- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
It’s the fourth global bleaching event since 1998, and has now surpassed bleaching from 2014-17 that hit some two-thirds of reefs, said the ICRI, a mix of more than 100 governments, non-governmental organizations and others. And it’s not clear when the current crisis, which began in 2023 and is blamed on warming oceans, will end.
“We may never see the heat stress that causes bleaching dropping below the threshold that triggers a global event,” said Mark Eakin, corresponding secretary for the International Coral Reef Society and retired chief of the Coral Reef Watch program of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “We’re looking at something that’s completely changing the face of our planet and the ability of our oceans to sustain lives and livelihoods,” Eakin said.
“I think people really need to recognize what they’re doing … inaction is the kiss of death for coral reefs,”
You must log in or register to comment.
Well if it isn’t the exact thing scientists said would happen if the planet got as warm as it currently is, just a decade ahead of schedule because anyone calling out the mid 2020’s was branded an alarmist.
I remember hearing that most coral reefs will die even at 1.5 degrees warming, and around 99% at 2 degrees, so it’s not really surprising, considering that we’re gonna be going past 2 degrees warming.
Yea you’re right, it just makes me really sad watching it happen.
So like, are we facing the inevitable extinction of all life on earth? Because that’s what it seems like a lot of the time
No, and to suggest it is really insulting to all life on earth. Life, including higher life has survived multiple meteor strikes, biogenic atmosphere change (Great Oxygenation), supermassive volcanoes and related phenomena… I know I’m on the doomer community, but like, to think climate change is going to literally kill everything is a bit much.
Worst case nuclear war probably wouldn’t even kill everything. It’d set life back a good millions of years, and it’d be unlikely higher life reevolves before the sun expands too far, but life is literally everywhere, in very unique and resilient locations (deep sea vents, underground caves, etc). It’d take concerted effort to destroy all life.
Presumably something will survive. But life as we know it is certainly at risk of extinction, especially considering our current plan to do nothing hasn’t done the trick. But what are we going to do? Make less money?
short-sighted geo-engineering.
No to “all life going extinct”. Previous great extinction events have been triggered by truly wild shifts in global climate, albeit over longer periods than we are experiencing right now. And while there was a huge loss in diversity and living biomass for an extensive period of time after those conditions (lasting at the very least thousands to hundreds of thousands of years), life is resilient and bounces back once conditions stabilize.
The problem for humans is: we and our livestock are most of the animal biomass on earth.
At best, modern civilization is going to collapse and some remnants of humanity cling on. At worst, all that’s left are some bacteria.
Humanity eating the rest of life off the planet rather than going vegan.
we fuckin suck
yeah soon the only non-bleached coral will be in aquariums. sad.
Hank Green put out a video recently on coral and climate change. Obviously this is bad and we should be doing everything we can to reduce our environmental impact but the message he ultimately put out was there is room for hope here. Check the video out if you want to feel a little better about things.
There are heat tolerant coral species but it will result in some very significant biodiversity loss.
Ocean acidification is a harder problem.
