It seems that coral reefs have taken a bit of a hit recently, with tropical storm Oli knocking out stressed corals in French Polynesia in February, and the recent shipping accident on the Great Barrier Reef last weekend. An excellent article, published in the Guardian yesterday, briefly recounts historic shipwrecks on the GBR, then goes into more detail about the Chinese coal ship that ran aground in this protected region before its fuel tank ruptured, causing a 3km-long oil slick. Though a nearby shipping lane is navigated by over 6,000 ships a year, the vessel owned by Shenzhen Energy used a shortcut near the Douglas Shoal, colliding with a sandbank at full speed.
The beautiful waters off the GBR have been dubbed the "Coal Highway" in recent years, as traffic from foreign-owned ships have been ferrying Australian coal to Asia in growing numbers. Conservationists have blamed the Australian government for turning their attention from the growing risk to the country's most spectacular marine formation, and instead keeping more diligent watch over profits from the booming export trade of natural resources. The cleanup is expected to take several weeks and any attempts to move the ship may result in more fuel spills. (Read more here...)
My thoughts...
Every time I think about corals, I think of how I need to get to Australia and dive on the Great Barrier Reef before oil spills become even more common, before sea surface temperatures rise enough to bleach much of the coral, before ocean acidification advances to the point where corals lose enough of their protective skeletons and are easily grazed down; before there are no corals left...
I often find myself wondering how our outlook of the speed of changes in the world compares with that of previous generations. The teens through the 30-somethings have lived through some of the quickest advances in technology at the consumer level, especially with the advent of the internet. Our elders can often be heard amazing over the changes they've seen since "their day." But I wonder if they ever saw as many destructive changes to the Earth in those days?
As someone who has grown up in an era of recycling cans and a movement toward a more general green-awareness, it's hard for me to tell if this kind of thing has always happened. As far as I know, the mounting evidence of global warming is very recent, and still being debated by people who don't want to believe man can have a significant impact on the planet. The ban on chlorofluorocarbons to ameliorate damage to the ozone is a recent enough to still be hotly debated, 20 years after the fact. (Check out the comments section for that last link... wow! It's also interesting to note the parallels between the CFC debate 20+ years ago and the Climate Change debate of today, which are laid out pretty well by Weather Underground.)
It seems that we have seen more environmental crises in the recent decades. I posit that these changes come from either (1) the novel global view afforded by recent advancing technologies is making all of us more aware of the harm we've been doing the planet all along for the first time, or (2) we are facing an accelerating degradation of the Earth, the likes of which we haven't seen before, even as recently as a couple of generations ago. Whether the increasing frequency of minor to major environmental crises popping up on our radars is the result of increased awareness or accelerating degradation, what harm will it do if we all pause to consider what kind of world we intend to leave for the next generation, and what it will look like then?
I often find myself wondering how our outlook of the speed of changes in the world compares with that of previous generations. The teens through the 30-somethings have lived through some of the quickest advances in technology at the consumer level, especially with the advent of the internet. Our elders can often be heard amazing over the changes they've seen since "their day." But I wonder if they ever saw as many destructive changes to the Earth in those days?
As someone who has grown up in an era of recycling cans and a movement toward a more general green-awareness, it's hard for me to tell if this kind of thing has always happened. As far as I know, the mounting evidence of global warming is very recent, and still being debated by people who don't want to believe man can have a significant impact on the planet. The ban on chlorofluorocarbons to ameliorate damage to the ozone is a recent enough to still be hotly debated, 20 years after the fact. (Check out the comments section for that last link... wow! It's also interesting to note the parallels between the CFC debate 20+ years ago and the Climate Change debate of today, which are laid out pretty well by Weather Underground.)
It seems that we have seen more environmental crises in the recent decades. I posit that these changes come from either (1) the novel global view afforded by recent advancing technologies is making all of us more aware of the harm we've been doing the planet all along for the first time, or (2) we are facing an accelerating degradation of the Earth, the likes of which we haven't seen before, even as recently as a couple of generations ago. Whether the increasing frequency of minor to major environmental crises popping up on our radars is the result of increased awareness or accelerating degradation, what harm will it do if we all pause to consider what kind of world we intend to leave for the next generation, and what it will look like then?
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