No. I don't prefer to attach a dollar sign - I have a concern for human welfare. You know that boring stuff like having a job, putting a roof over your head etc.

I take it you are implying that if Australia doesn't curtail our emissions the GBR will disappear. Firstly if your subscribe to the AGW theory its thw World's emissions that matter (of which we contribute 1.5%).  Secondly its by no means certain that warming of a few degrees will actually harm the reef.

PS those tourist dollars will go anyway if some get their way as cheap air travel is a significant source of CO2 emissions.

pjb05 wrote on Aug 21^st, 2008 at 7:24pm:


Even my 14 year old nephew realises that it's a global issue. Substitute 'the world' for "Australia' and you're on the ball.

Here's some more on coral reefs. Yes I know it comes from a sceptics site and you will tell me that it is funded by profit crazy fossil fuel companies. But it refers to a published peer reviewed study on the GBR:

The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (www.co2science.org.), however, has drawn attention to a study by Lough and Barnes, published in 2000 in the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, that assembled and analyzed the calcification characteristics of 245 similar-sized corals of Australias Great Barrier Reef. It found that increasing CO2 would increase, not decrease, the calcification of coral reefs. Their study notes that, "This increase of ~4% in calcification rate conflicts with the estimated decrease in coral calcification rate of 6-14% over the same time period suggested by Kleypas et al. (1999) as a response to changes in ocean chemistry."


The Center comments, "In light of these real-world empirical-based calculations, and in stark contrast to the doom-and-gloom prognostications of the world's climate alarmists, Lough and Barnes thus conclude that coral calcification rates may have already significantly increased along the GBR in response to global climate change.  And they are likely to increase even more, we would add, if the air's CO2 content and temperature continue to rise in the years ahead."

Quote:


anything that is not of mainstream will attract this sort of accusation. alternate views are fine by me..

Here's some more:

http://www.co2science.org/subject/c/summaries/calcification.php

Another major blow to the Kleypas et al. model was provided by the work of Lough and Barnes (2000), who assembled and analyzed the calcification characteristics of 245 similar-sized massive colonies of Porites corals obtained from 29 reef sites located along the length, and across the breadth, of Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR), which data spanned a latitudinal range of approximately 9° and an annual average sea surface temperature (SST) range of 25-27°C.  To these data they added other published data from the Hawaiian Archipelago (Grigg, 1981, 1997) and Phuket, Thailand (Scoffin et al., 1992), thereby extending the latitudinal range of the expanded data set to 20° and the annual average SST range to 23-29°C.

This analysis revealed that the GBR calcification data were linearly related to the average annual SST data, such that "a 1°C rise in average annual SST increased average annual calcification by 0.39 g cm-2 year-1."  Results were much the same for the extended data set; Lough and Barnes report that "the regression equation [calcification = 0.33(SST) - 7.07] explained 83.6% of the variance in average annual calcification (F = 213.59, p less than 0.00)," noting that "this equation provides for a change in calcification rate of 0.33 g cm-2 year-1 for each 1°C change in average annual SST."

With respect to the significance of their findings, Lough and Barnes say they "allow assessment of possible impacts of global climate change on coral reef ecosystems," and between the two 50-year periods 1780-1829 and 1930-1979, they calculate a calcification increase of 0.06 g cm-2 year-1, noting that "this increase of ~4% in calcification rate conflicts with the estimated decrease in coral calcification rate of 6-14% over the same time period suggested by Kleypas et al. (1999) as a response to changes in ocean chemistry."  Even more stunning is their observation that between the two 20-year periods 1903-1922 and 1979-1998, "the SST-associated increase in calcification is estimated to be less than 5% in the northern GBR, ~12% in the central GBR, ~20% in the southern GBR and to increase dramatically (up to ~50%) to the south of the GBR."

In light of these real-world observations, and in stark contrast to the doom-and-gloom prognostications of the world's climate alarmists, Lough and Barnes concluded that coral calcification rates "may have already significantly increased along the GBR in response to global climate change."  But in spite this compelling evidence, as well as the similar findings of others, claims of impending coral doom caused by rising air temperatures and CO2 concentrations have continued to rear their ugly heads ... on a regular basis ... and in the usual places.

Not sure FD, you would have to look at the original paper.

So what are you saying by putting up the Source Watch on Idso and Idso - have they been bought off by Exon? Craig Idso seems to be rather well qualified in the field:


Biographical information
A biographical note states that Craig Idso "received his B.S. in Geography from Arizona State University, his M.S. in Agronomy from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, and his Ph.D. in Geography from Arizona State University, where he studied as one of a small group of University Graduate Scholars. Dr. Idso's current research focus is on carbon sequestration, but he remains actively involved in several other aspects of global and environmental change, including climatology and meteorology, along with their impacts on agriculture. Dr. Idso has published scientific articles on issues related to data quality, the growing season, the seasonal cycle of atmospheric CO2, world food supplies, coral reefs, and urban CO2 concentrations, the latter of which he investigated via a National Science Foundation grant as a faculty researcher in the Office of Climatology at Arizona State University. In addition, he has lectured in Meteorology at Arizona State University, and in Physical Geography at Mesa and Chandler-Gilbert Community Colleges."[1]

It states that Idso was "Director of Environmental Science at Peabody Energy in St. Louis, Missouri and is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Geophysical Union, American Meteorological Society, Arizona-Nevada Academy of Sciences, Association of American Geographers, Ecological Society of America, and The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi."[1]