Please welcome welcome our newest AquaNerd contributor, Michael Rice. Besides working at Elite Reef, Michael also runs his Marine Engineers blog and writes for Reefs.com. I would like to thank Michael for joining our site and we look forward to reading his articles.
Recently news about our world’s reefs has been focused on the growing environmental problems that we are causing for them and the actions that should be taken to rectify the problems, but there comes a time when we have to face the fact that shooting a pistol at a freight train is not going to stop it. Search Google for news articles with the keyword “reef,” and you will overwhelmingly find shocking headlines about what we are doing to the oceans and what that means for the future. Articles about waste entering the water have been common for years, and of course articles of global warming and rising shore lines, but recently, new research has surfaced regarding greenhouse gasses and their effects on the oceans. Chemical poisoning of wildlife, mass erosion, deaf fish and dying reefs are just a few of the huge problems that are outlined in such articles, and there are surely much more to be discovered. Many articles and environmental groups call for changes to be made in order to stop these problems, but we must realize the inevitable here and work to find a solution with that in mind. Greenhouse gasses are caused by nearly everything we do from me typing this very article to our reef tanks consuming power to driving our cars, and it has to be realized that this is not going to stop. Cutting power to the entire world would be the true solution to this problem, but anything else will merely slow it down. It is this inevitability that must drive us toward a solution, and the solution is not going to be good. I don’t pretend to know a solution or even have a small guess as to one, but we must urge those with the ability to find one to do so. My hopes are up for the oceans and the ecosystems they support, but the outlook is grim at best.
