Great Barrier Reef: Victim of Human Overpopulation

By Frosty Wooldridge

Many years ago, I enjoyed a Scuba diving adventure on the Great Barrier Reef off Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia. While my diving experiences included the Mediterranean, Atlantic, Pacific, Indian Ocean, Great Lakes and Gulf of Mexico—nothing compared to the stunning beauty of the Barrier Reef.

Especially the night dives! We exited the boat at sunset to immerse ourselves into a watery world of darkness. Underwater at night, you cannot see your nose or finger at one inch away! But, once on the ocean floor, we turned on our ‘torches’. Wow! A turtle glided by! A thousand fish in one school swam past us. Eels looked at us from their caverns. Amazing fish of every color and configuration carried on about their business of living while we watched with eyes as big as fried eggs! Additionally, when we turned off our lights, we watched the magic of phosphorescent green plankton turning the water around us into ‘green chandeliers’ spinning and dropping around us as if confetti on a New York tickertape parade. Call it magic in the deep!

But today, as in much of the world affected by the onslaught of humanity, the Great Barrier Reef faces extinction.

In a depressing report by ocean correspondent Frank Pope, “Great Barrier Reef will be gone in 20 years,” July 7, 2009, we find yet another aspect of humanity destroying the beauty of our planet.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6652866.ece
“The Great Barrier Reef will be so degraded by warming waters that it will be unrecognizable within 20 years, an eminent marine scientist has said,” Pope reported. “Charlie Veron, former chief scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, told The Times: “There is no way out, no loopholes. The Great Barrier Reef will be over within 20 years or so.”

“Once carbon dioxide had hit the levels predicted for between 2030 and 2060, all coral reefs were doomed to extinction,” Veron said. “They would be the world’s first global ecosystem to collapse. I have the backing of every coral reef scientist, every research organization. I’ve spoken to them all. This is critical. This is reality.”

“Dr. Veron’s comments came as the Zoological Society of London, the Royal Society and the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) held a crucial meeting on the future of coral reefs in London yesterday,” Pope reported. “In a joint statement they warned that by mid-century extinctions of coral reefs around the world would be inevitable.”

Pope explained, “Warming water causes coral polyps to eject the symbiotic algae that provide them with nutrients. These “bleaching events” were widespread during the El Niño of 1997-98, and localized occurrences are becoming more frequent. During an El Niño, much of the tropical Pacific becomes unusually warm. Reefs take decades to recover but by 2030 to 2050, depending on emissions and feedback effects, bleaching will be occurring annually or biannually.

“Although surface sea temperatures are rising fastest in tropical regions, the other big threat to coral reefs comes from the higher latitudes. The cold water there absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxide more readily than warm water and acidifies more easily.

“When carbon dioxide concentrations reach between 480 and 500 parts per million, warm water is no barrier to acidification, and the pH in equatorial regions will have dropped so far, meaning higher acidity, that coral reef growth becomes impossible anywhere in the ocean.”

“Coral reefs are the most sensitive of marine ecosystems,” said Alex Rogers, scientific director of IPSO. “Increased temperature and decreased ph will have a double-whammy effect. Reefs were safe at CO2 levels of 350 parts per million. We are at 387ppm today. Beyond 450 the fate of corals is sealed.”

Today, human encroachment causes the extinction of 80 to 100 creatures per day. The “Sixth Extinction Session” proceeds ever faster upon the planet—driven by human overpopulation and disruption of countless eco-systems around the planet.

Pope said, “In the five mass extinction events in geological history, key was the carbon cycle, in which carbon dioxide is the primary currency. Its concentration in the atmosphere is higher than it has been for 20 million years. In the Permian extinction, as in all the big extinctions, tropical marine life was the hardest hit. Reef-building corals took more than ten million years to return.”

The Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest and most diverse marine ecosystem, is worth $4.5 billion a year to Australia. Worldwide, reefs are worth $300 billion. “But that is trivial compared with the costs if coral reefs fail,” Dr. Veron said. “Then it won’t be a matter of no income, it will be a matter of damage to livelihoods, economies and ecosystems.”

As you can see, the eco-systems around this planet suffer accelerating damages from the onslaught of humanity. How can we really save reefs around the world? What must we do to save ourselves?

First of all, we must discover and apply new technologies that displace coal, gas and oil burning. This planet cannot mitigate the carbon emissions now exhausting upon the land, rivers and oceans. Unfortunately, wind, solar, wave and other energy sources cannot equal nor can they replace the energy density of oil. Therefore, we human beings must move at breakneck speed toward stabilizing our numbers around the planet. We need:

1. International conference promoting world human population stabilization.
2. Encourage via family planning and birth control two children families planet-wide.
3. Engage highest amount of efficiency in vehicles, housing, public transport and world travel. Create solar, wind and electric powered engines to stop carbon emissions around the planet.
4. Create walking concentric cities along with close-to-work housing.
5. Create bicycle-centric cities.
6. Engage Lester Brown’s new paradigm concepts from his book: Plan B 3.0
7.
That book provides the blueprint for future sustainability on this planet for all living creatures.
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To take action: First and foremost, join www.numbersusa.com and become one of nearly a million Americans making impact with pre-written faxes and phone calls to change immigration policies toward a stable future. Bi-partisan and highly effective!

Second, join www.thesocialcontract.com for up to date information via the Social Contract Quarterly. Exceptional publication to keep you informed.

www.fairus.org ; www.vdare.com ; www.alipac.us ; www.firecoalition.com ; www.cairco.org ; www.limitstogrowth.com ; www.capsweb.org ; www.populationmedia.org ; www.worldpopulationbalance.org ; LimitsToGrowth.org ; www.postcarbon.org

America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans by Frosty Wooldridge. This book covers all the ramifications of adding 100 million people to the USA in the next 26 years by 2035.

Visit this site for a rendition of Colorado Governor Lamm’s speech: “How to Destroy America”

http://usawakeup.org/HowToDestroyAmerica.htm

Must see DVD: “Blind Spot”
This movie illustrates America’s future without oil, water and other resources to keep this civilization functioning. It’s a brilliant educational movie!


In Canada: Tim Murray,
Director Immigration Watch Canada www.immigrationwatch.org
Vice President Biodiversity First http://biodiversityfirst.googlepages.com/index.htm
Blog http://sinkinglifeboat.blogspot.com

Watch the DVD movie: “Blind Spot”—Exceptional movie with top scientists candidly discussion what we face as a civilization if we continue on our hyper-population growth path. www.blindspotdoc.com

Please visit Annie Leonard at www.storyofstuff.com for a compelling and highly interesting 20 minute video concerning our high consumption, highly wasteful and unsustainable society. She educates and provides avenues for you to make a difference.

Visit this web site by Chris Martenson: http://www.chrismartenson.com/environmental_data

In Colorado: visit www.soprisfoundation.org for information how you can network with like-minded folks to create a more sustainable future for Colorado and other states.

View CNN’s “Planet in Peril” with Anderson Cooper and Lisa Ling:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2008/planet.in.peril/
Ghost of Thomas Paine—compelling video of common sense
http://www.lawatchdog.com/index.html#anchor_2296


BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA: D.C.: (202)224-2854 comment@whitehouse.gov
Books to read: “The Long Emergency” by James Howard Kunstler
“Peak Everything” by Richard Heinberg
“Too Many People” by Lindsey Grant
“Plan B 3.0” by Lester Brown


Become a member of “Frosty’s Press Agent Corps” whereby you volunteer a few hours to send out emails to top TV and radio hosts to offer top speakers on America’s overpopulation crisis driven by unending immigration. Email frostyw@juno.com and receive two informational letters showing you exactly what to do.

Roy Beck's "IMMIGRATION BY THE NUMBERS" is the single best educational appreciation of America's future if we allow ourselves to add another 100 million people. Just click on this site for the most sobering experience of your children's future.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4094926727128068265&q=roy+beck&hl=en

Roy Beck gives a graphic presentation of our fate if we continue to allow legal and illegal immigration to swamp this country. If you have children, you will be particular unnerved at their fate. I know Roy Beck personally and his integrity and knowledge stand at the top. Pass this web site 14 minute video far and wide across America to educate everyone you know. We either stop this human tsunami or the future of this country will be much like Rome's. We must, as a nation and a civilization, move to secure our country from this massive, unrelenting population overload from a line that never ends. This will be the most compelling 14 minute video of your life.

Once you see it, go to my web site for action items www.frostywooldridge.com and join www.numbersusa.com to become a weekly faxer of pre written letters and join the phone calling teams.

Bob Woodruff of ABC asked input from all citizens concerning the future of our planet. Go to www.earth2100.tv for a sobering reality check as to what we face and to what I have been writing about for the past 20 years. Our ‘window’ to change to a balanced population and non-polluting energy diminishes every day we listen to irresponsible media and thus ignore the blatant symptoms manifesting all over America and the planet.

From: Frosty Wooldridge

This three minute interview with Adam Schrager on “Your Show” May 4, 2008, NBC Channel 9 News, addresses the ramifications of adding 120 million people to USA in 35 years and six million people to Colorado as to water shortages, air pollution, loss of farmland, energy costs and degradation of quality of life. In the interview, Frosty Wooldridge explains the ramifications of adding 120 million people to the USA in 35 years. He advances new concepts such as a “Colorado Carrying Capacity Policy”; “Colorado Environmental Impact Policy”; “Colorado Water Usage Policy”; “Colorado Sustainable Population Policy”. Nationally, the USA needs a "National Sustainable Population Policy" to determine the carrying capacity of this nation for the short and long term. Wooldridge is available for interviews on radio and TV having interviewed on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and FOX.

Go to: www.frostywooldridge.com and click on “Audio/Video” tab

Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world population balance at www.frostywooldridge.com He is the author of: America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans. 1 888 280 7715 www.amazon.com ; www.barnesandnoble.com