Getting Sad About Climate Change Killing Coral

Hello, world! Or, rather, the subsection of the world that reads these. I know what you’re thinking: “What gives? We were supposed to get another Heavy Hitter this week!” First, I commend your ability to keep track of our schedule - we usually can’t even do that. Second, Brooke is a weak, weak woman who couldn’t handle editing two episodes, writing a blog post, and researching a heavy hitter all in the same week, so we (I) decided to give her (me) a break. Also, we basically gave you two heavy hitters last week, let me have this.

No One Cares That Much, We’re Just Here for the Sads

Fair enough.

This week was an odd brand of sad, as is usually the case when we watch documentaries. We dove (hah) into Jeff Orlowski’s 2017 documentary Chasing Coral, which essentially acts as a video diary of a group of scientists who are trying to definitively document coral bleaching and death. 

If that sounds like it’s not much fun, you’d be right - it isn’t. Especially for scientists who dedicate their lives to the study and conservation of coral.

What’s Coral Bleaching?

In a nutshell, corals turn brilliant white when the water in which they live becomes unsustainably hot. We saw a massive upswing in ocean temperatures in the mid-80s, which was the first recorded bleaching event. When scientists noticed the strange phenomenon, they replicated it in a lab by raising the water temperature 3 degrees. 

Since this initial bleaching event, ocean water has continued to rise every year. The highest highs get higher, and the average temperature tends to trend upward - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but always upward.

When a coral turns white, it is essentially cutting off the bits of itself that cannot survive the heat. The plant-based part of corals die off, leaving only the bright, white flesh of the animal part. If the temperatures are not reduced, the coral dies and wastes away, leaving only the calcium-based skeleton and the growth of stringy algae. 

That Sounds Less Than Ideal

It’s bad news bears, bud. 

Coral reefs tend to be hubs of diversity in our oceans. Hundreds to thousands of individual species make reefs their homes. Without reefs, these species lose their food sources and are forced to move. Most, having lived their entire lives in the reefs, do not survive. If we lose our reefs, we lose our fish population. If we lose our fish population, it becomes a problem for fish-based economies and diets (especially in indigenous communities). 

Think of it this way: losing a coral reef to bleaching is tantamount to losing an entire forest to, for instance, a fire. If the Redwoods burned completely to the ground, taking the majority of animal life with it, the world would have a fit. The gravity of the situation would be clear and identifiable. There would be a husk of what was once a towering forest, the ash would coat the ground - it would be a stark and disturbing difference.

It’s the same with coral, but it’s so much easier for the world to ignore. One one hand, your average folks don’t generally get an education in marine biology. A couple people in the documentary (and Olivia and I) actually didn’t know the biological makeup of coral before hearing it from the consulting scientists. I remember seeing white coral and thinking it was simply a different species, definitely not something to be afraid of. Without the proper education, people have no way of knowing what’s going on in our oceans. And, frankly, the world is so full of tragedy at this point I can’t fault them for not being able to independently keep track of every environmental crisis. 

Worse, there are folks in positions of power that make money and increase influence in their circles by denying that climate change exists. Which I should highlight - the cause of coral bleaching and death is 100%, irrefutably climate change. Global warming is real. Don’t test me. Or these scientists, who are sick to death of hearing naysayers claim that environmental destruction is natural. 

Even within the scientific community, they have seen fierce opposition to the idea that corals are struggling to adapt to climate change. When the first research was published showing a link between the two, the world was unwilling to listen and even resorted to attacking the researchers. The resistance to accepting our part in environmental erosion has made this movement even harder, and will continue to be a barrier as we attempt to reverse the damage we have done. 

Why Were the Documentarists Trying to Film Coral Death?

Because it’s never been done before. There have been eyewitness accounts of coral reefs suddenly bleaching after years of being fine, lab research replicating that bleaching can happen, but there has never been a large scale attempt to see the rapid decay that happens every warm season. 

The team’s goal was to set up underwater time lapse cameras that would be bolted to the sea floor. The cameras would take a few months of footage in the warmest areas of coral reefs, then the team would take the footage and give the first real picture of coral death to fellow scientists and the world at large. To do it, however, they would need to quickly design a new kind of camera system without taking the time to test it.

We cover it in the episode and I highly recommend watching the documentary, but this team’s journey to getting this footage was harrowing. Ultimately they ran into roadblocks every step of the way until, finally, they ran out of time and were forced to take manual footage every day. Zackary Rago, coral nerd and my personal hero, described months of spending upwards of 4 hours a day in the water, cutting their legs on coral skeletons and rocks, all to get footage of the thing they were trying to save as it died and wasted away before their eyes. When he arrived, Rago was thrilled to see the Great Barrier Reef, which had been a dream for as long as he could remember. When he left, it looked as though he had aged 10 years in the span of months. The mental toll this project took on these scientists was disturbing, to say the least.

Did They Get the Footage?

They did. And they showed it to a summit in Hawaii before an audience of scientists, who were taken aback by how horrendous the problem really is. Vibrant corals would be fine one month and completely grown over by the end of two more months. Soft coral would bleach and disintegrate in the span of weeks. Some coral would bleach then, as a last effort to shield themselves from the heat, produce vibrant pigmentation called fluorescence. Beautiful, but ultimately a sign of death. 

They speak candidly about how easy it would be to become depressed and hopeless, given the circumstances. But every part of that team has committed themselves to their work and chosen to focus on optimism. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Is There Anything We Can Do?

Here’s the bad news first:

Functionally speaking, not really. We’re talking about worldwide ocean warming. There’s not a lot you can do to tangibly work backwards from that. The only people who can do that are lawmakers and billionaires, who notoriously aren’t fans of things that don’t make them money. It can look grim, especially when those with power seem so apathetic to the plight of our planet.

But you can do something. Educate your peers. Show them this documentary. Make them care. Attend protests. Write letters to your Congressmen and women. Volunteer to teach a class of elementary school kids. Inspire them to pursue science. Set up a screening of this documentary in your community. Work to reduce your own carbon footprint (within your means). Share Chasing Coral’s social media toolkit with your network. 

Your steps will be small in comparison to the problem, but the key is working in numbers. The more people who know about the issue, the more people will lend a hand to help. You can find resources for helping the reefs at www.chasingcoral.com, and you can also donate to their initiatives there. 

It’s hard to care. It’s hard to watch the world unravel around you and feel like there isn’t anything that one person can do. But the most we can ask is that you take heart and keep working. The world is waking up, even if it is happening slowly. Have courage. See you next week.