I think the operative word here is sometimes! And in isolation! And to maintain an optimized balance or neutral P.H! And in a completely controlled and totally artificial environment, where temperature, O2 and Co2 are maintained at optimum levels, to maintain an essential symbiotic balance!

And clearly, that's just not happening on the reef, which is already half dead or destroyed!

We can all assume the "buried head" position and even create extremely irrelevant asinine comparisons, in order to defend a position; even as our environment traverses through a tipping point from which there's no return!

And think; the hydrocarbons, sweet light crude and or NG, that may reside under OUR reef, in fact produces 4 times less Co2 in common use than that which we import with increasingly rare export dollars; with the only logical or possible outcome; additional/unnecessary harm to the environment/the reef and the economy!

And when it comes to powering our towns, cities and industries, you'd be forgiven for believing we had no option to burn coal/use power supplied by price gouging foreign investors!?

Anyone heard of thorium or biogas; or ceramic fuel cells with the world's best, 80% energy coefficient, which equates to the world's cheapest energy, which then equates to the lowest construction costs for cars ships and submarines; aluminum and or steel making using the direct reduction (lowest carbon creating) method and arc furnaces!

And as a combination that then produces not only the lowest carbon creating steel, but the lowest costing steel into the bargain!

So what do we do? Adopt any of the available alternative and vastly cheaper energy/production options?

No, we try to extrapolate and contrast what we decide to create inside a closed artificial environment, with one subject to all the vagaries of Mother nature, trying with everything in her Armory, to save a planet and a species, we seem hell bent on destroying?

So a few dozen people can become the richest corpses in the graveyard!? You know it makes sense!
Rhrosty.

It shows just how far The Australian has deteriorated when it publishes ignorant articles like this one. Ocean acidification isn't a hypothesis, it's an observed phenomenon. Nobody claimed that all corals and molluscs would be adversely affected; the problem is with the ones where the CaCO3 is in the form of aragonite, which is more soluble than calcite.

To say that buffering will prevent this from happening ignores the important fact that dissolving CaCO3 is part of the buffering process! But buffering does reduce the impact of temperature on the amount of CO2 the sea can absorb (which is in any case far less than temperature's impact on the amount of oxygen and nitrogen it can hold). But temperature greatly affects the solubility of CaCO3.

Where the algae grows it tends to run out of nutrients (such as iron) before it runs out of CO2. So though CO2 is essential, it's not the limiting factor to the growth of algae.

And the accusations of demonizing CO2 are disingenuous. Even if we completely stopped emitting it, there would still be more than enough for nature's requirements. But the amounts we are emitting make it one of the most serious pollutants globally.

Curmudgeon,

Notice he admits to talking theoretically.

I find this great love of "The Reef" everyone professes rather funny. You see most people, particularly city slickers, who have never been there actually love the idea of the reef, not the real thing. Stick them out there for more than a few hours, on an unusually nice calm day, & they hate it.

A mate of mine tried to run a reef hotel. He took a large boat, with overnight accommodation for 25 out to Hardy lagoon, & offered accommodation. Now those tranquil tropical reef lagoons are only tranquil in comparison to how damn rough it is out side of them with the trade winds blowing. Most people wanted off with in a couple of days, & he went off & did something else with his boat.

When I took a couple of hundred people out there for just a 2.5 hour stop, most of them spent most of the time inside the boat, not coral viewing, in the water, or fresh air.

Rhrosty don't be conned mate. The mates still operating up there tell me there is no change in the reef. It is all academic & greeny talk.

I once took the entire board of the marine park authority out to our facility on Hardy Reef. The chair lady, an English professor for god sake, told me our area was being decimated by the crown of thorns. We would have no coral with in a year. I wonder if she ever saw one.

My staff of fishing guides & diver instructors, operating over a 20 mile radius saw 2 starfish a week average, & no more appeared in the next few years.

Repeat what academia tells you mate, & you are mostly telling lies, all in the name of research funding.

I wish I could remember which fool academic, probably another English professor, recently said we must try to eliminate all CO2. The amazing thing is, some people actually believe them.

How sad when the co founder of Greenpeace contradicts the mantra from which the likes of Cobber the hound and co borrowed their opinions, comes out with a contrary opinion that conflicts with their "faith"?

It's like that scene from "The Exorcist" where the head turns through 360 degrees! How does Cobber keep his head attached?

Hasbeen, there are quite a lot of places that I care about despite not wanting to stick around long (and in most cases, not even having been there). Antarctica's the classic example. I don't think caring about more than what you experience is peculiar city slickers, but if those in the sticks don't care then I regard it as a failure on their part.

But I'm glad to hear the starfish weren't so active and I hope it stays that way.

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spindoc, Patrick Moore did not actually cofound Greenpeace, though he was a member when Greenpeace became the official name of the organization.

And now, instead of checking his facts, he spouts easily refutable rubbish based on his very poor understanding of the situation, and people like you put blind faith in his being correct. How much worse would things have to get for you to acknowledge he's wrong?