# My Paper Written in One Night!



## funlad3 (Oct 9, 2010)

I got to write a paper on coral reef destruction, but I had to write it in one night. I was half asleep for the second half, but here is the rough draft! What do you all think? Oh yeah, I had to pretend I was speaking at MACNA too....



Hello people of MACNA! I know you’re probably not here to hear me speak, but rather to meet other hobbyists and to buy from the vast assortment of fish, corals, and invertebrates that we have all brought together. But I warn you, if all continues as it is today, there may be no more coral reefs in nature. Naturally, this would lead to a series of new governmental policies, but that’s another story. The issue at hand is inarguabley the impending doom and total destruction of natural coral reefs. Though our knowledge of coral reefs is growing, they are constantly shrinking due to an assortment of issues including global warming, ocean acidification, and over harvesting of native algae eating fishes. Each of these problems is happening for clear reasons and each has something you can do to help.

One of the most commonly disputed issues of today is global warming. Long story short, we as a world, are using a far too large amount of fossil fuels which then accelerates the natural heating cycles of our planet. Not only is the rate of climate change increasing, but recent years have proven to be the hottest ever. “2005 was the hottest year in the history of the world” says NASA. Again, this is the result of an ever increasing amount of fossil fuels burned each day. Ex U.S. State Department Employee Mary Cooper confirms that, “Carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas implicated in warming, is emitted by all fossil fuels, including the current alternative to coal in U.S. power plants, natural gas.” By burning these fuels, we are increasing the temperature of our oceans, and thus stressing the fragile harmony that exists in our planets coral reefs. The May 2011 edition of Natural Geographic explained, “In corals, warming temperatures and increased exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays lead to coral bleaching—when the colorful algae in coral cells become toxic and are expelled, turning the host animals skeletal white.” This kind of algae, zooxanthellae algae, also provides the corals with its source of food; the algae photosynthesizes for the corals. Without it, the corals, often an entire section of the reef, dies within a period of days. Though there is nothing to be done to revive bleached corals in the wild, we can help to prevent this occurrence in the future. By reducing the amount of carbon dioxide we produce, we can help to lessen the prevalence of this horrendous occurrence. As I speak, car companies throughout the world are investigating and developing cars that either run partially on gasoline or fully on electricity. On May 20th 2011, Ex Washington Post reporter Jennifer Weeks agreed and wrote, “American innovators have refined many green energy concepts for decades, including wind, geo-thermal power, and electric cars.” Though some of these new cars may be slightly more expensive than their pollution spewing counterparts, You’ll end up saving in the long run, especially when gas is more than $4 per gallon. The more ways you can avoid burning gas in everyday life -electric stove burners for example- the less carbon dioxide you emit and the more coral and fish you save! 

Another equally prevalent and equally destructive occurrence that is becoming more and more common is that of ocean acidification. It’s cause is the same as global climate change, too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The problem is that not all of this carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere. A startling 30% of all carbon dioxide released in the past two centuries has diffused into the ocean. Though the exact figure can’t be precisely calculated, National Geographic reports that at least one million tons of this extremely light gas is absorbed by the ocean every hour. What effect does this have you wonder? Well, carbon dioxide influences the natural pH of salt water and makes more acidic, hence the name ocean acidification. As the pH drops, the calcium carbonate skeleton of all hard corals slowly liquifies, obviously killing the organism. The shock of this chemical change kills most marine inverts in a certain location. Copepods and amphipods, very small invertebrates, form a part of the base of the entire marine food chain. This pH change does the same to them as it odes to hard corals. When a huge base of the food chain disappears, it quickly reverberates upwards as the entire ecosystem dies. The small baitfish starve to death which then starves the predators to death. In a relatively short period of time, all of the animal life can vanish from an entire area be it because of migration in hopes of better food or just extinction. It’s no wonder that this problem, in conjunction with global warming has experts like James Baker, the Undersecretary for Oceans and Atmosphere of the Department of Commerce, making such grim predictions as, “If current conditions continue, 70 percent of the world's reefs may be gone by 2050... This rapid decline represents a serious threat to businesses, consumers, communities and the environment.” When all of the fish move away from communities that rely on them as a staple, the community falls into a state of poverty as it is forced to expend a large amount of its capitol on food that was once available to them. The issue of ocean acidification can quickly become more than an environmental issue, but also a humanity issue. The methods that you, as well as the rest of the nation, can employ are identical to those that can be employed to help reduce the effects of global climate change. The more that we can reduce our carbon footprint, the better off the coral reefs will be. 

Though most Americans can share the blame generated by the previous two issues, the final cause of coral reef destruction is one that we as a group of hobbyists need to take the sole blame for. The issue that I am referring to is that of the over harvesting of some of the most common marine algaevores, the tangs and rabbitfish. I’m sure that the majority of us here either have one of these fish, or, like myself, plan on getting one. Sadly though, the demand that we express has actually made them quite rare in some stretches of the ocean. Both tangs and rabbit fish roam the reef in schools picking any and all visible algae off of the rock next to corals. By this process, the corals have a large amount of room into which they can spread their food gathering polyps. Another benefit to this open space is less competition for valuable sunlight. When you remove the algae eaters however, the corals then need to compete with the faster growing more aggressive algae. The corals are smothered. This is allowed to happen all over the world, including such places as Hawai’i. The Hawai’i state law currently has no daily limit on the bag limit of these vital herbivores, thus they can be harvested by the school, with devastating results. Luckily, the state government hasn’t turned a blind eye to this brutal multimillion dollar industry. It has written House Bill 3330, which sets the limit as follows: “There shall be a combined bag limit of twenty fish per person per day of ornamental fish, including but not limited to, yellow tang, flame angels, and butterfly; provided that the combined bag limit may include a maximum of only five yellow tang.” This proposed legislation puts not only a limit on the important algae eaters, but also puts a limit on those fish that are beginning to become depleted in the wild. This type of responsible planning needs to be passed, but it is currently stuck in the political system. You can email or write a letter to the Hawai’in state legislature expressing your worries about the consequences that may occur if this legislature is not passed. The hundreds, if not thousands of us here will have no problem putting a great deal of pressure on the state to pass this bill. In addition to the bill, we can also be more responsible with our purchases and ask our suppliers where the fish were originally shipped from. Many areas, such as Australia have a much tighter series of governing policies that prevent the over harvesting of fish. More responsible harvesting and consumption of such valuable living resources should be able to quickly reverse the effects that we have caused.

These three issues are all reasons contributing to coral reef destruction. If we want to help bring back those reefs that have recently been lost, we need to take matters into our own hands.Though corals will eventually grow back if the conditions are right, it is much faster to grow and propagate the native corals ourselves. National Geographic says that it can take up to ten years for corals to merely cover objects, such as a purposely sunken tank. As many of us can contest though, corals grow much more quickly in our high tech set ups. BBC agrees in Episode Six of their mini-series wild Pacific. They state that, “In the space of two years, a single head of coral can multiply into a colony of fifty or more.” I single head, among us, is known as a frag. We have the ability to take a small portion of a wild coral colony and grow it to more than fifty times its original size! This would take at least 10 years in the wild as has been said by National Geographic. Two large problems with this practice though is that it is currently illegal to reintroduce corals into the environment without special permission from the government and that it is very expensive to grow out these coral frags. Again, corals demand a high light intensity that can only be supplied with very high tech lightbulbs. At Marine Depot, a reputable marine supplies company, adequate lighting for a six foot long tank, 125 gallons, costs upwards of $1,300 initially and requires more than $300 annually for replacement bulbs. This isn’t even factoring the monthly electricity cost of over $100. All in all, it costs over $3100 just to run the necessary lighting to aquaculture corals at an extremely small scale. Larger facilities pay a disproportionately larger amount annually. Despite this though, there are still a few companies and privately owned businesses that do just this! This small amount of aquaculturing facilities could and should be vastly increased. By writing our congresspeople and senators, we could pressure them into creating a government program to grow corals or to subsidize specific people to do the growing for them. If the latter occurred, nature could regain many incredible coral colonies that have long been missing from their original ecosystem. The reintroduction problem would also be solved because this program would be controlled by the government. As of now though, one of the best ways to keep corals in their habitats is to what we are doing now; buying coral frags from local hobbyists. By not buying corals harvested from the ocean, they are able to grow to their full sizes, making them less prone to fluctuating temperature levels and pH values.

All in all, there are many things you can do each day to help limit coral reef destruction. You can use different methods to reduce your carbon footprint and keep the temperature and pH of the ocean as stable as possible. You can contact state and national governments with your concerns about the future of our extremely important marine ecosystems, because without reefs, we loose almost all sea food. Finally, you can buy local and know where your livestock comes from so as to not encourage irresponsible levels of harvesting. If we all do our part in following these simple ideas, global climate change will slow, the oceans pH can once again stabilize, and the populations of native fish can, over time, rebound. Though for now, coral reefs are becoming smaller and less common, maybe they will once again grow back to their former glory. Now that I’m done talking, please, get back to buying and trading corals, expertise, and equipment!


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

There's so many things wrong with this that I don't even know where to start picking at it.
Where did you get this data, from Snorkel Bob? I thought you had some brains, at least enough to not get sucked in by the propaganda of those with a financial agenda.
Nat Geo has a long history of exaggerating and sensationalizing everything, the inconvenient facts be damned.
You're also laying blame on the hobby for all this destruction when the facts show that the hobby's impact is well under 1% of the total. That's not only inaccurate and unfair, but completely ignores the perpetrators of the real damage while demonizing the only ones who actually care.
You're addressing MACNA with this? Why would you think that the average attendee wouldn't already know this stuff, along with the accurate, truthful version, and be both bored and irritated?

As for the paper itself, it tends to ramble a bit and is hard to read in places without getting lost. I know it's already too late to fix it, but a bit more conciseness in the organization and presentation of your points would have helped. You're allowed to make extra paragraphs as needed, you know.

I know you only had one day for this, and you wound up working with whatever you were able to scrape up in that time. It's just sad that the easiest stuff to find just so happens to be the crap that's spewed in volume by the badguys.


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## funlad3 (Oct 9, 2010)

Luckily it's due tonight via email at about seven, so I still have some time. 

Also, I won't even pretend that half of this is completely true... The problem is we have to use a certain number of sources from certain places, so I'm really constricted with what I can say. 

Some creative writing, huh? Mandate a persuasive essay saying you need this much info from these places. I hate it. And yeah, this was assigned Monday night and we didn't finish going over "Possible Formats" until yesterday. I would have the extra night, but I will be on a fishing trip for all of memorial day weekend. 

If I can find any more accurate info on the entire overfishing aspect, which I really did not like writing, I'll redo that entire argument section.

Again, I know that a bunch of this is completely false, but to an uneducated nitwit, it sounds pretty good. And even though some of the information is a bit off, reducing our carbon footprints and slowing harvests on some rarer species isn't much of a bad thing. (Potter's Angel is included in HB330)

As for the focus and ease of reading, it was 12:30 at night and I'll be cleaning that up later today. We'll see what else I can improve in the one hour they give us today.

Thanks TOS for your criticism, which I find both amusing (Tonality) and extremely helpful. 

Don't you all just LOVE our 21st century education system?


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

I was too harsh. Sorry about that. I just really get irritated too easily over stuff like this and my rage has too much influence on me.
The fact that is sounds good to an uninformed nitwit is EXACTLY the problem. You are helping to spread the big lies. I sure hope that no one of any actual importance is ever going to read this?


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## funlad3 (Oct 9, 2010)

Nope, just a class of people who really couldn't care less!

And you weren't too harsh at all! I take loads of crap all day; your post was merely amusing and helpful. Thanks!


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## Betta man (Mar 25, 2011)

That global wrming stuff is junk!!! I can't stand it! We'll know it's the end of the world when cops have smart cars and that sort of thing... It's a great essay without the global warming thing. Try to say somethinng like "some studys say, that blank causes global warming" instead of "it does cause global warming".


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## Cichlid Dude! (Mar 15, 2011)

Great idea Betta man! Something that I personally think would be hilarious would be to write one of those "the feelings, concepts, and propaganda expressed in this article do not necessarily agree with those of the author" prologues, like they do in the movies, except for your paper. If you were to do that, then you would be my hero for the next ten days.
I completely agree with bettaman and Salt. Our education system is absolutely overrun with creeps who want to eliminate free life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They also want to destroy our God-given right to produce carbon-dioxide (joking). And guess who is pushing all this along? If you watch Glenn Beck, you will know the name SPOOKY DUDE. If you do not, look it up. I'm just glad that you guys all appear to be conservatives


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## platies pwn (Nov 29, 2010)

Betta man said:


> That global wrming stuff is junk!!! I can't stand it! We'll know it's the end of the world when cops have smart cars and that sort of thing... It's a great essay without the global warming thing. Try to say somethinng like "some studys say, that blank causes global warming" instead of "it does cause global warming".


I agree.It has been proven that the world has actually been cooling down since mid-evil times.


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## funlad3 (Oct 9, 2010)

"I'm just glad that you guys all appear to be conservatives"

Liberal actually...


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## iheartfish:) (Jan 19, 2011)

Arggghhhh! Sorry, but I happen to believe in global warning. However, I also believe that there are THREE causes, the first being us humans. The second is the fact that we are actually recovering from a little ice age. The third: solar cycles. We are approaching the peak of the current cycle, so with increased solar activity one could only expect increased temperatures. Plus, Al Gore is not only a load of crap but a jerk. His temperature charts dont go back for long accurately. This being said, the warming pointed out by him is a natural follow up to a little ice age. 
All in all, I believe in global warming. I also believe that we are above the norm of temperatures. However, even though we are a problem and large thorn in the Earths side, we are not completely to blame. Did you know that there actually was a time when Antarctica was open ocean?

All right. I'm done. Sorry. Just had to get my opinion out there. Whether you agree or disagree is up to you.


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