
Loss of Coral Reefs Could Cost $1T - uptown
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/loss-coral-reefs-could-cost-1-trillion-globally-21347
======
okreallywtf
This is a perfect example of how the economics of climate change and energy
are totally messed up.

These kinds of problems are not factored into the economics of energy so coal
and oil will remain economically viable without getting any kind of penalty.

Governments will attempt to tackle these issues (too late most likely) and it
will be largely public funds that go towards restoration but oil and gas and
coal companies will pocket all the profits and contribute little to the
repercussions.

If we factored in the total costs of our energy sources renewable would be
even more attractive. Given the fact that the energy companies have known
about climate change for decades [1], at what point is it expected that they
use some of the incredible profits made at the planets expense to mitigate
those costs? It is adding insult to injury that these companies are able to
avoid a lot of taxes [2] that would at least contribute to public funds being
used to combat climate change. That isn't even counting the millions
(billions?) that have been spent on misinformation.

[1] [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-
about-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-
climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/) [2]
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2016/03/07/27-g...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2016/03/07/27-giant-
profitable-companies-paid-no-taxes/81399094/)

~~~
shoo
i agree. but you're also letting the other side of the deal - consumers of
energy produced by polluting energy sources - off the hook. the consumers
benefit from this state of affairs too.

~~~
WorldMaker
That assumes that consumers have an active purchasing power in how their
energy is produced. How as a consumer do you switch the source of your energy?
You could maybe move to a cleaner energy state, but even then the grid is
highly intertwined and the differences may not be worth the expense and carbon
output of the move itself.

You could also protest/campaign/write-letters to your states public utilities
boards and maybe make a small difference... but the states are incentivized to
keep energy cheap for its citizens, first and foremost. They also have to
listen to the various lobbies of the various energy producers.

You might, if you own your own home and have enough income and the right sort
of roof and a home-owners association that allows (because some consider them
ugly or anti-historic preservation and ban them), install solar panels on your
home.

As an individual consumer there are many ways to control your personal carbon
footprint (drive less/use less gas, eat less meat especially beef), but
consumers don't have a choice for which energy they consume.

If you are arguing that consumers use less energy: the average household is
more efficient than it has ever been... and any individual household is still
a drop in the overall energy bucket compared commercial and industrial usage.
(The energy expenditure of the average office building far exceeds the average
home. Imagine if we could all work from home...)

~~~
clort
In the UK at least, you can buy electricity from different suppliers though it
all comes through the national grid and there is no difference between the
electrons of course. The supplier you buy from is responsible for generating
enough capacity to offset the needs of their customers (I presume there is
some kind of acceptable fudge factor to take up the slack on occasion)

~~~
accountyaccount
This is true in the US sometimes, but it varies wildly by state (and sometimes
even city).

In places where you do have the option there are companies that very
aggressively market w/ door-to-door salespeople to attempt to get consumers to
lock in a static rate over X sum of years. Which, as far as I can tell...
generally confuses/scares consumers so they don't even consider switching
suppliers at all.

------
Alex3917
I was snorkeling in Indonesia a couple years ago, and they didn't sell reef-
safe sunscreen anywhere in the country, even in the national parks. It's
insane to me that these sorts of locations that derive so much of their GDP
from tourism don't even make it _possible_ to protect the resources driving
their economy, let alone encouraging or mandating that people do so. Like you
would think that if you were a hotel near Kommodo National Park, and the only
reason anyone ever stays at your hotel is to go snorkeling and see the Kommodo
dragons, then you would stock reef-safe products in your gift shop. But sadly
that's not the case.

~~~
phonon
They don't sell sunscreen based on titanium dioxide or zinc oxide anywhere in
Indonesia? Hard to believe.

~~~
Alex3917
I mean they probably do somewhere, but not in any of the hotel gift shops,
convenience stores, pharmacies, or dive shops where I looked.

~~~
phonon
Well, you did say "anywhere in the country".

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arcanus
I always dislike estimates of this sort, because they give the impression of a
scaling argument O(trillion $) when they are never validated and they are
seldom more than 'this could cause a huge impact'!

I'm speaking as someone who is horrified at the loss of coral reefs, both
because of the ecological implications as well as the loss of a truly stunning
natural beauty (I'm PADI certified and love Scuba).

~~~
novia
Radiolab had a pretty good podcast explaining where these economic estimates
come from and why they are important to have around. It's part 3 at the
following link:

[http://www.radiolab.org/story/worth/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/worth/)

Basically, if you do not make a monetary estimate of the worth of some feature
of nature, it's assumed worth is $0 when governments are making decisions
about policy and land use.

------
jorgemf
Ok, so now we care about the environment and the planet if we can set a price.
If we estimate an animal race is worth a $10k we can extinct it.

I dislike very much to put a price on things just to be aware we need to
protect them. Coral reefs have more value, it is not just about money.

~~~
enraged_camel
The overwhelming majority of people in the world, even those living in coastal
areas, have never seen a coral reef in real life. Some may have seen it on TV
or in print media, but most people are aware of them only by name.

That's why the economic argument is a good way to communicate the importance
of these resources. Someone who has never left Kentucky in their entire life
may not care about The Grand Barrier Reef in Australia, but they may care
about the global economic impact of losing it.

~~~
self_assembly
And what is to stop anybody from extending the economic argument to that very
person in Kentucky. "This fella has an economic value of X... We could get on
just fine without him/her". This is already being done to an extent with
companies buying "dead peasant" life insurance on their employees [1].

The point is that is that people along with the environment and the species we
share it with have value that is outside of their economic contributions.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/is-there-a-dead-peasant-
life-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/is-there-a-dead-peasant-life-
insurance-policy-out-on-you-2011-11)

~~~
edanm
What's wrong with putting an economic "value" on a human life? It is something
we all implicitly and explicitly do every do. Implicitly, by deciding how much
money to spend on increasing our own safety (e.g., how much extra to pay for a
safer car). Explicitly, by things like insurance as you mentioned.

Burying your head in the sand and refusing to understand that the world is
full of trade-offs, which can most easily be expressed via economics, doesn't
help at all.

~~~
Retra
It's because they are most easily expressed via economics, but a far cry from
most accurately expressed that way.

------
d--b
Forget about the estimate, the loss of coral reefs is a disaster, period.

~~~
necessity
Why? The poor who benefit from cheap energy don't give a fuck about tourists
loosing their fancy attraction.

------
dakota_101
Seems weird to be talking about this in terms of Trillions of dollars of
impact to the economy. I get it that it can be helpful to show people how bad
it could be but I'm not sure it does a great job at that even.

It would be like saying: Lack of breathable air could cost $76 Trillion
Globally

~~~
macawfish
Some people only care about money.

~~~
monk_e_boy
How do you fix that?

We need some sort of karma for good deeds. I can up vote comments on hn
without spending "votes", I don't run out of them. Using them as a sort of
currency would be interesting. Would this solve problems that aren't profit
making? Like fixing the climate.

~~~
zo1
And where would these magical "votes" come from? Would we be born with a
finite amount of them, and get to use them periodically? Say, like an election
and voting?

In addition, let's say I get lots of these "votes". What good are they to me?
What value to they possess/represent? Do we treat them as magical brownie
points that are monetarily value-less, in which case, only those that care for
the prestige of having many of them would chase them. The rest would ignore
it.

Do we punish individuals for having too little? How about punishing those
individuals that misuse them? Sell them?

Anywho, playing a bit of devil's advocate there. But sounds like what you're
suggesting is money. It's available right now, and yet people don't go around
donating ridiculous-enough amounts of it to make an appreciable difference in
"karma" regarding the environment. That's why we're having this discussion,
even.

~~~
monk_e_boy
I am poor. I would like to fix the environment. How do I affect change? How do
I go from helpless to helpful?

I have no money, I have little spare time, limited range of travel.

We see these unfixable problems with climate and no real way of tackling them.

I spent an hour picking up plastic from the beach, could I turn that time and
effort into something? Like money or karma or something else.

I can't do it for free as I need money for food. No one wants to pay me to do
it. How do we solve this?

------
kenpomeroy
> “It would have been virtually impossible for this to have occurred without
> climate change.”

> “This isn’t just an environmental issue. The Great Barrier Reef is one of
> Australia’s greatest economic assets. It’s responsible for bringing in more
> than $7 billion each year to our economy, while also supporting the
> livelihoods of around 70,000 people.”

The irony is that in order for these tourists to visit, they have to fly
overseas in planes creating significant carbon emissions.

~~~
losteric
On the other hand, flying accounts for less than 5% of global CO2 emissions.
Enviro-tourism arguably helps reduce the other 95%.

~~~
shoo
that'd be great if it were true, but i'm skeptical.

Even ignoring the CO2 produced by flying, what evidence is there that enviro-
tourism itself reduces CO2 emissions?

~~~
losteric
Well, the stats are true and available online.

I admittedly lack evidence on the enviro-tourism aspect, but it seems logical
that tourists from heavily industrialized 3rd world countries return with some
desire to improve their home environment.

------
dsfyu404ed
As someone who grew up in an area where tourism was the primary "industry" I
don't think it's appropriate to count loss of tourism generated commerce as a
"loss" here. It might be a local loss but it's a net win for society.

------
Rylinks
>The loss of Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef alone costing that region 1
million visitors a year, imperilling 10,000 jobs and draining $1 billion from
the economy

This is terrible for Queensland, but it doesn't support the $1T global cost.
Most of these tourism dollars will go to other attractions that are slightly
worse on the margin--they won't just disappear.

------
tkyjonathan
If you do not want to wait for your government to take action about climate
change, you do have an individual option;
[http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/08/opinions/go-vegan-save-
the...](http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/08/opinions/go-vegan-save-the-planet-
wang/)

And heres how:
[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=vegan+what+I+ea...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=vegan+what+I+eat+in+a+day)

------
sparkzilla
This is a perfect example of unwarranted alarmism. It links coral bleaching to
global warming _without any proof_ , while making ridiculous economic claims.
Locals [1] and local scientists [2] disagree with the claim that the reef is
irreparably damaged. Here's the quote:

 _We’ve also seen reports that 35 per cent, or even 50 per cent, of the entire
reef is now gone. However, based on our ­combined results so far, the overall
mortality rate is 22 per cent — and about 85 per cent of that die-off has
occurred in the far north ­between the tip of Cape York and just north of
Lizard Island, 250km north of Cairns. Seventy-five per cent of the reef will
come out in a few months time as recovered._

I also urge anyone who is sick of this kind of science scaremongering to
follow junkscience.com [3]

[1] [http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/reef-
tourism-o...](http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/reef-tourism-
operators-find-less-than-five-per-cent-of-coral-dead-under-extreme-
bleaching/news-story/)

[2] [http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/great-barrier-
re...](http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/great-barrier-reef-
scientists-exaggerated-coral-bleaching/news-
story/99810c83f5a420727b12ab255256774b)

[3] [http://junkscience.com](http://junkscience.com)

------
SamPhillips
If you're concerned by this, a group of us tech folks will be marching with
the Climate March on April 29th. Join us!

[https://techsector.peoplesclimate.org/](https://techsector.peoplesclimate.org/)

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nojvek
I think the Fermi Paradox's great filter will probably filter us out. I don't
regard humans as a very smart species. It's like an ape hacked on with a large
computer

~~~
lgas
What is a species you would consider smart?

~~~
dota_fanatic
How about one that can engage in plans as a collective that consider long-term
consequences over short-term gains? This is something we use when considering
how well along a child is in development. It appears humanity as a collective
isn't much smarter than a child.

------
sporkenfang
This is a problem tech could solve. I don't see what stops us from monetizing
saving the reefs via charging for eco-friendly tourism in pristine ocean.

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
At this point anybody not calling for more nuclear power plants is just
ignoring reality.

------
chaostheory
Have the world's coast guards and navies already been deployed to protect
natural resources within a country's borders? If not yet, I would be surprised
if it didn't happen soon.

~~~
losteric
If you include food, yes. Multiple nations have shot at unauthorized Chinese
fishing vessels trawling within their borders, however China hasn't defended
those ships beyond political posturing.

As far as fossil fuels go, I'm not aware of states defending their
internationally recognized claims against other states... but there is growing
tension behind unrecognized claims.

The South China Sea issue is largely driven by China using their navy to
project borders beyond internationally recognized limits. Their official
justification is reclaiming historical territory, which suspiciously became a
priority when oil was discovered in the area.

Russia may be in a similar position. They've been building up their Arctic
military force, presumably with the intent of claiming Arctic oil fields as
the Northwestern Passages opens up due to climate change. However, again, they
haven't claimed anything officially.

------
titojankowski
Anyone else see massive opportunities here for entrepreneurs?

I like to say "climate change will create the first trillionaire". I can't
help but imagine the powerful technologies and systems that will be developed
out of this. Eco-friendly tourism, environmental sensors, synthetic biology
reef protectants.

~~~
SerpentJoe
If we assume that governments and businesses start giving a shit then many
forms of magic are possible.

~~~
titojankowski
A "Hacker's Guide to Climate Change" would be cool...equip hackers to make the
magic :)

------
caub
it would be great if people not just upvote it, but change their lifestyle,
stop to overconsume, over-eat, over-everything, limit their car usage or at
least not drive stupidly, stop having useless pets, stop smoking, etc..

I don't want to give lessons, but I have probably 5% of the average impact
people do to environment in my country

------
xname2
This number does not make sense at all. Yes, certain sites lost visitors
because of loss of coral reefs, but how come this financial effect is global?
Do visitors go to other places? Even if they stay home, don't they spend money
on other things? Even if they don't spend those money, can the savings help
them in the future? It is just ridiculous to claim losing certain visitors as
global financial cost.

~~~
ageofwant
Tourism amounts to about 5% of the economic importance of coral reefs. 35% of
all fish species spend a part of their life cycle on reefs. Pelagic fish
predate on reef and demersals, the system is fundamentally interdependent.
reefs protect coastal infrastructure, and so on.

Thinking that the loss of coral reefs only affects a few rich playboys is...
naive.

------
tn135
Ah! the fear mongering. There is science and then there is stamp collecting.
This report is more like later.

These reports must be taken with grain of salt. Not only the study is dubious
but it essentially talks of all coral reefs across the world doing extinct.
There is good chance that coral reefs will reduce in their size over next few
decades but they are unlikely to totally disappear. Neither will the jobs and
other opportunities disappear with it. A rare coral reef is a bigger tourism
destination.

Also $1T is a figure I will totally ignore. If we have to protect coral reefs
it is because it is an important part of ecosystem that I would like to
conserve for my kids and grand kids (and I would like to pay for the
conservation efforts too).

I think the probability that US will go into another recession over either war
or some other government scheme gone wrong is much higher over next 30 years.
We will likely lose lot more that $1T that time.

------
louithethrid
To patch the allemende-bug, you would have to introduce incentives via
politics, but incentives are either gambled around or with, or corroded away
by cooperate-kapital not beeing busy. So to fix it, you need a law that is
gambling waterteight - in all participating countrys- and you need to bind law
corroding kapital.

Now its basically impossible to change this democratically - any initiative
would be bend, distorted and defused long before it would reach the capital.
The only feasible option - is to alter consumer behaviour. For this, the real
economic footprint needs to be visible on all products, with the easy scan of
a app. All of it. Meaning, you need to pay people all along the supply chain
to spy on the origins and processes that produce something. You could then
really see what in your life is destroying that reef - and what alternatives
there are. And then you could vote with your feet. And to add incentive for
those who do not care (we are all dead in the long term), some publicly
visible environmental kharma point system, could be the final incentive.
Maybe- something aking to jewelery- you only get, if you sacrifice part of
your lifestyle for the planet.

