Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2638 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 4:28 am Post subject: Re: Converging Catastrophes
I'd like to respond to the last few posts first, then I'll go back to Coyote's first post.
Ocean Life Fading: What Can Be Done?
Quote:
Creating “national parks of the sea” may be the only effective way to reverse trends that have left 76 percent of world fish stocks fully- or over-exploited and marine biodiversity at severe risk, according to the new report, Oceans in Peril: Protecting Marine Biodiversity, released by the Worldwatch Institute.
There is currently no mechanism under existing international agreements to create a global marine reserve network encompassing the high seas—areas beyond national jurisdiction. The authors suggest a new implementation agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to establish and manage such reserves. They call for an integrated, precautionary, and ecosystem-based approach to the conservation and sustainable management of the marine environment in the high seas.
I think number 2, global warming, in your first post is the biggest problem. Action on this must occur during the next ten years, and I believe this will happen, then solutions to the others will follow in concert. The solutions for each of your 6 problems are somewhat interrelated anyway.
You can see in the above article that global warming effects life in the marine environment.
I'm not sure that the consequences of peak oil will be the ones that you portray. I think there will be gradual substitution of alternatives as oil production declines, so that the consequences may not be so drastic. Introduction of alternative fuels must also occur during the next ten years. All of us will see the beginning of this transition, which is starting now.
Once action of global warming begins with binding international agreements and technological solutions, then desertification, aquifer drawdown and biodiversity should stabilize and eventually recover.
I'm pleased to see that you don't like being a doomer. I don't think our problems are insurmountable either. There are thousands of people working on all of the problems you listed. We can read what the media publishes on the Internet. I'll try to post as many positive (and occasional negative) outcomes by government, business, scientific and engineering organisations as I can. _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Jun 15, 2007 Posts: 564 Location: St.Albert, AB
Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 1:54 pm Post subject: Re: Converging Catastrophes
Everything is going to be fine.
Quote:
THE world's largest frozen peat bog is melting. An area stretching for a million square kilometres across the permafrost of western Siberia is turning into a mass of shallow lakes as the ground melts, according to Russian researchers just back from the region.
The sudden melting of a bog the size of France and Germany combined could unleash billions of tonnes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.
An international research partnership known as the Global Carbon Project earlier this year identified melting permafrost as a major source of feedbacks that could accelerate climate change by releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. "Several hundred billion tonnes of carbon could be released," said the project's chief scientist, Pep Canadell of the CSIRO Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research in Canberra, Australia.
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3631 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 6:10 pm Post subject: Re: Converging Catastrophes
Nicholai I hope your realize that article is over two years old and was seen by those of us on here when it was published?
I am all for getting the word out, but I suggest aiming for stuff not more than six months old, otherwise it has probably been discussed or deemed not worthy of discussion by now. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Joined: May 13, 2007 Posts: 610 Location: Athabasca, Alberta
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 7:14 am Post subject: Re: Converging Catastrophes
Now I am no expert but magnetic reversals have occurred before, in fact in the geological time sense they are quite frequent. The current thinking is that the reversal takes place over an interval of about three hundred years and in its early stages noticeable weakening of the field is observed.
Weakening of the magnetic field was first notices by Royal Navy sailing ships in the southern hemisphere in the eighteenth century. So either it is not going to happen or it will happen soon, probably after we run out of hydrocarbons. _________________ Appuis ait fabrum esse suae quemque fortunae.
Alias Redneck
Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 6:57 pm Post subject: Re: Converging Catastrophes
I think that the biggest problem with any solution that might solve or reduce the Converging Catastrophes, is that any culture/nation that implements them becomes a target. A target for others to raid them for their 'underused' resources. _________________ Fighting technobabble and Woo Woos.
Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 8:59 pm Post subject: Re: Converging Catastrophes
About dwindling sea life, we used to have a fish called a pollock that you could catch every cast off the dock here in Maine. It dissapeared a couple of years ago, and I haven't seen any since. It's really creepy. All of a sudden there weren't any of them None. I used to think that we could just live on a little island and catch fish to eat after peak oil. Now I'm not so sure. Will there be anything left in the ocean to eat? I plan on eating periwinkles, but they might be the next species to go... _________________ Deep in the mud and slime of things, even there, something sings.
Joined: Apr 06, 2006 Posts: 3333 Location: 3 miles NW of Champoeg, Republic of Cascadia
Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 11:17 pm Post subject: Re: Converging Catastrophes
Pollock info:
Quote:
Alaskan pollock is the largest food fish resource in the world. More than 3 million tons of Alaska pollock are caught each year in the North Pacific from Alaska to northern Japan. Alaska pollock catches from U.S. fisheries have been quite consistent at about 1.5 million tons a year, almost all of it from the Bering Sea.
The Alaskan pollock is said to be "the largest remaining source of palatable fish in the world."[1]. However, the biomass of pollock has declined in recent years, perhaps spelling trouble for both the Bering Sea ecosystem and the commercial fishery it supports.
Quote:
Cut in pollock catch called costly but necessary
BERING SEA: 28 percent fewer fish would be caught if scientists' plan OK'd.
Published: December 6, 2007
Last Modified: December 6, 2007 at 11:41 AM
The Bering Sea fishing industry is bracing for a deep cut in the annual catch limit for pollock, a bug-eyed, bottom-dwelling whitefish used for products including Gorton's fish sticks, McDonald's Filet-O-Fish sandwiches and imitation crab legs.
Fishery scientists on Wednesday recommended a catch limit next year of no more than 1 million tons.
That's a staggering amount of fish -- ranking pollock as one of the world's largest seafood hauls -- but it would be 28 percent less than last year, bringing the catch to its lowest level since 1999.
That could cost the fishing industry tens of millions of dollars and drive up the cost of pollock goods.
Government scientists and fishing industry players said a cut in the catch limit was anticipated and reflects a natural decline in the pollock population after several years of very high abundance.
Story _________________ Cogito, ergo non satis bibivi
I will not abide another toe.
Environmental campaigners say Sidon's waste mountain is a very visible example of wider problems of weak governance, overlapping bureaucracies, self-interest and neglect.
Joined: Apr 09, 2007 Posts: 5856 Location: Alaska (its much bigger than Texas).
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:06 pm Post subject: Re: Converging Catastrophes
TheDude wrote:
Pollock
Hunting and fishing seasons and the Commerical Fishery quotas for Pollock, Salmon, Halibut, etc. etc. go up and down every year in Alaska. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game do a very good job of monitoring the overall health of all the fishery stocks and all the big game populations.
The biggest impact to Alaskan fisheries came back in the mid-20th century when the construction of hydro dams on the Columbia River and habitat degredation on virtually every other major salmon stream found in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia and the increasing populations there destroyed the huge local salmon breeding populations originating in the Columbia River etc. Most of those fish used to spend the bulk of their lives in the rich marine zones offshore from Alaska.
As long as Alaska is lucky enough to have a limited population and keeps its own river systems clean and the ecosystem pristine, there will be sizable fish and game populations. To get full recovery of Salmon the hydro dams need to be ripped out of the Columbia River drainage and the ecosystem repaired throughout the NW region.
Because of rising demand for ethanol, American farmers are growing more corn than at any time since World War II. And sea life in the Gulf of Mexico is paying the price.
The nation's corn crop is fertilized with millions of pounds of nitrogen-based fertilizer. And when that nitrogen runs off fields in Corn Belt states, it makes its way to the Mississippi River and eventually pours into the Gulf, where it contributes to a growing "dead zone" — a 7,900-square-mile patch so depleted of oxygen that fish, crabs and shrimp suffocate.
Oh, who cares about a few damned crabs anyway? E85 rules! _________________ "Thank you for attending the oil age. We're going to scrape what we can out of these tar pits in Alberta and then shut down the machines and turn out the lights. Goodnight." - seldom_seen
Joined: Mar 04, 2007 Posts: 504 Location: Hong Kong
Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 4:44 am Post subject: Re: Converging Catastrophes
Revi wrote:
About dwindling sea life, we used to have a fish called a pollock that you could catch every cast off the dock here in Maine. It dissapeared a couple of years ago, and I haven't seen any since. It's really creepy. All of a sudden there weren't any of them None. I used to think that we could just live on a little island and catch fish to eat after peak oil. Now I'm not so sure. Will there be anything left in the ocean to eat? I plan on eating periwinkles, but they might be the next species to go...
I'm really sorry to hear that as I used to catch pollock in Maine when I was a kid on vacation. The fisheries are an utter disaster here in Hong Kong, as you would imagine, but I still go out every weekend to put a line in the water, strictly catch and release, of course, not that it matters.
My buddy told me about a Chinese fishing boat that put a weighted net in the water and actually dredged the seafloor for bottom-feeders. I see the old fishermen out in their tin boats, sometimes a few of them casting nets along a half-kilometer of coastline. There's nothing they can do, that's how they've been making a living for centuries. And the sport fishermen here keep everything, even tiny fish no more than a few inches long.
I read an article about a year back about how long-liners were reporting 1/10 the amount of fish per hook as back in the 1950s. Billfish are disappearing. This sucks.
Forget about sea levels rising as glaciers and polar ice melt, and increasing water temperatures affecting global weather patterns. As the oceans absorb more and more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, they’re gradually becoming more acidic.
And some scientists fear that the change may be irreversible
...
Though cuts in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions might slow or reverse global warming, scientist say it could take thousands of years or longer to reverse the increased acidity of the oceans.
“For all practical purposes this is permanent,” Emerson said. “That’s not true of temperature. But with ocean acidification the time scales are long.”
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