Locking up the Reef

[baldyhead]

This is a timely warning, taken from the Local Rag up here.

Changes to the Great Barrier Reef Zones mean many fishermen will do it tough. But consider the future under a Latham Labour Government.

If Latham were to take over,his star recruit, Peter Garratt, former president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, would be the new Environment Minister. He is likely to lock up the whole reef, not 30% under the new scheme.
Author: Richard Gibbins

[Chrisso]

If you have some trouble mate, I'm not too sure how to fix it but you could try and get it right in the test forum.

[baldyhead]

thanks m8 bloody puta problem i think got it in ok cheers

[Jim_Tait]

Baldy if the current mob continue to sell out Greenhouse and Climate change management initiatives due to their mates in the coal industry there won't be any reef to lock up in a couple of decades anyway. And don't try and pull the woll over everyone's eyes scarmongering about what a Latham Government would or wont do (reactionary cr**p!) >:(, there are plenty of fishers that vote for the left side of politics and they arn't about to let any governmnet lock out legitimate recreational fishing.

[baldyhead]

Jim this was taken from the same paper different author. May I remind you of the old saying " If the cap fits...wear it"

[jockey]

What makes that guy think Labor would lock up the entire reef? Is he just scaremongering or does he know something?

I think its pretty laughable for people to claim the scientific community is misleading the public for their own reasons when oil and coal companies are pouring millions into government coffers (especially the US and England) and funding there own 'research.'

[Jim_Tait]

David Bellamy may be a famous botanist and conservationist but he is no atmospheric scientist and if he thinks that climate change is a scam then he has been spending just a little too long in the forest with the pixies (or is it the ferals?) and putting his hand too often into the majic cookie jar - that - or he has come into the employ of exon, ammoco etc.. However I respect him too much too readily citicise him until I had seen the original report / article etc because people - particularly the media have an uncanny ability to stuff up comments from scientist.

Within the scientific community there is now widespread acceptance that human induced global warming and climate change is occurring and that it represents the greatest threat to global and Australian biodiversity. For some background reading go to the Australian (Government) Greenhouse Office site and download the report the Science of Climate change in Australia.

If 99% of the source of emissions is natural (well yes oil, gas, coal and burning piles of trees are all natural I suppose?) then why has Atmospheric CO2 concentrations gone from 280 ppm in the pre industrial era to 371 ppm today (and predicted to get to twice that before the middle of this centuary). Since 1800 CO2 concentrations have grown exponentially as have other greenhouse gasses such as methane and nitrous oxide (look for a plot of it in the report I refered to). Then again humans are natural and extinction a natural process as well - therefore lets not just worry about it because its all 'natural'.

I'd admit that predictive climate modelling still leaves a lot to be desired but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that you can't change something as big as the atmnosphere by the amount we have changed it and there ain't going to be a big kick back (1st law of thermodynamics - for every action there is a reaction!!)

Consistent with measured global temperature trends, Australia’s continental average temperature has risen by approximately 0.7° C from 1910 to 1999 with most of the rise recorded post 1950 (Howden et al 2003). The eight warmest years measured globally have occurred in the 1990s and 2000s and the 1990s was the warmest decade ever recorded with measuring instruments. In the last decade each passing year brings new records for temperature and climatic extremes including an unprecedented heat wave in south eastern Australia in the summer of 2004. The last 100 years have been the warmest of the millennium according to instruments and other means of estimating temperature.

As well as temperature changes there has also been consistent trends in precipitation over many regions of the world including Australia with areas experiencing both increasing or decreasing trends (IPCC 2001). Other observations consistent with expectations of ‘greenhouse’ global climate change are being recorded from a wide rage of corroborating sources including glacial retreat, tree ring patterns, changes in the phenology and distribution of species and sea level rise (AGO 2003, Huges 2004, Howden et al 2003, IPCC 2001).

Global sea level rise of 10 – 25 cm has been recorded over the past 100 years with trends of 1.7 – 2.7 mm per year for Australia similar to the global estimated rate of 1.8 mm /year. This rise in sea level is attributed to a combination of thermal expansion and contributions from glacial and polar ice cap melting (Howden et al 2003). Recent satellite sensor data suggest sea level rise of about 4mm / year for the last few years.

Current Australian climate change projections from CSIRO indicate that by 2030 annual average temperatures will be 0.4 – 2.0° C higher, and by 2070 may increase by 1.0 – 6.0° C relative to 1990 (CSIRO 2001). Projections for rainfall changes vary much more both spatially and seasonally. In general the projections indicate substantial reductions in autumn, winter and spring rainfall (the main rainfall seasons) for much of southern Australia, particularly the south west of Western Australia, In northern Australia increases in summer rainfall (the main rainfall season) are suggested for some regions. In most areas an increase in rainfall intensity is predicted even where decreases in rainfall are projected. Overall the scenarios indicate a more variable and unpredictable climate in Australia, with increased incidences of extreme events such as fires, floods, droughts and tropical storms (Howden et al 2003).

Climate is a key determinant of ecosystem location, structure and function. Predicted rapid changes in global climatic regimes will transform ecosystem condition, composition and processes. Elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 and the rate of climatic change will be beyond the evolutionary experience of Homo sapiens sapiens and the many other species. Millions of species are anticipated to be committed to extinction before the middle of the current century (Thomas et al 2004).

Impacts on biodiversity due to coral bleaching, fire regime change and drought severity and faunal distribution changes are already attributable to the influence of climate change and catastrophic impacts to some ecosystems and faunal communities are predicted to occur within decades (Williams et al 2003, Hoegh-Guldberg 2004, Hughes 2004) Table 5.

One of the key drivers of extinction is predicted to be the rate of movement of climatic envelopes desired by individual species. Required Migration Rates (RMRs) for some entire biomes to keep apace of climate change have been assessed at UP TO 1.5 ~4 km year from the present (Malcolm et al 2002), a rate an order of magnitude higher than that experienced during recent interglacials (AGO 2003). Unlike the situation during these past climatic change events, global ecosystems in the 21st century are highly degraded and fragmented and unlikely to facilitate the unhindered redistribution of even more vagile biota.

Warming of 1 °C would threaten the survival of species currently living near the upper limit of their temperature range, notably in some Australian alpine regions where some species are already near these limits, as well as in the south-west of Western Australia. Other species that have restricted climatic niches and are unable to migrate because of fragmentation of the landscape, soil differences, or topography could become endangered or extinct. Other ecosystems that are particularly threatened by climate change include coral reefs and freshwater wetlands in the coastal zone and inland (AGO 2003).

The IPCC has developed a range of greenhouse gas emission scenarios based on various levels of global response to the threat posed by global warming. These include a broad band of possible outcomes associated with responses that range from comprehensive and immediate global commitment to emission abatement to unmitigated increases in emissions and atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gasses. All but the most conservative scenarios include the possibility of extreme events emerging from non-linear responses of the world’s climatic and biophysical systems to global worming

These include changes to oceanic currents (the primary driver and moderator of global climate), breaking up of polar ice sheets and the prospect that he biosphere will move from being a carbon sink to a carbon source (AGO 2003). The potential for such extreme events is reflected in a report by an elite US Pentagon planning unit that has declared that climate change is a national security threat of the greatest urgency and demands an immediate response (Schwartz & Randall 2003). Other indications of the credence being afforded to potentially extreme global environmental changes associated with global warming include a claim by the UK government's chief scientist, Professor Sir David King that “if global warming remains unchecked Antarctica is likely to be the world's only habitable continent by the end of this century” (The Independent January 2004).
Threats to Australian biodiversity most well recognised by the Australian community are those for which impacts have been clearly observed and measured. However, even these quantified threatscan have a low community and government policy profile in terms of support for effective national management responses. In the case of global warming, continued debate by world political leaders and public policy think tanks regarding the existence, extent and level of response required to the environmental threat presented by global warming has retarded community appreciation of the urgency of responding to this largely unrealised environmental crisis.

Climate change is operating in concert with other recognised major global scale biodiversity threatening processes including land use change, atmospheric CO2 concentration, nitrogen deposition, acid rain, and biotic exchanges (Sala et al 2001). The resulting rate of measured global species loss is being interpreted as the emergence of the sixth major extinction even in the planet’s 4 billion year evolutionary history (Tefler et al 2004).

As impact prediction is corroborated with improved quantification, the enormity of the threat posed by global warming and climate change will confront the Australian community along with the rest of human society with a unequivocal case for major societal paradigm change to meet the challenges not only for biodiversity conservation, but ultimately for human population survival.

Given the inertia of climate change and the biophysical and socio economic systems that drive it is recognised that for the next century at least the planet is locked into an inescapable rise in global temperature (IPCC 2001). The rate at which Australia and the global community respond to the threat posed by climate change will determine how far beyond the current century temperature rise will continue and the extent to which life as we know it emerges from this human generated catastrophe.

[NQCairns]

I can remember leaning up against a fence watching dirt bikes race in the 70s (I was 7) very depressed that I would never get to ride one of those because we would soon be running out of oil the experts said.

Well I was racing ironman and pony express when I was 20 years old.

I remember riding in a school bus (mid 80s)out to beachmere near bribie island thinking why are these people buying all those low lying blocks of land, dont they know that the experts say it will be under water in 20 to 50 years because of climate change!!

Well almost 20 years now and they are just as high and dry!!

There is a volcano in the antarctic that pumps near of more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere than mankind does over the same period of time and it has been doing it since before mankind probably. There are a thousand more active volcanoes in the world doing the same. Logic says lets just cap one and starve a thousand scientists and goverment departments from the lucrative (read $$$$) 'sky is falling syndrome'.

I am way past innocent ignorance these days, when it comes to scientio-political (my new word :P) claims.
Now where are those weapons of mass destruction I am sure I left them hanging by the door ::)!nq

[Kerry]

Anybody see the Sunday Mail article about building fences around the reef ;D

Cheers, Kerry.

[baldyhead]

AND,,,,,,,,,,At whose expence?
Fancy Scumbag Beattie even thinking the plan has merit...let alone commending it!

[jockey]

I think that's one of Newton's laws not thermodynamics.

vagile biota - I like that one, where's Freud when you need him

Thanks for all the info and references Jim. I also 'remember' people from the northern hemisphere saying they don't need to restrict fishing and it is all just scaremongering. Now a lot of their fisheries have been destroyed.

We have alreay lost a lot of species.

Obviously the earliest predictions on global warming were more varied than the current ones, which are based on a lot more information.

20-50 years - that still leaves thirty years from now. Not sure what the current predictions are