Great Barrier Madness – R.I.P.

Change is the only constant. Virtually nothing in our world will remain the same forever, even the existence of world itself. Some change is for the better. Some is neutral and some is worse. Some of that change for the worse is avoidable. Depends on what matters to you and to society at large. But it does seem important to monitor those most significant events that tell us how vulnerable our planet is based on clearly measurable facts. That so much of that measurement occurs in less-than-obviously-observable places often makes those who deny damage certain they are right. But they never are. Facts as simply facts. Opinions, well, that’s where the trouble starts… often in a discussion of causation beyond simple denial.

So when the October 11^th outdoor activity enthusiast magazine, Outside (and outsideonline.com), published a rather startling obituary, I took notice:

The Great Barrier Reef of Australia passed away in 2016 after a long illness. It was 25 million years old.

For most of its life, the reef was the world’s largest living structure, and the only one visible from space. It was 1,400 miles long, with 2,900 individual reefs and 1,050 islands. In total area, it was larger than the United Kingdom, and it contained more biodiversity than all of Europe combined. It harbored 1,625 species of fish, 3,000 species of mollusk, 450 species of coral, 220 species of birds, and 30 species of whales and dolphins. Among its many other achievements, the reef was home to one of the world’s largest populations of dugong and the largest breeding ground of green turtles. 

The reef was born on the eastern coast of the continent of Australia during the Miocene epoch. Its first 24.99 million years were seemingly happy ones, marked by overall growth. It was formed by corals, which are tiny anemone-like animals that secrete shell to form colonies of millions of individuals. Its complex, sheltered structure came to comprise the most important habitat in the ocean. As sea levels rose and fell through the ages, the reef built itself into a vast labyrinth of shallow-water reefs and atolls extending 140 miles off the Australian coast and ending in an outer wall that plunged half a mile into the abyss. With such extraordinary diversity of life and landscape, it provided some of the most thrilling marine adventures on earth to humans who visited. Its otherworldly colors and patterns will be sorely missed…

In 1981, the same year that UNESCO designated the reef a World Heritage Site and called it ‘the most impressive marine area in the world,’ it experienced its first mass-bleaching incident. Corals derive their astonishing colors, and much of their nourishment, from symbiotic algae that live on their surfaces. The algae photosynthesize and make sugars, which the corals feed on. But when temperatures rise too high, the algae produce too much oxygen, which is toxic in high concentrations, and the corals must eject their algae to survive. Without the algae, the corals turn bone white and begin to starve. If water temperatures soon return to normal, the corals can recruit new algae and recover, but if not, they will die in months. In 1981, water temperatures soared, two-thirds of the coral in the inner portions of the reef bleached, and scientists began to suspect that climate change threatened coral reefs in ways that no marine park could prevent.

“By the turn of the millennium, mass bleachings were common. The winter of 1997–98 brought the next big one, followed by an even more severe one in 2001–02, and another whopper in 2005–06. By then, it was apparent that warming water was not the only threat brought by climate change. As the oceans absorbed more carbon from the atmosphere, they became more acidic, and that acid was beginning to dissolve the living reef itself…

No one knows if a serious effort could have saved the reef, but it is clear that no such effort was made. On the contrary, attempts to call attention to the reef’s plight were thwarted by the government of Australia itself, which in 2016, shortly after approving the largest coal mine in its history, successfully pressured the United Nations to remove a chapter about the reef from a report on the impact of climate change on World Heritage sites. Australia’s Department of the Environment explained the move by saying, ‘experience had shown that negative comments about the status of World Heritage-listed properties impacted on tourism.’ In other words, if you tell people the reef is dying, they might stop coming.

By then, the reef was in the midst of the most catastrophic bleaching event in its history, from which it would never recover. As much as 50 percent of the coral in the warmer, northern part of the reef died. ‘The whole northern section is trashed,’ Veron told Australia’s Saturday Paper. ‘It looks like a war zone. It’s heartbreaking.’ With no force on earth capable of preventing the oceans from continuing to warm and acidify for centuries to come, Veron had no illusions about the future. ‘I used to have the best job in the world. Now it’s turned sour... I’m 71 years old now, and I think I may outlive the reef.’

The Great Barrier Reef was predeceased by the South Pacific’s Coral Triangle, the Florida Reef off the Florida Keys, and most other coral reefs on earth. It is survived by the remnants of the Belize Barrier Reef and some deepwater corals.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Ocean Ark Alliance.

We are all diminished by the loss… and every other such preventable loss.  Does it matter to you? It should.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as long as we sit idly by and let such horribles happen without screaming, we are part of the problem.