Facts great barrier reef conservation: two thirds of the great barrier reef ruined, will be entirely dead by 2020? The time to act was decades ago, far too late to do anything now? What a shame, if the most evolved and intelligent form of life on this planet willingly destroys its own home.
Seems that continental shift is causing Australia to move into the Indian plate. Over time this will push the Great Barrier up into the Himalayas. Don’t sweat the planet, it’ll take care of itself. We need to act in spite of the government we cannot wait any longer we have to do something to stop this and to stop climate change. We need activists and environmentalists and scientist to speak loudly!…Just because there are those who are completely ignorant shouldn’t silence those who know the truth.
This is one issue where being specific really matters, 2/3 of reefs have experienced bleaching is not the same as 2/3 of the reef being dead from bleaching. We can fluctuate the temps on my corals many degrees without killing coral. This isn’t the problem. Bleaching can be caused by many things. My personal opinion, the sun has been more active over the last ten years. Increasing the amount of light reaching the reef. If a particular species doesn’t like it, it will bleach out. That same species will thrive in slightly deeper water.
We know some scientists are working on lab-grown coral and micro fragmenting for coral reef transplantation, but they wouldn’t have to if we could just stop wrecking the delicate ecosystem that is our planet.
Coral bleaching is not a new thing. It is just making the news a lot lately like it is an all of a sudden thing somewhat like tremors caused by fracture drilling which has been going on for around 60 years. Coral reefs can recover from the effects of above normal temperature ocean currents such as El Nino. The corals are not necessarily dead, more vulnerable yes but they just lost the algae which normally covers their surface. This is a bunch of hype.
To summarize the process of bleaching for those of you who don’t know, it’s the process of when zooxanthellae leaves the coral due to temperature fluctuation. Coral is a symbiotic organism and thrives with small microscopic organisms, called zooxanthellae, within it that provide precious nutrients for the coral to survive. Once the temperature of the area where the coral resides increases too much, the zooxanthellae leave, killing that part or entire coral in the process because it no longer has the nutrients it needs to survive.
The great barrier reef protection is delicate systems and precious to many other co-dependent species, and, without, can cause a Cascade of other detrimental effects to that carefully balanced ecosystem. An example of this would be that when a coral dies, competing faster growing, more environmentally flexible algae can now root itself and hinder slower growing coral species from residing in that area again. This is backed by credible research from individuals of marine biology institutes around the world through geological and biochemical analysis.
The people of Australia are calling out the media lies. First, “bleaching” does not kill coral. It removes the pigment temporarily. It is normal, common and has nothing to do with global warming.