RESULTS OF POLL OPINION ON BLEACHING

MARTIN PECHEUX martinpecheux at minitel.net
Sat Jun 17 16:22:50 EDT 2000


Dear all,

Here are the results of the Opinion
Poll on Coral Bleaching asked last
week. There was 68 responses now.
It is somewhat disapointing given
the number of people connect to the
CoralList (but the WHO command to
majordomo is now secret ! what is
this fucking shit, Hendee ?). On
the other side I guess that only
advertized people answered.
Whatsoever it's a very
representative opinion which
emerge.
First, many had difficulty to
answer ("between 3 and 5", 2 plus,
etc..) and there was 5 RE without a
number ! Hard to predict ! (In the
below results I split intermediare
up and below by half).

ANSWERS :
Would you say that Coral Reef Mass
Bleaching will be :
0# 0/ a benefit to coral reefs
3# 1/ of no overall effects, or
balanced negative and positive
influences
13# 2/ worrysome
24# 3/ seriously damaging
15# 4/ catastrophic
an half# 5/ almost or total
disappearance of reefs
5# no opinion given

Commentaries :
There was zero rank zero (benefit)
Its clear that the main opinion
converge on 3, seriously damaging,
with an à peu près.
Nobody choose 5, almost or total
disappearance of reefs, but ME, the
69 answer. Guess I bet you all with
my 120 000 fluorescence data. Its a
great sadness. In the Perpignan
meeting, seeing bleaching photos, I
made a joke : "in 20 years there
will be no more reef biologists,
only geologists". This joke came me
back twice !
Terry, you are in 2, a little
outside !
Cheers,

Martin Pêcheux, Nice University

Below is some extracts of the
commentaries :
who knows whether humans  as a
whole...
Nature never makes mistakes.
category worrisome I predict this
middle
"an hypothetical question" PS WHAT
THAT ?
Ca c'est mon avis.
I cant help but think
despite the rather vague poll,
confounding,
local anthropogenic stressors
Although I am not a researcher in
corals
It is certainly already
worrysome....globally.
 Depending on your favorite reef
area..
 I doubt... will be eliminated
probably a blip in the life history
of a reef
planet El Nino's
between 3 (seriously damaging) and
5 (almost or total dissaparance of
reefs).
Discovery Channel interested by
results
I therefor do not think that
bleaching will be the end of coral
reefs.
will become catastrophic
I would say
it will be catastrophic.
I would say a two.  good luck!
On the other hand, coral reefs
have not been completely wiped out
in the next decade or two I would
answer #
My HOPE ... at least stabilization
IF  we were able to cut back on CO2
Cheers,
I really don't think (that we have
the temporal resolution to really
know )



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