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[dgasmd]

I just got off the phone with someone that we will leave nameless. This person is head deep in the reef bussiness and he is well respected among the reef community. So, for all practical purposes lets say he quite a credible individual.

I was discussing my plans for my current tank to be a FO tank since I will be moving in about 2 years and would like to get a 300 gal system then for a reef. He started telling me how the politicians and a lot of the conservationists are doing heavy lobbying to stop coral and reef rocks from been extracted from the ocean. He goes on to tell me that this past year there was almost a passing of legislation to prevent the harvest since there are so many reefs of the world going belly up. He says it was almost a mirarcle it did not pass, but his gut feeling is that it will probably pass next year. He tells me he is already making plans to expand his bussiness mostly allow for a large amount of space for frags so he can save some of his bussiness by turning it into a captive bred bussiness. He doubts it will survive due to the time factor that it takes for frags to be of a certain size. Not to mention the costs. He also tells me that most of his suppliers and the entire industry is pretty nervous because of this inevitable change. He advises me to get my hands on all the life rock and corals I could handle now for the above mentioned reasons.

For a moment I thought that he was full of s...t and that it was a sell pitch for me to go on and cough up all the available moolah in his shop, which bythe way is not even nearby. Then, as he kept on talking if sounded more valid to me what he was saying. Has anyone else been hearing this speech and what is the validity to all this? I wouldn't mind getting captive bred frags actually, but in the grand scheme of things, things will go belly up. Think about it: no more rock from the pacific, so leaving FL acuacultured rock as the only alternative. Fish will become extremely expensive (as if they were not already), and the variety of corals will go down to the ground.

I am not alarmed, but would like to plan ahead if that is were we are headed. What do you think?

[MaryHM]

Do I think the time will come when there are no more coral imports allowed into the US? Probably. Mainly because it seems as though legislators want to put a band aid on the problem vs. actually trying to fix it. I would go out on a limb and say that we'll probably start seeing severe restrictions within 4-5 years. I hope I'm wrong, but who knows???

[AzSnake]

As long as the goverment has a consertative party running 2 branches (currently the president and the house) I doubt you will see anything pass. It's when the Eco-Nazi's take ctrl is when you have problems. Now don't get me wrong I am all about conserving nature for my kids and far beyond but some of the measures are so radical that all it does is hurt the hobby and businessmen when moderate restrictions would give the reef the same benifet.

[giovanni24@hotmail.com]

These conservatives have a lot more in commone with Nazi's than those concered with the environment over our hobbies, even misguided ones that want to throw take the easy way out and kill the hobby. Still far better than the real nazis who pluder the world, ie. these conserative ruling groups who care more for myopic power and profit over resources, ie. kyoto treaty, energy policy, environmental protection, etc. Capitalism as a system, if not checked (ie controlled, regulated), is self-destructive.

I use Florida Aquacultured rock and am happy. Im also happy to pay more for animals that we know without a doubt are captured and maintained in an ethical and sustaining fashion, then get cheap ones. Cheap is not always better! Unless we push for reforming desctrctive, pure capitalistic, practices in our hobby/industry, heading off harsher measures that can kill the hobby, these predictions will surely come true, and maybe for the better.

[AzSnake]

[quote="giovanni24@hotmail.com"]These conservatives have a lot more in commone with Nazi's than those concered with the environment over our hobbies, even misguided ones that want to throw take the easy way out and kill the hobby. Still far better than the real nazis who pluder the world, ie. these conserative ruling groups who care more for myopic power and profit over resources, ie. kyoto treaty, energy policy, environmental protection, etc. Capitalism as a system, if not checked (ie controlled, regulated), is self-destructive.
quote]

Wow I must have hit a liberal nerve their.
All political party lines aside.
Conservation is great, I support it and belong to serveral conservation groups BUT abrupt and rushed policies don't make any sense "example" Kyoto treaty.... Name one other country that has been bitching about the US not ratifying the treaty who has ratified it . The treaty IMO was alot of posturing by world leaders to tell their people "look what were doing for you" but the end result is minimal at best and hurts industrialized countries while 3rd world countries are allowed to increase their emissions. 1 step forward, 2 steps back.

[giovanni24@hotmail.com]

Well, I agree that the Kyoto Prot. is decient (6-7% reduction instead of the needed 60-80%). However, that is not why Mr. Oil man assaults environmental regulations while he open's Alaska’s wilderness to oil drilling—even though the tiny amount of oil will we get is neglible. The conservatives let bussiness and profit rule supreme. This is what I mean by a true "eco-nazi."

I dont want to take off off subject, but the reefs are dying, in part due to these conservates who dont want to take global warming seriously. Oh, besides skipping out on the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, we scuttled efforts to control biological weapons, refused to support a war crimes tribunal, withdrew from efforts to limit nuclear proliferation, and announced withdrawal from the treaty against anti-ballistic missiles, to boot.

The almost unanimous warnings of scientists that the climate is already 'tainted' by industrial society and that the Kyoto cuts are 'meagre' in terms of stabilising climate change.

And dont forget that we generate a huge greater porportion of green house gasses than anyone else--- how equitable is it for a country with a twentieth of the world's population to usurp a quarter of the global atmosphere to dump its pollution?

Here are some good leftist articles..hehe:

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/ ... dwards.htm
http://www.zmag.org/Sustainers/content/ ... dwards.htm
http://www.zmag.org/Sustainers/content/ ... dwards.htm

[AzSnake]

Global Warming is a bunch of hoot. Look at the avarage temp over the past 1000 years and we are currently much cooler. The Temp across the world has only risen an avarage of 1 degree over the past 100 years. The US's Temp has risen 1/2 of a degree over the past 100 years. If you look at past global trends we are on a NORMAL rise in temp. The Earths temp has risen and droped since the beguining of time. When the world was dominated by dinosuars and the avarage temp was much higher do you think their were no Coral Reef's. No way. The ocean's life was dominated by Coral reefs. It's knds of funny what you don't hear. 1700 Scientists singed an afidavid saying global warming was going to cause BIG problems. But you never hear about the 17,000 scientists who said that their is no scientific proof that global warming is going to do squat. It's a bunch of naysayers. Personally I hope ANWAR gets opened. I also agree that Bush pulled from the SALT treaty because he was correct. It was not revelent at this time. He just singed the biggest arms reduction treaty in 15 years. Clinton didn't do squat to reduce nukes but he did hammer our military into a near non functional existance. It's funny. Al Gore who claims he is enviromently friendly drives a Ford Expedition which gets crappy as hell gas mileage. With your anti progress attitude and anti society views I hope you ride a bike down to your LFS when you get your fish and when you go to work because you wouldn't want to be letting out green house gasses. I yea just thought I would let you know. Every time you breathe you let them out too so you may want to do something about that. Me I will keep driving my Super Charged Cora around that gets 19 miles to the gallon on a good day on the freeway, Renew my NRA membership and enroll my son into the Young Republicans.

Have a good day.

[naesco]

Politics is not important.
Unlike oil and the military business, which is protected by your current government, even Bush has nothing to lose and everthing to gain by axing our hobby and industy.
Unless industry changes its behaviour, our hobby is doomed.
But even one reefeI r can make a difference.
We can blast industry for its poor practices, offer solutions to their problems, advise new reefers about online and poor LFS stocking and generally try to educate industy and fellow hobbiests to change their ways.

[dizzy]

Naesco says "Politics is not important. -------------------------Bush has nothing to lose and everything to gain by axing our hobby and industry.


Politics are important in the United States, although I admit that may well not be the case in Third World and lesser developed countries.
Bush has nothing to gain by destroying the marine ornamental industry. A lot of people make a living from the marine industry in this country. Shutting down the marine industry would effect thousands of people in this country and in countries of origin. The ripple effects would be felt both near and far as not just livestock handlers, but manufactors of dry goods that are sold to marine hobbyists would be effected as well.

I must admit to growing weary of hearing LFS owners and livestock wholesalers being talked about as if they were child molesters or heroin dealers. The industry admittedly has many faults. I personally would like to see certain things change, but I do not think that destroying our industry will save the reefs.

Naesco you need to be informed that a lot of us in the business work very long, and very hard to provide the animals in our custody with the best possible care. Jenn was right about the "blood on our hands", but many of us do try our best.

The world is rapidly becoming overpopulated with human animals. This is the root cause of all of our problems. Correct this problem and the reef problems will begin to solve theirself. Fail to correct this problem and everything little else we do will be of little consequence.

[naesco]

Dizzy I know that you and most of those who take the time to post on the board are hardworking, upstanding, concerned, ethical businessman who are also hobbyists.
My concern, and I have raised it a number of times in this forum is that you are competing with LFS and online stores who have no ethics and will bring in a willingly sell to unsuspecting reefers, fish that have no hope of survival in their tanks, cheap cyanide caught fish and dated technology and make it very difficult to for ethical stores to remain competitive and stay in business.

[giovanni24@hotmail.com]

Do you have any references for those claims or did Rush not tell you? haha

The fact is that there is broad agreement among scientists and experts, as represented by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The IPCC was created in 1988 to respond to calls from the international scientific and diplomatic communities for a comprehensive review of global warming science. The IPCC enlisted the services of 2,000 of the world's top climate experts and scientists, charging them with assessing the technical issues of global warming and then providing information and guidelines to policymakers.

The IPCC has issued two comprehensive assessment reports. The first report, released in 1990, helped put to rest claims that there was no consensus among international scientists about the seriousness of global warming. The report was widely used by policymakers, scientists, and other experts. The second report, released in 1995, represents the current consensus of scientific understanding of global warming and concluded for the first time that "the balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernable human influence on global climate."

So, in the majority of scientific circles, the issue is no longer whether or not global warming is a potentially serious problem, but how the problem will develop, what its effects will be, how we can best detect these, and what measures we can take to reduce the damage.

Perhaps you will be happy living in a green house, or breath your car exhaust, or maybe you would like to move to Venus? hehe

Hope your kid grows up to lead the revolution and overthrow this sick system of greed and ignorance.

[giovanni24@hotmail.com]

I did some homework for you, which prove that your claims are false.

This is from the National Climatic Data Center, NCDC is the world's largest active archive of weather data (http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html) I quote:

"For the Northern Hemisphere summer temperature, recent decades appear to be the warmest since at least about 1000AD, and the warming since the late 19th century is unprecedented over the last 1000 years. Older data are insufficient to provide reliable hemispheric temperature estimates. Ice core data suggest that the 20th century has been warm in many parts of the globe, but also that the significance of the warming varies geographically, when viewed in the context of climate variations of the last millennium.
Large and rapid climatic changes affecting the atmospheric and oceanic circulation and temperature, and the hydrological cycle, occurred during the last ice age and during the transition towards the present Holocene period (which began about 10,000 years ago). Based on the incomplete evidence available, the projected change of 3 to 7°F (1.5 - 4°C) over the next century would be unprecedented in comparison with the best available records from the last several thousand years.

And from the Union of Concered Scientists I quote:
http://www.ucsusa.org/ucs-home.html

the global sea level is rising about three times faster over the past 100 years compared to the previous 3,000 years

Seven of the ten warmest years in the 20th century occurred in the 1990s, and 1998, with global temperatures spiking due to one of the strongest El Niños on record, was the hottest year since reliable instrumental temperature measurements began.

Warming in the 20th century is greater than at any time during the past 400-600 years.

Seven of the ten warmest years in the 20th century occurred in the 1990s, and 1998, with global temperatures spiking due to one of the strongest El Niños on record, was the hottest year since reliable instrumental temperature measurements began.

the Arctic ice pack has lost about 40% of its thickness over the past four decades.

Etc.

[AzSnake]

I also just checked and the Union of Concered Scientists is a left winged group and have contributed large sums of $$$ to the Democratic party So try to post some none bias data

University of Virginia professor of environmental science Pat Michaels argues that sometimes it is in agencies' interest to inflate perceptions of the global warming problem.

"Let's imagine," says Michaels, "the senator who disburses the funds goes to the administrator of NASA and says, 'I've heard global warming is the most serious problem confronting mankind. Can your agency use another $2 billion a year to study this thing?' What's he gonna say? No?"

Stossel argues that even if greenhouse gases were restricted, at a potential cost of trillions of dollars to U.S. taxpayers, it is estimated that this would prevent a rise in temperature of only a fraction of a degree.

"Source"
http://abcnews.go.com/onair/2020/stosse ... ature.html

This is a very good show and it will be on 6/29/02. You should watch it.

[flameangel]

I must admit to growing weary of hearing LFS owners and livestock wholesalers being talked about as if they were child molesters or heroin dealers. The industry admittedly has many faults. I personally would like to see certain things change, but I do not think that destroying our industry will save the reefs.

Naesco you need to be informed that a lot of us in the business work very long, and very hard to provide the animals in our custody with the best possible care. Jenn was right about the "blood on our hands", but many of us do try our best.
****************************
Dizzy,,
THANK YOU for saying this !!!!!!
It is very discouraging to hear the hobbyists lumping all LFS together as Criminals !!!
It is not true !!!
And all online places are not good either !!!
It may make a hobbyist feel better to buy on line-because he/she does not see the conditions the animals are kept in , so just ASSUMES all is perfect.

I think Naesco should start his own LFS and see how it feels on this side of the fence !!!!
He might also understand a good bit more about this industry (that he is an end user of ) than he does now. I guarantee he would change his comments on some things.

[Kalkbreath]

[quote="giovanni24@hotmail.com"]I did some homework for you, which prove that your claims are false.
Lets assume YOUR facts are correct...........Why were the 1500s as warm as today? How is it possible to correctly determin the yearly average temperature eight hudred years ago {within less then one degree} When less then one degree is the range of average temps between today and one thousand years ago? .........Why was the 1970s one of the coldest decades in the past three hundred years?........why was last years average Global temp, almost two degrees cooler then 1998. ....?
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[Louis Z]

Are the coral reefs around the world in a perfect state? Regardless of which cause, we are still observing their demise. Dem. or Repub. they are all the same , they open their pockets just as wide as the other to receive $ from whoever. They make govt their livelihood and debate endlessly. The only thing they agree on is spending. I work until May to pay my taxes. Its not against the law for the govt to steal money from me and waste it. Yet its a crime for me to steal from them. Do they do anything about it -no. Every other politician in every other country is the same - get rich quick. So all I ever hear is Blah Blah Blah year after year- even from those who debate their political parties superiority. Its not the ethical that lead us but the unethical who dominate.

[Kalkbreath]

I read a bit in USA Today yesterday......they wrote of a report in some medical scietific mag, that the decline of coral in the Atlantic can be linked with the bacteria found in human sewage........they said tht the same bacteria in our poop is killing the corals?I will try to link it when I have some time
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[SPC]

http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=15804
Steve

[naesco]

Flameangel I guess you didn't read my second post in this thread.
I seriously looked at investing in a LFS but walked away from the opportunity as I felt that the it was a sunset industry. In other words it was just a matter of time before governments shut it down.
I am of the opinion, present company exluded, that industry is totally blind to what will happen soon. All it takes is one elected official in California or the Federal government to take up the cause and it is all over.
It is very sad because if industry did little things like adopting the impossible to keep species list (USL) which was presented by both opponents and proponents, industry could say a least they are trying to do something.

[Kalkbreath]

We are Doing something........We are giving the islanders a reason to take care of their reefs ? Without this hobby, the reefs are truely doomed. Can anyone explain how the islanders will take better care of the reefs if this industry no longer exists? I for one cannot, and neither can ANY Congressmen.........Armed with the truth .........This hobby stands on solid ground!
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