A Menagerie of New Species of Sea Animals Found Off the coast of Australia

Luka Suon
Environmental Issues around the World/Global Warming
September 18, 2008
begun 3:53 p.m. finished 4:15 p.m.

Australian Find

A recent expedition off the coast of Australia exploring the coral reefs have uncovered a trove of new aquatic species (where they numbered 300 soft coral species alone) . Around forty to sixty percent of the new species were described as insectoid in appearance. This comes as a delight to researchers, since the world's oceans are becoming susceptible to oceanic acidification, pollution, and overfishing throughout the planet. With this find researchers are hoping this new find will serve as a baseline for measuring the effects of global warming and understanding how its implications affect aquatic life. This, they hope, will offer clues as to how they can fix (or at least mitigate) the current problem(s). Future expeditions will set out to study the development of climate change and its effects.


Global warming has had a negative effect on the state of existence on planet Earth. Globalization and development is endangering the existence of other species, with some cases where entire species have been wiped off the face of the earth. That is the cold, hard truth. The recent discovery offers hope...sure, it's small hope but it's hope nevertheless, and it gives us a clear idea of how we can handle the situation. We globalize, we endanger the world around us. Progress is never without casualty; the scale of casualty has just as much adverse implications as anything else. It's good to see nature back, but we need to be careful with how we handle ourselves and the situation. Perhaps this is a wake-up call, an alarm, a sort of second chance of humanity...a second chance to make things right before we permanently destroy the Earth.


Links:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24369695-29277,00.html
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24369695-12377,00.html
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=hundreds-of-new-species-f
http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/38225
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080918/wl_asia_afp/usaustraliasciencebiology;_ylt=ApANDG376zqfLlN6bla6sG9vaA8F