CONGRATULATIONS Humans! You have SUCCEEDED in destroying your planet!

[CousinIT]

Great Barrier Reef at 'terminal stage': scientists despair at latest coral bleaching data

Last year was bad enough, this is a disaster,’ says one expert as Australia Research Council finds fresh damage across 8,000km

. . .

Mass bleaching – a phenomenon caused by global warming-induced rises to sea surface temperatures – has occurred on the reef four times in recorded history.

Prof Terry Hughes, who led the surveys, said the length of time coral needed to recover – about 10 years for fast-growing types – raised serious concerns about the increasing frequency of mass bleaching events.

“The significance of bleaching this year is that it’s back to back, so there’s been zero time for recovery,” Hughes told the Guardian. “It’s too early yet to tell what the full death toll will be from this year’s bleaching, but clearly it will extend 500km south of last year’s bleaching.”

. . .

He said measures to improve water quality, which were a central tenet of the Australian government’s rescue effort, were failing.

“We’ve given up. It’s been my life managing water quality, we’ve failed,” Brodie said. “Even though we’ve spent a lot of money, we’ve had no success.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/10/great-barrier-reef-terminal-stage-australia-scientists-despair-latest-coral-bleaching-data?CMP=twt_gu

[bdamomma]

1. horrible

[lapfog_1]

2. book your trips NOW to see the greatest living

organism on earth before it completely dies.

Scuba divers have been booking these "last chance" trips for a few years now.

I was lucky enough to do most of my diving in the 1980s and 1990s.

Sorry kids. You lose. The reef will come back someday (most likely), but not in your lifetimes.

[DK504]

3. Oh the list that could go on.

Between the air, water and land that is being destroyed or course ALL the animals that go extinct every year and all that have gone before them in the last 40 years. Let's all ignore the facts and watch the rich get sick too.

[RKP5637]

4. Humans won't be around forever. Some might move onto another planet and destroy it too,

but extinction is likely on earth which will recover without humans. It's so damn sad and pathetic!

[malaise]

7. Thankfully n/t

[RKP5637]

9. I really get pessimistic about humans, like WTF is wrong with humans. I think it must be ingrained

into human brains, survival of the fittest into destruct mode laced with greed and corruption.

[Squinch]

5. The largest living organism on the planet, tens of thousands of years old. Now it's dead.

But there's no climate change! No sir!

[Tracyjo]

6. So sad

[hedda_foil]

8. I just realized that our lauded intelligence will be the cause of human extinction.

Maybe being too smart is the problem, not the solution, or perhaps it's just monkeys that can't handle the intelligence upgrade.

We've only been on earth for a couple hundred thousand years. Wiping ourselves out will barely leave a smudge on the planetary record.

[Calculating]

10. The problem isn't really our intelligence

It's that stopping climate change requires us to go against the core instincts which are followed by every other species on Earth. The fundamental issue is our desire to constantly see growth, reproduce, and utilize more resources. Every species on earth follows this set of core instincts. If Humans want to avoid destroying the world, we need to basically say NO to these most basic of instincts.
-People need to stop having children and let the population fall back down to 500mil-1 billion over a century or two.
-People need to stop always seeking "Bigger and better" things which take more and more energy and resources.
-People need to stop expanding into untamed wild areas because they see it as their 'mission' to tackle the new frontiers.
-We need societal programs to deal with 'insecurity'. In my opinion, economic insecurity is what leads to much of our greed and selfishness. People don't want to spend money TODAY to deal with climate change not because they can't afford it, but because they're worried about what will happen in the future if they lose their job or there's an economic downturn.

[workinclasszero]

11. The earth will endure our short reign of idiocy and repair itself in time

And the cockroaches will inherit the earth and live within it instead of destroying it like insane humanity.

Making them a far wiser species than your typical planet destroying, money lusting, capitalist republican POS, IMHO.

[Calculating]

12. Any other species would do what we're doing

If they had the intelligence and means to do it Humans are just following the basic survival instincts to reproduce, spread, and do whatever we can to leave our children with as much as possible.