One Day at a Time

I wasn't planning to linger on the "Science Friday" podcast I listened to last night discussing the impending demise of the world's coral reefs. But today's "Fast Track" is too similar to ignore:

On the Fast Track by Bill Holbrook 12/21/07

The podcast was especially depressing because the predictions are that even if every country/continent adopts the current environmental treaties like the Kyoto Treaty, the coral reefs will not be able to sustain themselves in the oceans. They'll die, and while their skeletons will slowly erode away, new corals won't be able to compete with the sea grasses that can live in the current state of the waters. This is a prediction for the middle of the century. Within 40 years. The only hope the corals have, the Stanford research guest says, is to completely revamp the way we look at how we live in the world, and adopt measures such as no gas-using automotives within the next two decades. Like that will happen.

The scariest part of the show was his analogy of the coral reefs being like the canary in the coal mine. While the reefs themselves are worthy of protection, they are providing an indicator of danger and a significant need for change.

I'm still looking for a mountain cave in which to hibernate and hermitize. Please let me know of any likely candidates. ;-)