I have lived my life 755 miles from the nearest ocean, and yet when my sister worked for Habitat for Humanity in Kenya in the 1980s, I visited her and had a chance to snorkel amongst the coral reefs off the coast of Mombassa. I wore a t-shirt and sunscreen and still got the sunburn of my life, but the memories of those amazing coral reefs have stayed with me much longer than that sunburn. In fact in my mind, the coral reefs I saw are the very definition of the apex of life on this planet. If this doesn't motivate anyone who has seen pictures of or experienced a coral reef first hand to redouble your efforts to push harder for a low carbon future, then you need to check your pulse.
As a life-long scuba diver, I’ve already witnessed changes. It is absolutely sickening. It is also a difficult thing to come to grips with because diving tourism involves air travel, fuel for boats, etc - elements that are contributing to their demise. So much that my own travel has declined. But even the 1.5 C target comes with a high probability of significant losses in our coral reefs. So if people are talking about being brutally honest, we need to grapple with that. And do these underwater cities end up restoring themselves after the Earth’s energy balance momentum begins to change back to favorable conditions? The fact is coral reefs may already be in hospice, and I absolutely applaud the work of scientists scrambling to find a way to make some of them more resilient to our planetary selfishness.
Fantastic article, once again. For a beautiful, heartbreaking peek at what's going on under water, the movie "Chasing Coral" on Netflix is wonderful.
I agree we need to transition off fossil fuels immediately. But how to do it is the question. With a far-right extremist SCOTUS, and the ability of the fossil fuel industry to tie regulations up in courts for years, just trying to ban them is not likely to succeed. Plus, that would cause energy prices to skyrocket and hurt those least able to afford it the most. It would also fail to reach beyond the US border, thus not address 85% of global GHG emissions.
According to en-roads.climateinteractive.org, a strong steadily rising US carbon price pushed around the world with a CBAM is about 50% of the global climate solution to hold warming to 1.5°C, and it will make doing the other 50% of policy changes we need much easier.
US Economist Gregory Mankiw explains why political will is required to enable a carbon fee (from the movie "Before the Flood"): https://www.youtube.com/embed/b7e1y3CVPiI?start=194&end=243&autoplay=1&rel=0, where he says: “If we want to change the president's view of carbon taxes, we need to change the public's view of carbon taxes… Once the American people are convinced, the politicians will fall in line very quickly.“
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says we'll fail to address global warming without carbon pricing. See carboncashback.org/carbon-cash-back for her quote, and more about cash-back carbon pricing. Students can join cfdmovement.org to help build a collective action to create the political will to enable Congress to pass Carbon Fee and Dividend with a CBAM legislation. Everyone can join citizensclimatelobby.org to help do that.
It is incredibly valuable that scientists are being more explicit about what needs to be done to stop these ecological disasters and biodiversity loss, and not just documenting these events in the abstract.
Really cool you covered this again, because it is absolutely heartbreaking.
I know I'm a broken record, and while she did write, "rapid phaseout of fossil fuels," the gist of the research at her institute is to displace and replace fossil fuels, with a minor in reduced energy use itself. It was fun to read the descriptions of trainees' work. Offshore wind and wave energy, marine propulsion, kelp farming, seasonal energy storage for northern grids, etc. Nice regional-specific areas of study. Do the universities in Kansas, Nebraska or Montana have serious programs to improve and utilize wind and solar energy?
To me this illustrates how painful it is to be alive right now. I know this has been true for a lot of human history, in one way or another, but watching something as breathtaking and astonishing as coral reef dying due to our actions is devastating. (Of course, there are other world events happening right now, equally as devastating). To see how much we humans can destroy leaves me speechless. I so hope we will save the reefs and I will do my part as best I can, but man, it hurts to live amidst a climate crisis. Thank you for your reporting as always, Heated 🌏❤️
Based on facts I don’t agree we need to halt the use of fossil fuels to assist the health of coral reefs
Its always the game of the climate alarmists to find something to justify that CO2 is a prime pollutant…. and this aint it!
But..when it comes to other pollutions in the seas and oceans I agree we must take that seriously as the sea traffic pollution due to globalization and the manner in which we disturb the coastlines and fish to almost extinction is cause for concern. The use of plastics and how they get into the global water system must also be watched.
But its very hard to get excited about our very minor contribution due to the release of CO2 by human activity.
First there is no correlation with the cyclical nature of the health of coral and either increased water temperature or ocean composition change (acidic/alkaline) so CO2 is not a causation factor.
As the following links explain there are many other nonhuman induced factor.
Plus.. the trend on the health and adaptability of most corals is positive.
Exxon did not Kill the Coral Reefs - CO2 CoalitionCORAL REEFS NOT IN DANGER (youtube.com)
I have lived my life 755 miles from the nearest ocean, and yet when my sister worked for Habitat for Humanity in Kenya in the 1980s, I visited her and had a chance to snorkel amongst the coral reefs off the coast of Mombassa. I wore a t-shirt and sunscreen and still got the sunburn of my life, but the memories of those amazing coral reefs have stayed with me much longer than that sunburn. In fact in my mind, the coral reefs I saw are the very definition of the apex of life on this planet. If this doesn't motivate anyone who has seen pictures of or experienced a coral reef first hand to redouble your efforts to push harder for a low carbon future, then you need to check your pulse.
As a life-long scuba diver, I’ve already witnessed changes. It is absolutely sickening. It is also a difficult thing to come to grips with because diving tourism involves air travel, fuel for boats, etc - elements that are contributing to their demise. So much that my own travel has declined. But even the 1.5 C target comes with a high probability of significant losses in our coral reefs. So if people are talking about being brutally honest, we need to grapple with that. And do these underwater cities end up restoring themselves after the Earth’s energy balance momentum begins to change back to favorable conditions? The fact is coral reefs may already be in hospice, and I absolutely applaud the work of scientists scrambling to find a way to make some of them more resilient to our planetary selfishness.
Fantastic article, once again. For a beautiful, heartbreaking peek at what's going on under water, the movie "Chasing Coral" on Netflix is wonderful.
I agree we need to transition off fossil fuels immediately. But how to do it is the question. With a far-right extremist SCOTUS, and the ability of the fossil fuel industry to tie regulations up in courts for years, just trying to ban them is not likely to succeed. Plus, that would cause energy prices to skyrocket and hurt those least able to afford it the most. It would also fail to reach beyond the US border, thus not address 85% of global GHG emissions.
Senator Whitehouse gave a recent talk on the need for carbon pricing to achieve 50% GHG emission reductions by 2030 in the US: https://www.youtube.com/embed/fjuAoLoibAA?start=378&end=527&autoplay=1&rel=0. The graph he shows is from a report by the Hamilton Project of the Brookings Institute: "Climate tax policy reform options in 2025": https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/20240227_THP_ClimateTaxPaper.pdf. He also explains how the associated Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism will push the US carbon price around the world, giving it a global effect.
According to en-roads.climateinteractive.org, a strong steadily rising US carbon price pushed around the world with a CBAM is about 50% of the global climate solution to hold warming to 1.5°C, and it will make doing the other 50% of policy changes we need much easier.
US Economist Gregory Mankiw explains why political will is required to enable a carbon fee (from the movie "Before the Flood"): https://www.youtube.com/embed/b7e1y3CVPiI?start=194&end=243&autoplay=1&rel=0, where he says: “If we want to change the president's view of carbon taxes, we need to change the public's view of carbon taxes… Once the American people are convinced, the politicians will fall in line very quickly.“
Mankiw provided another quote (slide #4 in a list of quotes I collected for a presentation to deliver to Conservatives - the quote reference is in the presentation notes - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1BhAUXEV5qOuE6V9pvZOCRWR1oekxbGY6Juu4SG2o4fI/edit#slide=id.g24430ef3e49_0_86): "The closest thing I know to a panacea in the climate change debate is putting a price on carbon and rebating the revenue to citizens."
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says we'll fail to address global warming without carbon pricing. See carboncashback.org/carbon-cash-back for her quote, and more about cash-back carbon pricing. Students can join cfdmovement.org to help build a collective action to create the political will to enable Congress to pass Carbon Fee and Dividend with a CBAM legislation. Everyone can join citizensclimatelobby.org to help do that.
Additional resources: bit.ly/cfdresources.
It is incredibly valuable that scientists are being more explicit about what needs to be done to stop these ecological disasters and biodiversity loss, and not just documenting these events in the abstract.
Really cool you covered this again, because it is absolutely heartbreaking.
I know I'm a broken record, and while she did write, "rapid phaseout of fossil fuels," the gist of the research at her institute is to displace and replace fossil fuels, with a minor in reduced energy use itself. It was fun to read the descriptions of trainees' work. Offshore wind and wave energy, marine propulsion, kelp farming, seasonal energy storage for northern grids, etc. Nice regional-specific areas of study. Do the universities in Kansas, Nebraska or Montana have serious programs to improve and utilize wind and solar energy?
It's a direct connection more clear than many others with fossil fuels. That's for sure.
To me this illustrates how painful it is to be alive right now. I know this has been true for a lot of human history, in one way or another, but watching something as breathtaking and astonishing as coral reef dying due to our actions is devastating. (Of course, there are other world events happening right now, equally as devastating). To see how much we humans can destroy leaves me speechless. I so hope we will save the reefs and I will do my part as best I can, but man, it hurts to live amidst a climate crisis. Thank you for your reporting as always, Heated 🌏❤️
Based on facts I don’t agree we need to halt the use of fossil fuels to assist the health of coral reefs
Its always the game of the climate alarmists to find something to justify that CO2 is a prime pollutant…. and this aint it!
But..when it comes to other pollutions in the seas and oceans I agree we must take that seriously as the sea traffic pollution due to globalization and the manner in which we disturb the coastlines and fish to almost extinction is cause for concern. The use of plastics and how they get into the global water system must also be watched.
But its very hard to get excited about our very minor contribution due to the release of CO2 by human activity.
First there is no correlation with the cyclical nature of the health of coral and either increased water temperature or ocean composition change (acidic/alkaline) so CO2 is not a causation factor.
As the following links explain there are many other nonhuman induced factor.
Plus.. the trend on the health and adaptability of most corals is positive.
Exxon did not Kill the Coral Reefs - CO2 CoalitionCORAL REEFS NOT IN DANGER (youtube.com)
https://co2coalition.org/2016/08/16/exxon-did-not-kill-the-coral-reefs/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TpkWibhtM0