A Pumicing Outlook

[Gormwood]

A giant pumice stone floating in the Pacific could help heal Australia's Great Barrier Reef

With all the news about climate change and the Amazon Forest catching fire, it's nice to see something that looks like the Earth trying to fix itself despite humanity.

How long you think it'll take to repair the GBR if the whole pumice thing works? Are there other ways the Earth will try to clean up Man's mess besides doing away with humanity?

[Rojava Free State]

The earth isn't a conscious being. It doesn't choose to fix itself. Nature just naturally stays in equilibrium due to the consequences of one's actions

Too Many people eat up all the food and as a result they'll all starve.no supernatural mother earth goddess needed there

[Nova Cyberia]

When in doubt just remember that volcanoes will fix everything one way or another.

[The New California Republic]

What a bizarre thing.

[Galloism]

When in doubt just remember that volcanoes will fix everything one way or another.

Best answer.

[Kowani]

Finally, some good fucking news.

[Vivolkha]

We're not always going to be this lucky.

[Scomagia]

Neat.

[Scomagia]

The earth isn't a conscious being. It doesn't choose to fix itself. Nature just naturally stays in equilibrium due to the consequences of one's actions

Too Many people eat up all the food and as a result they'll all starve.no supernatural mother earth goddess needed there

No shit dude. Nobody was saying otherwise.

[Ors Might]

Smh, not a bad move, Mother Nature. Not a bad move.

We’ll get you next time.

[Thepeopl]

According to the article, the redistribution of organisms happens every 5 years. So it already happened 7 times since 1985, when the first alerts came that the great barrier reef was dying.

If we don't stop polluting, the great barrier reef will never restore.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

The earth isn't a conscious being. It doesn't choose to fix itself. Nature just naturally stays in equilibrium due to the consequences of one's actions

Too Many people eat up all the food and as a result they'll all starve.no supernatural mother earth goddess needed there

Mmm, not exactly. The planet indeed has cleaning processes for itself. These just take some time. Longer than we give it a chance to complete.

[Playing In The Water]

What Nanatsu said. The 'natural order of things' absolutely is self-correcting, given enough time, but humanity plays on an altogether faster wavelength than most any of those processes can manage. Oftentimes, with the damage we do to a given niche, that ecosystem's natural 'correcting' process is one we are already sabotaging elsewhere, as well, either inadvertently or very...well, vertently. Usually for money. Well, no; always for money. The rich make the rules, and trees, fish, and nearly-extinct little baby-eyed rodents that are so cute you could cuddle them all day don't provide many lobbyists nor wealthy backing to the decision-makers. The long and short of it is that all the power is in the hands of those who benefit most highly by doing the most damage as quickly as possible, and that has always been - and will always be - the case.

As for this pumice stone cure-all hope, I really have some bad news about that; the Great Barrier Reef has just had its death warrant signed by events thousands of kilometres away:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2019082 ... ic-on-fire

This is the tipping point. One of the single largest long-term carbon sinks on the planet is one its way to becoming a vociferous carbon-producer. As the article says:

...if the forests burn and tundra melts, we could dramatically increase the amount of carbon in our atmosphere – essentially rendering useless even the most coordinated global attempts to cut global emissions.

That means all of it. Every fundraiser, every green town hall meeting, every windmill farm, every multinational attempt to coordinate a lower-carbon response to the world we've changed; all of it rendered utterly irrelevant by the sheer volume of formerly-contained gasses being released from the permafrost. This was the tipping point that climate experts were warning us about decades ago; one they said would come by 2040, 2050 or so, that would irrevocably alter our world. We've just done so well as a species that we've jumped that mark tens of years ahead of schedule.

Now I don't exactly recall what the latest details on the GBR were, but I seem to remember most experts on the thing saying that a warmer world - and subsequently warmer oceans - were not going to do it a lot of good. As we have got a HUGE dose of virtually uncontrollable warming en route, I think that a bi-decadal pumice stone bath is not going to be quite enough to stave off the inevitable.

All I can really say is that if you value the Great Barrier Reef, I would highly recommend you get over to Queensland and dive it while you can; it's not going to be around for very much longer.

[The Blaatschapen]

This was a rock solid move by the volcano!

[Neanderthaland]

This was a rock solid move by the volcano!

The Great Barrier Reef really needed to get stoned.