From the ocean weather will eat this idea alive department comes a ridiculous bit of wishful thinking from the world’s lead scientist on “the coral reefs are going to die and its all your fault” discipline.
Yes, it is our hot headed buddy from Brisbane, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, with what just might be the wackiest climate change technology proposal ever – it is his blue tarp moment:
20 Aug: Sky News Australia: Shade cloth could save Barrier Reef
Scientists have proposed stringing up shade cloth over coral reefs and sending electric currents through the sea to help marine ecosystems weather the effects of climate change.”
“The paper also discusses the genetic engineering of species to help them adapt better to climate change, and mitigating ocean acidification by adding base minerals to the water.”
Professor Hoegh-Guldberg has pointed out conventional approaches to climate change have so far failed to prevent damage to the reef.”
Here’s the paper: Rau, G., McLeod, E.L. & Hoegh-Guldberg, O. (2012) The need for new ocean conservation strategies in a high-carbon dioxide world Nature Climate Change doi:10.1038/nclimate1555
And here’s the money quote:
In particular, various methods for reducing or mitigating thermal stress in corals have been proposed or demonstrated. For example, efforts to artificially shade sections of a reef during periods of thermal stress using buoyant shade cloth have been applied on the Great Barrier Reef. Light exacerbates the effect of heat stress and causes reef-building corals to bleach. Consequently, shading corals can reduce the extent of coral bleaching.
Jo Nova does the math and points out:
The Great Barrier Reef has an area of 348,000 square kilometers. It’s bigger than the UK, Holland and Switzerland combined. So perhaps we could just cover 1%, that’s only three and a half thousand square kilometers and then ask the water to stay in one spot?
Not to mention the the first storm that rolls through will pretty much blow any tarps, cloths, covers, etc to bits and beyond. Ah, I love the sound of shredded grant money in the morning.
I should apologize for this comparison to inventor Rube Goldberg, who made wacky looking inventions that actually worked. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg’s invention is not only wacky, but unworkable.
Loved this bit from Jo Nova:
Alistair Hobday Research Scientist – Marine and Atmospheric Research at CSIRO said novel solutions are required. “We need to be mature enough to listen to all sorts of arguments.”
To which Jo Nova, unfunded non government critic said: We need scientists who are mature enough to spot a plan that is bonkers.
h/t to WUWT reader Martin Clark
OK,
I’m calling B.S. on this. I think Ove just got over confident and blew his cover. He is obviously a Koch funded denialist agent working deep, deep, undercover. His true aim is to discredit the warmist position.
Surely that makes more sense.
I am a SCUBA diving instructor of some years and I have seen coral bleaching up close and personal. With the exception of damage due to dynamite fishing I have also seen bleached coral ‘miraculously’ (*sarc) recover in all but a very few instances. I suspect that this has been going on for far longer than I have been diving and will continue to do so. The aforementioned scientist has been shown wrong many times over his predictions for the Great Barrier Reef to the point where I don’t think many people listen to him and certainly none of the people who live and work around the reefs thenselves.
First of April. Is it today?
Have I missed something?
Or I may have been time traveling back in time a few months.
Hoegh-Guldberg is being funded by the Big Blue Tarp industry…
Reef-er madness at sea would make a great documentary.
Insanity’s inevitable downward spiral on full display.
Or, if this is all about grant money & he ends up laughing all the way to the bank, then it’s the inevitable downward spiral into absurdity by liberal government on full display.
What these ‘researchers’ always fail to note is that the Great Barrier Reef did not exist in its current form less that 20,000 years ago. Sea level back then was about 140m lower than today, so it was a chain of islands. Somehow it managed to cope with global warming / climate change / climate uncertainty / global change (select appropriate tag) and become what it is today. The same can be said of pretty much the entire Canadian ecosystem, which managed to recover from being covered with a couple of kilometres of ice.
Well I think it’s a great idea. Just imagine if you spread a big enough tarp on the (deep) waters, how many schools of Dorado/Mahi-mahi/Dolphin you could set up under there. Fly fishermen can have a field day.
And for the shallower reef fishing, the electro-shock technique will save the lives of a whole lot of bait fishes, so they can electro-entrance the denizoans, and then just scoop them out of the water with a net. Could even power the rig by solar green energy so you can fish by day, and let new ones move in over night; simply wunnerful !
The blue tarp; it’s not just to cover your favorite auto up on concrete blocks any more. Cue redneck jokes in 3… 2… 1…..
I’m confused about corals and co2.
When did corals first evolve on planet Earth? What was the level of co2 in the atmosphere?
You are being too hard on this guy. Given the so-called science that governments have funded so far, this idea just might fly. He might get hundreds of millons. His idea has one problem. The color should be green not blue.
‘Millions” instead of ‘millons’. Or maybe ‘melons’.
“Wait, let me get this straight. You have a grant proposal to get paid to sit on a boat in tropical water, in the shade, and drink Mojitas all day? High five!”
Picture if they had the financial backing to actually implement some of these ideas. Then watch them cover a significant portion of the ocean with “tarps” to “correct” the warming/bleaching/whatever only to discover that they’ve wiped out 50% of the world’s plankton and thereby caused CO2 to quintuple or something.
– MJM
The main diet of corals consists of phytoplankton. Phytoplankton inhabit the photic zone, wherein their photosynthesis relies on CO2 and sunlight. Hence, an increase in CO2 would benefit the phytoplankton, which would benefit the corals as they’d have more to eat.
CO2 increases, therefore, are beneficial to corals.
I wish these “scientists” would actually think once in a while; they’re giving their profession a very bad name.
I think I’ve just gone brain-dead. Something went ffffrzzz. I can’t think anymore. I just stare at the screen, waiting for the madness to end… it will, won’t it? Please?
It would be so fun to do the math on this proposal. If I wasn’t so busy at work I would.
http://www.barrierreefaustralia.com/the-great-barrier-reef/coralfacts.htm
While the area is 348,000 km^2. The open water between the reefs don’t need to be covered. So we only have 2,900 individual reefs to cover.
I’m guessing the shade cloth will be raised so dolphins, flying fish, turtles ect will not get tangled up. Also boats (with climate scientists on board) may need to pass benieth. So concrete foundations, concrete pilons, stainless steel connectors and cables. And replacing the shade cloth at least once a year. No problem, this’ll work.
So he basically wants to cover the coral reef in plastic, zap it with electricity and throw bags of cement on it.
So a ‘peer-reviewed’ paper, published in a ‘peer-reviewed’ climate-change journal (Nature Climate Change), seriously advocates:
1. erecting shade cloth over the Great Barrier Reef to protect corals from heat stress,
2. using low-voltage electrical currents to stimulate coral growth,
3. using genetic engineering to help corals adapt to climate change, and
4. adding base minerals to the oceans to mitigate ocean acidification.
Peer-review is obviously effective at screening out crack-pot ideas and bad science. (Sarc?)
Wait a minute! Do I have an idea! Adopt a coral! For 5k you get to ride in a boat, select your coral, and a diver erects a screen over it.
one of the few places he can show his face!
21 Aug: SMH: David Wroe: Al Gore praises inspirational Australia
The Gillard government’s carbon price has already ‘‘inspired the world’’ to press ahead with measures to tackle climate change, former US Vice President Al Gore says.
Labelling Australia one of the ‘‘canaries in the coalmine’’ for the effects of global warming, Mr Gore told a breakfast launch in Canberra of a new Climate Commission report there was much cause for optimism about global efforts to solve the problem.
Speaking via video presentation, Mr Gore said that the Queensland floods and Black Saturday bushfires of recent years showed that ‘‘we must act now’’…
‘‘This year in Australia, for the first time, in a move that has inspired the world – I hear it everywhere – carbon polluters are being held accountable for the global warming pollution they pour in the atmosphere every single day.
‘‘Policy actions like Australia’s historic achievement are beginning to unlock innovative approaches to the climate crisis that will provide new sources of sustainable economic growth and good jobs while simultaneously solving the climate crisis. We’re not there yet, but fortunately we are gaining momentum and we can solve this problem.
‘‘I salute Australia’s strong commitment to solving the climate crisis and I know it’s going to continue to be a crucial player in building a global solution to this global problem.’’…
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/al-gore-praises-inspirational-australia-20120821-24jh8.html
FEMA roof.
That’s what you get from FEMA after you have lost your roof in a hurricane. They drive by and toss one on the street in front of your home. Well, that’s how it worked where I lived in Medley, FL.
FEMA roof.
Katrina, later: Wilma. 2005. That’s how I know.
Save the reef by electrocuting the marine life. Sounds perfect.
Don’t you just love these enviro-freaks. If a ship spills so much as 1000 litres of fuel anywhere near a coastline in the Western world, it is a disaster of immense proportions. Now, we have one of those freaks suggesting that we should spread plastic material over large chunks of a reef to protect it. Did this idiot consider the pollution generated when storm waves come along & rip it to shreds? Did he not consider the damage done to the reef by installing the anchor points which would be needed to keep his covers in place? Will we hear Greenpeace, WWF, etc, pointing out to us that this is an ecologically damaging idea? I bet the answer is NO in each case.
agimarc says:
August 20, 2012 at 5:07 pm
The blue tarp; it’s not just to cover your favorite auto up on concrete blocks any more. Cue redneck jokes in 3… 2… 1…..
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If you’re idea of saving the Great Barrier Reef from human influence is for humans to throw a really BIG blanket on it …. You might be a Green-neck.