See, it doesn’t matter that so many coral reefs started under much warmer sea temperatures and much higher sea levels, nor that corals rather like warm water. They are mostly not cold water sea life. This is all probably your fault, though
The fate of coral reefs around the world remains grim should global warming continue at its current rate, according to new research.
Coral reefs will stop growing in the next decade or so unless a significant reduction in greenhouse gases is achieved, a new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests.
A team of researchers led by Christopher Cornwall, a marine botanist at the Victoria University of Wellington in Australia, analyzed data from 183 reefs worldwide to estimate the effects of ocean warming and acidification, which are posing increasing threats to underwater ecosystems.
The calcifying coral reef taxa that constructs the calcium carbonate framework of the reef and cements it together are “highly sensitive” to ocean warming and acidification, the scientists said. Climate change affects both the abundance and the calcification rates, while ocean acidification, which is mainly caused by the burning of fossil fuels, also reduces the calcification rates.
Of course, the acidification is not actually happening. It couldn’t possibly be due to actual ocean pollution, including from all the boats taking tourists, and researchers, out to view the reefs, right? Perhaps we should be looking more at reducing pollution. Rather than fearfully running a study that simply “suggests.”
Under the worst case scenario presented by the researchers, 94% of all reefs could erode by 2050. Under other scenarios, declines are projected to be so severe that reef production will cease by 2100, the researchers said.
So, what happens if this doesn’t actually happen? What if the reefs are fine in 10 years? Fine in 2050. Who’ll be held responsible for positing a scaremongering study, and those that gleefully publish it in the news?
“Rapid reduction” of carbon dioxide emissions is necessary to protect coral reefs, according to the study’s authors.
The findings highlight “the low likelihood that the world’s coral reefs will maintain their functional roles without near-term stabilization of atmospheric CO2 emissions,” the study states.
“The only hope for coral reef ecosystems to remain as close as possible to what they are now is to quickly and drastically reduce our CO2 emissions,” Cornwall said. “If not, they will be dramatically altered and cease their ecological benefits as hotspots of biodiversity, sources of food and tourism, and their provision of shoreline protection.”
So, not science, but activism. Have the authors given up their own carbon footprints? Let’s go a step further: what if we implement all the authoritarian measures recommended by the Cult of Climastrology and little changes? What then? Are we allowed to get rid of all the taxation and Big Government control of our lives?
Read: Hotcold Take: Coral Reefs Could Maybe Possibly Stop Growing In 10 Years From Carbon Pollution »