(PRI)\u00a0Scientists say that one of our world’s greatest natural treasures is now truly “terminal.” This news comes after sequential,\u00a0massive bleaching events\u00a0\u2014 which is what happens when ocean temperatures rise beyond levels that coral reefs can survive.<\/p>\n
Climate change is the primary culprit, and while it’s long been suspected that reefs would be devastated by ocean warming, scientists were not expecting this much destruction for another 30 years.<\/p>\n
What does this mean for our oceans\u00a0and the environment? Fabien Cousteau, an aquanaut, environmental advocate and founder of the Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Center \u2014 and\u00a0grandson of famed explorer and conservationist Jacques Cousteau \u2014 says that the climate-change-related destruction of coral reefs functions as a \u201ccanary in the coal mine\u201d for the rest of the planet. (To learn more about the plight of the oceans, check out The Takeaway’s related series, “Trashing the High Seas.”)<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have taken quite a beating, as we\u2019ve seen lately in the news, and unfortunately, that\u2019s not going to stop,\u201d Fabien Cousteau says. \u201cIt\u2019s highly alarming.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Great Barrier Reef, the only living structure visible from outer space, took hundreds of thousands of years to develop and is home to one of Earth\u2019s most complex ecosystems.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe stony corals, which is what everyone is focusing on right now, has been quite badly battered and damaged, and there are hundreds of species of hard corals within that ecosystem, some of which resist better than others to climate change,\u201d Cousteau says. \u201cMany of them bleach, unfortunately, for various reasons, including the temperature variations, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re seeing right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though the Great Barrier Reef is going through an extreme stress event, Cousteau offers cautious hope for the future of this natural wonder.<\/p>\n
\u201cNature is a phenomenal thing,\u201d he says. \u201cNature has three general rules that it lives by, and adaptation is one of them. Of course, when there are vacancies within those coral reefs, other critters, other organisms, fill those gaps typically. Not necessarily the ones that we\u2019re used [to] or the ones that a coral reef can thrive on, but it is one of those things where space is a premium and a coral reef, being an underwater city, has vacancies, and therefore, other creatures go in there. So, you\u2019ll see a morphing over the years from different species and different colors, but it\u2019s not going to be as complex and rich an ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef and others like it, Cousteau says the world loses \u201cknowledge that we never even had a chance to get to.\u201d However, technology may offer a partial solution for the ocean\u2019s threatened ecosystems: Experimental installations of 3-D printed reefs are now being introduced in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf\u00a0and Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoral is a complex colony, if you will, of animals,\u201d says Cousteau. \u201cBasically, there are two components \u2014 the hard structure, and then the residents, which are the zooxanthellae, and those are the polyps; those are what give the coral color. When they\u2019re disrupted, they eject themselves, and that\u2019s when you get the coral bleaching. [With 3-D printing], we\u2019re creating structure, we\u2019re creating the buildings, the infrastructure or the housing, if you will, for those zooxanthellae to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Additionally, Cousteau says that scientists and conservations are also using hybridization techniques to help coral adapt to the effects of manmade climate change. However, he argues, this isn\u2019t a permanent solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe \u2018problem\u2019 of climate change is a very complex one \u2014\u00a0it comes from a lot of different sources, and most importantly, from our everyday bad habits,\u201d he says. \u201cDoing 3-D coral printing happens to be just a drop in the bucket in addressing a very large global problem. We know where we\u2019re headed if we don\u2019t do anything, so I\u2019m charging full on into it, and I encourage everybody on this planet to do the same so that we can hope for a better world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(PRI)\u00a0Scientists say that one of our world’s greatest natural treasures is now truly “terminal.” This news comes after sequential,\u00a0massive bleaching events\u00a0\u2014 which is what happens when ocean temperatures rise beyond levels that coral reefs can survive. Climate change is the primary culprit, and while it’s long been suspected that reefs would be devastated by ocean warming, scientists were not expecting… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":583,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}