Rates, Great Barrier Reef "Functionally Extinct" Within Decades

[hatrack]

The Great Barrier Reef will become "functionally extinct" within decades at the current rate of global warming, while wilder weather is set to affect property values and drive up insurance bills in many Australian coastal communities.

A confidential draft of a major international report, obtained by The Age, shows that without massive greenhouse gas emission cuts to slow global warming, damage to coastal areas, key ecosystems and the farming sector is likely to cost Australia's economy billions of dollars.

On Saturday, The Age reported that the world's authoritative body on global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was preparing to strengthen its findings in a scientific assessment being released in Paris this week.

In coming months, the panel will also release two more reports, summarising key research on global climate impacts and solutions to climate change. The Age has obtained a draft of the climate impacts report ahead of its release later this year. It includes a chapter on Australia, which warns that coral bleaching in the Barrier Reef is likely to become an annual occurrence by as early as 2030 due to warmer, more acidic seas.

EDIT

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/reef-facing-extinction/2007/01/29/1169919274339.html

[nam78_two]

1. K&R.nt

[phantom power]

2. "Finding Nemo" is like a sick joke to me these days.

It makes me want to film a movie where Nemo and his friends all die in a reef turned into a bleached wasteland. See what the kids think of that movie.

(you can imagine how much I annoy my wife)

[phantom power]

5. And I'm also working on a rewrite of Little Mermaid...

Under the Sea!
Under the Sea!

Life it's a beach here
down where we bleach here

Coral is deader
down where it's wetter

See the pH rise
then the sea life dies

See how life sucks here
down in the muck here

Under the Sea!

[Dead_Parrot]

6. Think I'm going to frame that...

So, how is little Ariel faring these days? All grown up?



Ahh. Oh well.

[phantom power]

9. yikes, hide the children.

Hopefully you will frame a version with my pH blunder corrected. My chemistry professor would beat me about the head with my freshman chem text if he knew.

[hatrack]

7. But wouldn't the pH be falling?

Maybe something along the lines of . . .

See the pH fall
Then drive to the mall

[phantom power]

8. Oh hell, you're right.

first the pH falls
then the conveyor stalls!

[Double T]

3. When you're told your behavior will doom the planet and THEN continue the same behavior...

there will be no one to blame BUT ourselves in the END. There APPEARS to be NO intelligent life in our universe.

[YankeyMCC]

4. k n r