I have the good fortune to work on an island surrounded by "super corals". The spawning this year seemed to be synchronized and right on schedule.
Life is adaptable, and while that does not excuse our behavior it does give me hope for the future of our reefs.
Reefs are the oldest ecosystems on the planet, they will survive the damage we are doing to the planet. Our species however may not.
If you are at all interested in coral conservation there are several organizations that organize reef cleanup, ghost net removal, and coral farming projects. I highly encourage you to consider volunteering some of your time during your next vacation. It's a rewarding activity that will also have you working in some of the most beautiful locations in the world.
> Reefs are the oldest ecosystems on the planet, they will survive the damage we are doing to the planet. Our species however may not.
My understanding is that this is very much in doubt. According to the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C [1],
> The risks of climate-induced impacts are projected to be higher at 2°C than those at global warming of 1.5°C (high confidence). Coral reefs, for example, are projected to decline by a further 70–90% at 1.5°C (high confidence) with larger losses (>99%) at 2°C (very high confidence). The risk of irreversible loss of many marine and coastal ecosystems increases with global warming, especially at 2°C or more (high confidence).
Coral reefs are so old, and have survived so many changes, because they are adaptable to many different environmental conditions, including temperature. The threat to them, as I understand it, is that global warming will happen so quickly that they will be unable to adapt by migrating in latitude or evolving defenses.
They survived meteor impacts that lit the atmosphere on fire and blocked out the sun for years, life finds a way.
What we are doing to the environment is catastrophic, but it is not the hardest thing it has had to endure.
Just as an example, despite nearly world wide bleaching my house reef is expanding by over 2 meters a year and the pace is accelerating.
Some species thrive as others die, those that can adapt will take the place of the ones that can't. That doesn't mean that we should stop trying to undo the damage we have already done, but I try to avoid the defeatist attitude that many environmentalists seem to pushing these days.
Do you have much familiarity with this? I assume it's where they build some sort of a frame and then attach small pieces of living coral to it to start a new reef?
A comment below says: "The threat to them, as I understand it, is that global warming will happen so quickly that they will be unable to adapt by migrating in latitude or evolving defenses."
I was watching a documentary the other day where environmentalists on some remote island were doing this and it seemed to be working, but they were doing all the construction themselves and clearly didn't know what they were doing. Is this something that could be mass-industrialized (the structures) with crowd sourced labor to do the laborious coral attachment part?
I believe it could be industrialized quite easily. We are currently experimenting with using crushed glass bottles as a substrate and then transplanting the corals once they have established.
This allows us to kill two birds with one stone by recycling waste products and growing coral.
It is difficult to grow coral outside of the ocean, so the transplantation is very laborious. However this is where volunteer divers can be a huge assistance. The work is safe and easy, just time consuming.
I would highly recommend taking a scuba diving course with your kids. They can start as early as 8 years old, however in order to be classified as open water autonomous divers you need to wait until they are 10.
I don't know where you are located, but PADI open water course outside of the US is about $200 and takes 3-4 days.
Its a skill they will have for life and it will be something you will talk about for years.
The only downside is that once you start diving all of your vacations become diving trips.
As far as resources are concerned, go to a used book store and pick up tropical reef animal (coral are animals) identification books. They are great coffee table reading and are effectively real life Pokedexes.
Nature is wonderful it always gives us signs of distress. But we as species who have transformed earth due to our behaviour are too late to take action on these signs.
Majority will trade distant future for today's comfort. We only have hopes on minority warriors and scientists who see this sign and force us to take action before it's too late.
Hopefully we do a better scientific study and take action as quickly as possible to first understand the signs and mitigate the effects to make our earth more balanced.
We as a society should have a stronger scientific temperament which will help us to take action. We should give up selfish behaviour and skeptics like the popular leaders in some countries denying climate changes by human for the sake of power, politics and votes.
We should denounce it, before we become extinct due to irreversible damage.
Majority will trade distant future for today's comfort. We only have hopes on minority warriors and scientists who see this sign and force us to take action before it's too late.
There are probably a series of decisions that we could have make as a worldwide civilization that does not involves the notion of sacrifice whatsoever.
I really don't think so. The cheap and easy thing has always been to burn the fossil fuels, cut down the forests, fish until there are no more fish, and hunt until there are no more prey. The only hope for the future is if we care for it.
Ah, so... you think more people should be working on this? I'm under the impression everyone in those poor countries with high birth rates is already working to move themselves or their country into a better economic position, and when they do, birth rates will fall and resource consumption will still go up, because rich people consume more resources, even when there are fewer of them. How does that solve the problem of the so-called "easy targets" like fossil fuels and forests?
The reefs are already lost. We've already emitted enough GHG to raise temperatures sufficiently to kill most of them and there are no signs that we'll stay below 2° of warming. At 2° all coral reefs will die.
Then how do we explain the huge number of fossil reefs in the geological record from times when temperatures were much warmer and C02 levels were around 10 times as high as they are today?
Besides if the temperature warms 2 degrees won't corals adapted to tropical waters colonize currently colder waters that are at that point perfectly suited?
won't corals adapted to tropical waters colonize currently colder waters that are at that point perfectly suited?
What, they just call up American Vanlines to come pack their shit and move them 10 degrees north? No, temperature change will happen quickly enough that the coral will die before they migrate.
Corals produce polyps that are mobile early in life and wash all over. They won't have any trouble moving if temperatures change. In fact it's already been observed to happen.
Corals are not going to die out in 30 years, 50 years, probably not before humans die out. Corals have been around for a long time and are highly adaptable.
For fun you can look at temps and C02 levels during Devonian period. No glaciers, much warmer than today. Very high C02 because carbon we are burning today had not been sequestered yet. Yet a coral reef was formed, a big one.
You'd better call up the IPCC and tell them of your findings, because they believe that 99% of the coral will be dead in a 2° world with high confidence. Currently our emissions are on a path for much stronger warming that even that.
Life is adaptable, and while that does not excuse our behavior it does give me hope for the future of our reefs.
Reefs are the oldest ecosystems on the planet, they will survive the damage we are doing to the planet. Our species however may not.
If you are at all interested in coral conservation there are several organizations that organize reef cleanup, ghost net removal, and coral farming projects. I highly encourage you to consider volunteering some of your time during your next vacation. It's a rewarding activity that will also have you working in some of the most beautiful locations in the world.