[Coral-List] Coral killing continues in Florida

Sun Sep 13 04:16:01 EDT 2015

Bill,
    I completely agree that geologists are able to have a much much wider
perspective on the time dimension.  You're right, we ecologists tend to
work in the here and now, and reefs and the world haven't always been the
way they are now.  I couldn't agree more.  20,000 years ago the ocean
surface was about 125 meters lower than it is now.  Several times in the
last 500 million years CO2 levels have been much higher than now.
Scleractinian coral reefs only go back, what, about 200 million years?
Earth is about 4.6 billion years old.  Lots of different lines of hard
scientific evidence to support the ages of these.  Now that's real
perspective on time!

    I absolutely mean no disrespect to Gene, he's widely acknowledged as a
leading geologist and I join others in that acknowledgement and
congratulations.

    For coral reefs, the International Society for Coral Reefs has the
Darwin Medal, the highest honor for coral reef scientists (including reef
geologists).  The winners of that medal so far have been:

David Stoddart 1998
Peter Glynn  1992
Ian MacIntyre 1996
Yossi Loya 2000
JEN (Charlie) Veron 2004
Terry Hughes,  2008
Jeremy Jackson 2012

see:  http://coralreefs.org/society-awards-and-grants/darwin-medal/

Who knows who will win it in the future, I certainly don't know.  There are
some other new awards as well:
http://coralreefs.org/society-awards-and-grants/past-awardees/

Uh, where do you get that it's cooling again??  If I remember, 2014 was the
hottest year on record (125 years of records), July, 2015 was the hottest
month on record, January-July 2015 was the hottest that set of months on
record, and 2015 is on track to beat 2014 as the hottest year on record,
probably by a significant margin.  That doesn't sound like cooling to me.
However, "Watch the sun" and "it's cooling" are standard denier lines,
which have been refuted.

 Hottest July on record keeps 2015 on track to crush 2014 for hottest year.
(check out the graph!  Great fun.)

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/08/14/3691940/hottest-july-hottest-year-record/

"It's the sun" is No. 2 of the most popular 176 climate myths (popular
choice, apparently)

"It's cooling" is No. 5.

 http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

Since there are 176 listed (and refuted) myths, there are plenty to rotate
around to keep people off balance.  But the Skeptical Science web page is
there to help.

As far as I know, all geological societies, or at least all the most
prominent ones, say that climate change and global warming are real, and
humans are the principle cause (but correct me if I'm wrong.  The
Geological Society of America is pretty clear:
http://www.geosociety.org/positions/position10.htm  The society has 26,000
members in over 100 countries.).  Gotta love those geologists.  grin.

Cheers,  Doug

On Sat, Sep 12, 2015 at 12:05 AM, Bill Raymond <billraymond10 at yahoo.com>
wrote:

> No offense toward your Terry Hughes, but I believe geologists in general
> have a wider perspective of the world than biologists, who look at the way
> things are here and now, but don't have the same vision of the ebb and flow
> of life. The truly great ones that I've met often challenge the old guard,
> yet are the most open minded ones of all. Secure in themselves enough to
> stand up to the crowd and the crown, and in the end turn out to be right.
> Like the philosopher said, that which is commonly believed generally turns
> out to be false. Science changes. Gene is a changer. All that ranting and
> raving about global warming, and now look. It's cooling again. Watch the
> sun.
>
>
>
> On Saturday, September 12, 2015 3:35 AM, Douglas Fenner <
> douglasfennertassi at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Bill,
>    If you read the posts by Ian Zink and Andrew Baker, you'll see that
> actually, on this subject, Gene doesn't know what he's talking about.  He
> knows what he's talking about on a lot of things (not including climate
> change), but not this one.
>
> On Fri, Sep 11, 2015 at 8:17 PM, Douglas Fenner <
> douglasfennertassi at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Bill,
>     Where did you get that Gene is probably the top coral reef scientist
> in the world??  He's a good geologist, no doubt.  That's not the same thing
> as the top coral reef scientist.  That's almost certainly Terry Hughes.
> More publications in top journals than any other coral reef scientist.
> Head of the world's largest coral reef research institute and James Cook
> Univ. in Australia.  This is nothing against Gene at all, but he's no where
> near the top coral reef scientist in the world.
>
> On Fri, Sep 11, 2015 at 3:47 AM, Bill Raymond <billraymond10 at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> I dunno, that's a tough one. I see your point about what's appropriate and
> professional and going too far. On the other hand, Gene's right, over
> emphasizing and exaggerating the true picture only serves to weaken our
> case, and is so idiotically ignorant and dangerous perhaps it should
> be addressed publicly. Gene is probably the top coral reef scientist
> without Alzheimers in the world today. He makes a valid point that should
> be heard, even if it is rude and blunt.
>
>
>
>
> --
Douglas Fenner
Contractor with Ocean Associates, Inc.
PO Box 7390
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA

phone 1 684 622-7084

Join the International Society for Reef Studies.  Membership includes a
subscription to the journal Coral Reefs, there are discounts for pdf
subscriptions and developing countries.  www.fit.edu/isrs/

"Belief in climate change is optional, participation is not."- Jim Beever.
  "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts."-
Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Energy policy: push renewables to spur carbon pricing.  (the world
subsidizes fossil fuels a half Trillion dollars a year!)

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v525/n7567/full/nature14876.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20150904&spMailingID=49465812&spUserID=MjA1NTA3MjA0OQS2&spJobID=760401953&spReportId=NzYwNDAxOTUzS0

Worst-case scenario: if we burn all remaining fossil fuels, Antarctica
would melt entirely, raise sea level 200 feet.

http://www.newsweek.com/worst-case-scenario-if-we-burn-all-remaining-fossil-fuels-antarctica-would-371280

5 trillion tons of ice lost since 2002.  (that's trillion with a "T".
Check the steady loss in the graphs.)

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/09/03/ice_loss_greenland_and_antarctica_lost_5_trillion_tons_since_1992.html

website:  http://independent.academia.edu/DouglasFenner

blog: http://ocean.si.edu/blog/reefs-american-samoa-story-hope