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A dead commenter said, "Any startup ideas on cleaning the Ocean? I guess no country wants to pay for this yet?" and I had two thoughts in response: There's a r

by bbllee 13y ago

A dead commenter said, "Any startup ideas on cleaning the Ocean? I guess no country wants to pay for this yet?" and I had two thoughts in response: There's a reason for the word "tragedy" in the phrase, "the tragedy of the commons"; "cleaning" probably isn't going to cut it; ocean warming and acidification will quite possibly cause mass extinctions.

rosser 13y ago
ocean warming and acidification will quite possibly cause mass extinctions. There's no possibly about it. As soon as the oceans become too acidic for corals to form, whole ecosystems will collapse.
- Someone 13y ago
  But will they become too acidic so fast that no coral can adapt? I know we are really good at changing the environment, but the oceans are huge.
  - scarmig 13y ago
    The oceans are huge, but we've already managed to decrease pH by 0.1 in the past century. A pessimistic but plausible scenario has ocean pH decreasing by an additional 0.7-0.8 by 2300. That's pretty fast. It's hard to predict how and how fast coral might adapt, but those are short time scales to expect evolution to act on.
    - ble 13y ago
      Pardon the profanity, but fuck! On a logarithmic scale, a decrease of 0.1 on the pH is a 25% increase in H+ concentration... ... and a decrease of 0.7 is a 500% increase in H+ concentration. That sounds apocalyptic, at least for ocean ecosystems. Warming and acidification are increasing jellyfish blooms, right? Do you know any good recipes for grilled jellyfish?
  - jmpe 13y ago
    Complex question, but there are a few aspects that work against them: - coral typically takes several years before reaching sexual maturity. Adaptability to a changing environment strongly depends on this. - corals typically occupy ecological niches. - acidification directly interferes with a key part of their metabolism and habit. It's like asking whether mammals can't evolve to a life without skeletons. Corals are an extremely diverse group of organisms that interact with other organisms through complex relationships. Take them away (or reduce them to a select few species that fulfill a fitness) and you're going to see lots of damage to other populations.
tolmasky 13y ago
Maybe a better strategy is convincing one of these guys who seem more likely to be forward thinking: http://givingpledge.org http://givingpledge.org .
- bradleyjg 13y ago
  Still orders of magnitude off. Several billions of dollars can do many things but halting and reversing global climate change isn't one of them. If it's going to happen at all, which it probably won't, it'll take the coordinated effort of at least all the G-20 nations.
ateevchopra 13y ago
I guess UN should fund such people.
hipaulgraham 13y ago
Let's 'disrupt' this extinction event. Hacker News is grossly focused on exits and profits and money. Fuck money, let's save our dolphin friends. Have you no heart?
Gravityloss 13y ago
The concept of laws were invented thousands of years ago to prevent just these tragedies. So we already have a solution. Now we only need to create such laws that pollution is greatly diminished. This will naturally lead to creation of lots of ecological niches for new startups, that will find the most efficient means to achieve these reductions. Naturally government funded long term research will also play a part in finding good solutions. The end customer will naturally pay for these changes. For example, it is cheaper to run transport ships with residue heavy fuel oil, the use of which has been banned almost everywhere else already. If we want to prevent that, we make laws that make it illegal. Then the ships will use some other, naturally more expensive fuel. The transport costs will go up and whatever you buy that was imported costs more, or whatever you export potentially pays less.
- ble 13y ago
  Laws are better at protecting individual rights and maintaining public order than protecting future generations from the unintended consequences of present and recent economic history.
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    That's where custom, tradition, and taboo come to the fore. They're somewhat stronger in terms of social signalling over time than mere laws. Jared Diamond's Collapse explores this, both in positive aspects (Japan and several successful adaptations in Pacific Island and Borneo populations), as well as negative ones (Greenlander's insistence on raising cattle and not adopting Inuit practices).
    - ble 13y ago
      I liked Collapse, but I really liked "The Collapse of Complex Societies." Written by an archaeologist, addresses many other scholars' theories of collapse, and provides an excellent economics / complexity argument. http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Archaeology/dp/052138673X http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Arc... (not an affiliate link) Also, the idea of "diminishing marginal returns on added complexity" suggests a lot about why maintenance, extension, and management of software systems becomes harder over time.
RyanMcGreal 13y ago
> There's a reason for the word "tragedy" in the phrase, "the tragedy of the commons" Small but important clarification: as Garrett Hardin later said, he should have called it the tragedy of the unregulated commons. The problem is not the fact that the ocean doesn't have a private owner but rather that the legal framework does not presently cover its responsible access and use.
- ble 13y ago
  True, so let's be even more exact: "presently" is the wrong tense; present acidification and warming are consequences of actions taken over the last several decades.

by bbllee 13y ago

rosser 13y ago

ocean warming and acidification will quite possibly cause mass extinctions. There's no possibly about it. As soon as the oceans become too acidic for corals to form, whole ecosystems will collapse.

Someone 13y ago
But will they become too acidic so fast that no coral can adapt? I know we are really good at changing the environment, but the oceans are huge.
- scarmig 13y ago
  The oceans are huge, but we've already managed to decrease pH by 0.1 in the past century. A pessimistic but plausible scenario has ocean pH decreasing by an additional 0.7-0.8 by 2300. That's pretty fast. It's hard to predict how and how fast coral might adapt, but those are short time scales to expect evolution to act on.
  - ble 13y ago
    Pardon the profanity, but fuck! On a logarithmic scale, a decrease of 0.1 on the pH is a 25% increase in H+ concentration... ... and a decrease of 0.7 is a 500% increase in H+ concentration. That sounds apocalyptic, at least for ocean ecosystems. Warming and acidification are increasing jellyfish blooms, right? Do you know any good recipes for grilled jellyfish?
- jmpe 13y ago
  Complex question, but there are a few aspects that work against them: - coral typically takes several years before reaching sexual maturity. Adaptability to a changing environment strongly depends on this. - corals typically occupy ecological niches. - acidification directly interferes with a key part of their metabolism and habit. It's like asking whether mammals can't evolve to a life without skeletons. Corals are an extremely diverse group of organisms that interact with other organisms through complex relationships. Take them away (or reduce them to a select few species that fulfill a fitness) and you're going to see lots of damage to other populations.

tolmasky 13y ago

Maybe a better strategy is convincing one of these guys who seem more likely to be forward thinking: http://givingpledge.org http://givingpledge.org .

bradleyjg 13y ago
Still orders of magnitude off. Several billions of dollars can do many things but halting and reversing global climate change isn't one of them. If it's going to happen at all, which it probably won't, it'll take the coordinated effort of at least all the G-20 nations.

ateevchopra 13y ago

I guess UN should fund such people.

hipaulgraham 13y ago

Let's 'disrupt' this extinction event. Hacker News is grossly focused on exits and profits and money. Fuck money, let's save our dolphin friends. Have you no heart?

Gravityloss 13y ago

The concept of laws were invented thousands of years ago to prevent just these tragedies. So we already have a solution. Now we only need to create such laws that pollution is greatly diminished. This will naturally lead to creation of lots of ecological niches for new startups, that will find the most efficient means to achieve these reductions. Naturally government funded long term research will also play a part in finding good solutions. The end customer will naturally pay for these changes. For example, it is cheaper to run transport ships with residue heavy fuel oil, the use of which has been banned almost everywhere else already. If we want to prevent that, we make laws that make it illegal. Then the ships will use some other, naturally more expensive fuel. The transport costs will go up and whatever you buy that was imported costs more, or whatever you export potentially pays less.

ble 13y ago
Laws are better at protecting individual rights and maintaining public order than protecting future generations from the unintended consequences of present and recent economic history.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  That's where custom, tradition, and taboo come to the fore. They're somewhat stronger in terms of social signalling over time than mere laws. Jared Diamond's Collapse explores this, both in positive aspects (Japan and several successful adaptations in Pacific Island and Borneo populations), as well as negative ones (Greenlander's insistence on raising cattle and not adopting Inuit practices).
  - ble 13y ago
    I liked Collapse, but I really liked "The Collapse of Complex Societies." Written by an archaeologist, addresses many other scholars' theories of collapse, and provides an excellent economics / complexity argument. http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Archaeology/dp/052138673X http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Arc... (not an affiliate link) Also, the idea of "diminishing marginal returns on added complexity" suggests a lot about why maintenance, extension, and management of software systems becomes harder over time.

RyanMcGreal 13y ago

> There's a reason for the word "tragedy" in the phrase, "the tragedy of the commons" Small but important clarification: as Garrett Hardin later said, he should have called it the tragedy of the unregulated commons. The problem is not the fact that the ocean doesn't have a private owner but rather that the legal framework does not presently cover its responsible access and use.

ble 13y ago
True, so let's be even more exact: "presently" is the wrong tense; present acidification and warming are consequences of actions taken over the last several decades.