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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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The Great Barrier Reef is one of the seven natural wonders of the world, home to an incredible diversity of sea life. It's the largest coral reef in the world, covering more than 345,000 square kilometers.
But lately, the reef is losing more and more of its living outer layer. That's according to recent research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Looking back to 1985, scientists found that the number of living polyps has declined from more than 25 percent of the reef's surface to just under 14 percent. Most of that loss has come in the last decade or so in areas where humans live closest to the reef.
The problem is the number of challenges facing the reef. There's coral bleaching due to the hot temperatures induced by human-caused climate change. There's our sewage and agricultural runoff flowing into the sea. There are even outbreaks of coral-chomping starfish, aided and abetted by human activity.
Not all is lost. The relatively pristine northern end of the reef shows that coral could recover, given the chance. For that to happen, we all will have to do more to combat climate change.
—David Biello
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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7 Comments
Add CommentNo one cares.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStarfish are evil? O_o
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually---someone does care----I care---deeply.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI care more about the innocent victims of the human onslaught against the planet than I do about human beings. I care more about the squirrels in my back yard than I do about people. I care more because I know that humans have the remote capacity to change their behavior whereas the countless species we are driving into extinction do not have that capacity. Humans could do something to stop the carnage against the biosphere but they choose not to. If I had to save a human or save a squirrel I would save the squirrel and the planet would be better off for it.
On one side we've got somebody says nobody cares about saving rare natural wonders, on the other we've somebody says let a human die to save a common squirrel. Has everybody gone insane?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's right to care .... but it's also right to despair at "the great unwashed mass of humanity's" apparent lack of concern!!!. With over 90% of our "pre-industrial revolutions" food crop varieties lost.... mainly through apathy... and our modern seas de-calcifying not only coral reefs but fish and crustacean as well... food security for our worlds population of primarily "self seeking" humans is in great peril. Simple one line quips will not solve the problems we all face. It's no about saving humans or squirrels... it's about saving the majority of biota on this planet. We need answers!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlenty of respected researchers claim that the reef is in excelent health. Allarmists always get the most publicity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find it amazing as a Queenslander that all these so called experts from "overseas" can tell us here that "OUR" GBR is getting smaller, when in fact it is getting bigger, with the warming of the ocean, the reef is actually extending southward over the last twenty years!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for bleaching and crown of thorns they have been a natural event and happen regularly on the reef and have for it's whole history.
The story is just another beat up by the bloody warmists who have absolutely no idea about what they are talking, as usual!