Harbinger: The Decline of the Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is facing catastrophe as this year’s El Niño weather pattern bleaches the once pristine ecosystem into oblivion. A full 93 percent of the Reef is now bleached, and at least 50 percent of the Australian natural wonder is either dead or dying.

Will the decline of the Great Barrier Reef spur real action on the environment? Or is it an indication of a new world and climate, for better or worse?

[T]he Great Barrier Reef is a large coral superstructure, made up of million of microscopic coral polyps living symbiotically with micro-organisms known as zooxanthellae. The zooxanthellae feed and nourish the coral, and give the Reef its unique color scheme.

However, when the waters warm past a certain point, the zooxanthellae will leave for cooler temperatures. This creates a situation where the coral loses its color and the nutrients the zooxanthellae provides, slowly draining the organism of its life.

This year’s El Niño has been particularly harsh for the Reef. Prior warming events only bleached a maximum of 52 percent of the coral, and much of that bleached portion came back to life when the zooxanthellae returned. This time, things seem more dire as the bleached portion is almost double the last major warming event’s bleaching and more of the Reef is certain to die.

[S]o: a natural wonder, visible from space, is about to lose a substantial amount of its mass. Because of climate change. Will that be enough to change the minds of those in power to do something about the ongoing climatic disaster of the industrial age?

The outlook isn’t good. The greatest polluters in the world, the US and China, have repeatedly worked to stymie any real global efforts to reduce emissions or industry simply by not joining the efforts in any real way. Even when deals are made, like in Paris last year, they are toothless and impossible to enforce.

It’s not looking like the decline of the Great Barrier Reef will be the spark that lights the environmental movement.

[I]t’s more likely that the Reef’s decline reflects the new reality we live in. The utter refusal by world leaders to do anything substantive on the issue of climate change has ensured that the planet will at the very least endure calamitous global temperature shifts over the next century. It is almost definite that the planet’s surface in 2100 will be hotter, stormier, and wetter than it is today.

There have been multiple incidents over the past decades that have raised concern in their own right, but the Reef may be the largest and most visible example of the new reality the earth’s climate is approaching.

The decaying of the Great Barrier Reef is not an isolated incident. It is a harbinger of the coming climatic shift.