Record water temperatures have led to more and more mass bleaching events along the Great Barrier Reef. Experts warn the reef is running out of time.
Water temperatures along the Great Barrier Reef off the northeast coast of Australia have hit a 400-year high, according to a major new study, which concludes that human-induced climate change is the most likely cause.
Using coral samples to reconstruct sea temperatures dating back as far as the 17th century, scientists found that temperatures before 1900 had been relatively stable, but that they had been increasing on average by 0.12 degrees Celsius (0.2 degrees Fahrenheit) per year since 1960.
“These are corals that have lived for 400 years and these are the warmest temperatures they’ve experienced,” said Helen McGregor, co-author of the study which was published in the science journal Nature in Australia on Thursday.
The sad truth is that most people don’t care either. They say they do, but don’t act on it. Barely anyone stopped flying to their yearly vacation, barely anyone reduced their meat and dairy consumption, an increasing amount of people are wearing fast throwaway fashion. If the governments implemented the drastic measures we need they would be hanged by an angry mob of morons who won’t understand the dire situation until they die of a heatstroke.
Every government should put an increasingly aggressive carbon tax on everything.
Then take that money and directly give it back to everyone in the country as UBI. So if you made no carbon you just make money, if you pollute like fuck then you pay for it.
The only way to solve this is with cost. People don’t give a shit about anything else.
We had a very effective carbon tax, then the mining companies ran a massive scare campaign and the opposition was voted in and scrapped it immediately. I think it’s worth trying again but I doubt the political will is there anymore after what happened last time.
The biggest problem with progress is that there are so many working against it.