We are strip-mining the oceans' remaining bounty.
When I lived in that commercial fishing area, I learned about bycatch. That is a top-tier euphemism for destroying the entire ocean ecosystem/protein-provider, where sometimes only 3% of caught biomass makes it to any table. [1]
Shrimp is by far the worst. Please stop eating shrimp. If you knew the truth, and respect efficiency, you would never eat wild shrimp again.
I went from thinking that seafood was a good thing, to now mostly eating chicken. We are such morons with how we treat the seas. BTW, I love spearfishing. If that is how I got my seafood, then not only fun, but no waste/bycatch.
[1] https://www.biographic.com/the-corals-that-shouldnt-exist/
I'm hoping that Cape Verde's World Cup success story translates to more eye balls on stories like this (with the mere mention of the country landing it in search results). Which means more attention, money and research to West Africa's relatively fragile but diverse ecosystem.
* https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/florida-dumped-h...
And for those commenting about risk from tourism, this is mesophotic coral at 175 feet. It’s out of range of recreational scuba much less shallow-reef snorkelers. Only technical divers can reach this reef. That’s why it hadn’t even been explored for all this time.
https://www.dev.nationalgeographic.org/society/our-programs/...
https://github.com/NGS-Exploration-Technology/Deep-Sea-Camer...
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If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
Some dermatologists have noted that sunscreen is little used in Africa. [1]
I’m not saying that is the only explanation for the reef’s preservation, but it’s likely a significant contributing factor.
[1] https://theconversation.com/sunscreen-wouldnt-have-saved-bob...
When I was there it was wild to see a completely different array of plants and flowers. There is one small white flower that had petals that felt like some sort of sythentic material. There is a whole world that very few people experience or even know exists.
Coral Vita is the trailblazer in the for profit category, first coral Series A (2025). I don’t know them yet though. https://www.coralvita.co
https://coral.org is a 501c3. One of my friends is on the board.
Other fun stuff.
Mars runs one of the most prolific programs: https://www.buildingcoral.com/
Reefstarter was backed by my friends at SOSV. They design coastal barriers. Great team. East coast for any of you Floridians. https://www.reefstarter.net/
There’s more but there’s a few off the top.
In general the US is primarily focused on erosion control since the beaches are disappearing. Coral is more an afterthought especially with the gutting of all our science. Australia is really leading the way here with AIMS and Saudi has KAUST. Big ups to the Paul Allen Foundation though, they gave Scripps $10M a few years back.
Fun stat to end with: coral reefs are responsible for over $10T in annual economic value. They get less than $1B a year to ensure they stick around. We’re gonna change that.
Still, it's a detail. Well done for the amazing work you're doing. We all depend on people like you and the organizations you mention.
They can only survive short duration events. At some point the temp and time is too much and they die. The only way they come back is reintroduction.
We’ve lost over 50% of the reefs and are expected to lose 90% by 2050.
There are many amazing solutions. Some use corals more resistant to heat stress. Australia has seen some promising results with seed boxes. I know of a few other amazing solutions currently in the lab.
We have already gotten in natures way. So now we need to help nature with our technology.
I guess the best help, would be stop getting into natures way so brutally, but since transforming the whole industry takes time and making people aware and care is even harder, some technical solutions to offset some damage is of course welcome.
https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-subway-cars-turning...
And to be clear, in GP's link, living oysters do show up, but they weren't put there deliberately (the shells and every other development provided the larvae with places to grow and establish themselves). The NY project started with oyster larvae placed on discarded shells to deliberately create the new environment with an oyster population.
Amazing that they're actually progressing on a billion oysters. That's incredible. I wonder when it becomes self sustaining, and just reaches a billion on it's own.
Tangential: I quite often slap down comments for much the same reasons you're using. No objections there, in fact I wish more people would do it.
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Here's a link from the USDA Forest Service:
https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/cyprip...
Coral bleaching seems too actually be a sign of prosperity, not suffering.
Bleaching happens when the symbiosis breaks down due to elevated temps. That is due to suffering and causes suffering.
I'm aware that lots of people can be destructive, but there's a balance.
I appreciate it. It’s an uphill battle but it’s worth it.
Think about that in the next years when you finally realise how screwed we are.
Chatgpt’s assessment of this claim: “not well supported by the mainstream literature and is likely misleading.”
try botany:
Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3CBOpT2-NRvoc2ecFMDCsA
How? How does this work?
>Bleaching happens when the symbiosis breaks down due to elevated temps.
The first part is correct, the second is unknown. In 2016, 84% of corals bleached, the highest number. Did global warming peak in 2016?
I admit, saying "prosperity" was provocative. It's probably not a sign of prosperity. But what exactly it is a sign of, we have little idea.
It changes the composition of the forest to make it more flammable.
I don’t understand your coral comment. The coral expels the algae because the temp causes it to expel harmful toxins. There are other triggers besides heat.
Only 30% of the forests are primeval, and those 30% are not in Europe.
Forests are not "natural" for thousands of years.
>There are other triggers besides heat.
The amount of studies (or corals and algae) seems to be insufficient. I clearly remember the alarmist wave of the 2016, which turned out to be, well, not entirely unjustified, but clearly exaggerated.
It changes the composition of the forests to make them more flammable.
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Re unemployment - back when basic necessities were met, the KLF wrote a book about about going on the dole and unleashing your creativity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manual
Yes so maybe you should fund a coral study so that you can then know the truth that anyone who looks at this stuff knows.
I guess ecologists aren’t scientists?
Wildland fire ecologist Bob Gray said leafy deciduous trees, like aspen, are more resilient to wildfires than softwood conifers like pine and spruce.
"Softwoods are highly resinous," he said.
"The foliage and bark is highly flammable. When you've got large contiguous areas of conifer forest, you can have large continuous forest fires."
Doesn't pass basic sniff test.
Multiple ecologists agree on the difference in flame resistance between tree types.
I am saying glyphosate impacts fires and you are saying it doesn’t. The evidence shows that it does impact even if small. That is my point. When the scientific study that no one is going to fund comes out in 10 years showing this, it’ll be too late.
This passes a basic sniff test if you use your brain to think through the chain of events.
The composition of the forests changes in managed stands yes. But these are not most stands. And if the hardwoods are removed mechanically or with herbicide the change occurs.
The real reason most out of control wildfires occur is because of too much fuel buildup. Poor management. Not letting smaller fires burn.
That Glyphosate is used on a small fraction of forested land to kill hardwoods doesn't mean "Glyposate is causing forest fires!"