Bleaching the coral
The health of The Great Barrier Reef isn’t just bad, it’s very bad. That’s official.
The Great Barrier Reef’s outlook has been officially downgraded from poor to very poor due to climate change.
Rising sea temperatures thanks to human-driven global warming remain the biggest threat to the reef, a five-year Australian government report says.
They mean from bad to very bad. For some reason officials think we can’t deal with the word “bad” but we’ll be ok if they change it to “poor,” but “bad” is what they mean. In short the GBR is doomed, which is very bad (not poor) news.
Rising sea temperatures caused “mass bleaching events” in 2016 and 2017 that wiped out coral and destroyed habitats for other sea life. While some habitats remain in a good state, the condition of the site as a whole is worsening.
“Threats to the reef are multiple, cumulative and increasing,” the report says. “The window of opportunity to improve the Reef’s long-term future is now.”
Scientists say the number of new corals plummeted by 89% on the reef thanks to recent bleaching events, which affected a 1,500km stretch.
Why does it matter if we kill off the coral reefs? Because they support so much marine life:
Coral reefs are the most diverse of all marine ecosystems. They teem with life, with perhaps one-quarter of all ocean species depending on reefs for food and shelter. This is a remarkable statistic when you consider that reefs cover just a tiny fraction (less than one percent) of the earth’s surface and less than two percent of the ocean bottom. Because they are so diverse, coral reefs are often called the rainforests of the sea.
Biodiversity is the variety of living species that can be found in a particular place—region, ecosystem, planet, etc. Coral reefs are believed by many to have the highest biodiversity of any ecosystem on the planet—even more than a tropical rainforest. Occupying less than one percent of the ocean floor, coral reefs are home to more than twenty-five percent of marine life.
Why is that important? A highly biodiverse ecosystem, one with many different species, is often more resilient to changing conditions and can better withstand significant disturbances.
In addition, ecosystem services—benefits that humans receive from natural environments—are often greater in highly diverse places. Coral reefs, thanks to their diversity, provide millions of people with food, medicine, protection from storms, and revenue from fishing and tourism. An estimated six million fishermen in 99 reef countries and territories worldwide—over a quarter of the world’s small-scale fishermen—harvest from coral reefs.
And those estimated six million fishers feed six million x whatever people. Thirty million? Sixty? Six hundred?
I’m waiting for a James Carville to come up and say: “It’s the biodiversity, stupid.” or “It’s the climate, stupid.” But that’s not happening, right? Because in the debates, any candidate that proposes far-reaching measures is shouted down by those who say “We can’t make major structural changes”.
It isn’t that we can’t. It’s that we don’t want to. So we keep slouching toward Armageddon. So we’ll have a wealthy class that drive their limos off the cliff, a middle class that drive their SUVs off the cliff, and an impoverished class that drive their old beat up Fords off the cliff, but we’ll all drive off the cliff together. And the rich use the poor to keep from fixing anything.
All you have to do is say “But the poor!” You don’t have to specify what will happen to the poor, but if you say “It’ll raise food prices” or “what about jobs?”, you get bonus points. No one…none…ever points out that the poor will be the first to feel the impacts, and that they will probably be hit the hardest. Nope. It’s all about the economy, stupid. (Except…the economy relies on the environment? The economy needs resources? The economy is nothing if the world won’t support us?)
This fixation with jobs is a core problem: why the fuck does everyone need a job that requires them to work 40+ hours a week (at one or more of them). Rich nations have the automation and resources for people to do whatever they find fulfilling but people have been brainwashed into thinking that making ourselves miserable until we (hopefully) retire and die 5-10 years later is how it’s supposed to be.
What these types don’t see or don’t care about is the fact that “major structural changes” are going to happen. Guaranteed. There will be a massive reduction in human population, resource use, and environmental impact. Guaranteed. These changes will take place, either through our own volition, or imposition by a brutally unsentimental and thoughtless “market adjustment” of natural forces. Neither path is going to be easy or comfortable, but the latter will be spectacularly harsher if we do not fix things ourselves. We can either ride the wave as best we can or be inundated when it arrives. There is no chance now for avoidance. Unless major changes that upset the wishes and desires of the world’s corporations and billionaires, anything we do will be too little, too late.
That is exactly what I was thinking this morning on my way to teach my Environmental Science class. Have you been reading my mind again?
Probably not. Some days I have trouble reading my own mind, and it’s the Large Print Edition.