Coral Catastrophe

From CNN:

Researchers fear more than half the world's coral reefs could die in less than 25 years and say global warming may at least partly to blame.

Sea temperatures are rising, weakening the reefs' resistance to increased pollutants, such as runoff from construction sites and toxins from boat paints. The fragile reefs are hosts to countless marine plants and animals.

"Think of it as a high school chemistry class," said Billy Causey, the Caribbean and Gulf Mexico director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"You mix some chemicals together and nothing happens. You crank up the Bunsen burner and all of a sudden things start bubbling around. That's what's happening. That global Bunsen burner is cranking up."

Causey was one of some 200 private and government researchers from the Caribbean, Florida and U.S. Pacific islands who gathered in St. Thomas for a meeting of the NOAA's U.S. Coral Reef Task Force.

Last year's coral loss in the Caribbean waters supports predictions that 60 percent of the world's coral could die within a quarter century, said Tyler Smith of the University of the Virgin Islands.

"Given current rates of degradation of reef habitats, this is a plausible prediction," Smith said.

More than 47 percent of the coral in underwater study sites covering 31 acres around the U.S. Virgin Islands died after sea temperatures exceeded the norm for three months in 2005, said Jeff Miller, a scientist with the Virgin Islands National Park.

The unusual warm water can stress coral, causing it to lose its pigment and making it more vulnerable to disease.

This year, Caribbean coral narrowly avoided another widespread episode of bleaching when sea temperatures briefly surpassed levels considered healthy for reefs.

Up to 30 percent of the world's coral reefs have died in the last 50 years, and another 30 percent are severely damaged, said Smith, who studies coral health in the U.S. Virgin Islands and collaborates with researchers globally.

"U.S. Virgin Islands coral today is likely at its lowest levels in recorded history," Smith said.

The researchers said global warming was a potential cause of the abnormally high sea temperatures but was not the only suspect in the reefs' demise.

What causes disease in coral can be hard to pinpoint and could be a combination of things. Other threats include silt runoff from construction sites, which prevents the coral from getting enough sunlight, and a record increase in fleshy, green algae, which competes with coral for sunlight.

"Climate change is an important factor that is influencing coral reefs worldwide," said Mark Eakin, director of NOAA's Coral Reef Watch. "It adds to the other problems that we are having."

Don't Start Worrying...Yet

This is bound to stir up some controversy. A professor at the University of Washington, Eric Cheney, claims the idea that we are running out of oil is one of the seven myths concerning resource geology. Why?

Changing economics, technological advances and efforts such as recycling and substitution make the world's mineral resources virtually infinite, said Cheney, a UW professor emeritus of Earth and space sciences. For instance, oil deposits unreachable 40 years ago can be tapped today using improved technology, and oil once too costly to extract from tar sands, organic matter or coal is now worth manufacturing.

The article goes on to explain some of his other thoughts on the matter. Included are the other six myths:

• Only basic extraction and processing costs affect economic geology. That fails to account for such costs as exploration, transportation, taxes and societal and environmental programs.
• Production always damages the environment. Accidents do happen, Cheney said, but much of the perception is based on problems of the past and don't reflect current reality. "It's inevitable that there are going to be oil spills, just like tere are traffic accidents on the freeway," he said. "We hope we can manage them, but nothing is risk free."
• Mineral deposits are excessively profitable. Despite widely reported huge oil company profits in the last year, Cheney notes that as a percentage of company revenues oil profits lag far behind those of some major software and banking companies.
• Transportation costs are trivial. In fact, the retail cost of building materials such as sand and gravel are largely driven by the cost of moving them from one place to another, particularly in crowded urban areas. Moving quarries and pits farther away from where people live only increases those costs.
• Ore deposits are uniform. While a valued ore can be found in a large continuous deposit, often it is mixed with other kinds of minerals and extraction becomes more expensive.
• Resources are randomly distributed and so, if human population encroaches, a mine or quarry should simply be able to relocate.

TerraPass

If you're like me and wished you owned a hybrid vehicle and wondered what you can do to offset the CO2 emitted from you're standard vehicle, well, you now have an answer: TerraPass. This organization gives you a chance to offset your carbon emissions due to driving or flying. A yearly pass costs anywhere from $9.95/year (41+ mpg and up) to $79.95/year (for cars getting between 10-18 mpg). The money you spend is then used to fund clean energy projects such as wind energy, biomass products, and projects related to industrial efficiency. All funds are verified by a third party, the Center for Resource Solutions. As cars are responsible for 25% of CO2 pollution worldwide, this program could have a real impact.

In addition to your cars, you can also purchase a TerraPass for any flights you may be taking. Again, the cost of the pass depends on how many miles you are planning to fly. The low end is $9.95 for flights under 6,000 miles while frequent fliers can pay up to $1,499 (1,000,000 or so miles). Higher payments have some nice little gifts associated with them (not to mention the feeling of doing something positive!).