After a New York Times article by Damien Cave and Justin Gillis detailed how the corals of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia are dying, these comments from readers said it well, too.

After a New York Times article by Damien Cave and Justin Gillis detailed how the corals of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia are dying, these comments from readers said it well, too. There were over 500 such comments. Read them in your leisure time.

 

LINK: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/science/great-barrier-reef-coral-climate-change-dieoff.html?emc=edit_ta_20170315&nl=top-stories&nlid=76152357&ref=cta&_r=0

 

 

SOME COMMENTS HERE:

 

1. The science is in. The death of the Great Barrier Reef is another sign that we are killing our planet with climate change. We need to listen. We need to take dramatic action to shift to the new world of renewable energy. We need to leave almost all the fossil fuels in the ground. If we do not, our children and grandchildren - the ones who survive - will take a bitter view of our excuses.

​2. A devastating harbinger of things to come, but we seem to be accepting small dreams these days. Instead of doing something large and magnificent, like putting a man on the moon or leading the way forward to address climate change, we are abdicating our leadership, our scientific knowledge, and our creativity to instead kowtow to the fossil fuel industry and a way of life that is going to die anyway, and in dying, lead to deaths across many species, including perhaps our own. ​

3. In a short amount of time, future generations will have to rely on the internet to capture the world's former beauty. We're not moving rapidly enough to combat climate change. Earth has continually updated its point of no return and we take this for granted. Time - which is not on our - will tell how this all plays out.

4. I mourn for the planet. Seven years ago I spent a week diving the Great Barrier Reef. The most beautiful encounter I have ever had with nature.

5. The loss I feel that this experience will not be possible for my grandchildren or their grandchildren is only lessened by the absolute horror of the animals that will die and the species that will become extinct. Trump's actions on healthcare will likely negatively impact large numbers of Americans at least temporarily, some permanently, but it will not destroy our species. Actions on climate change will impact the entire planet for hundreds and thousands of years, and other life forms permanently.
My only hope is that current political leaders are vain enough to worry about their historic legacy, and not just the ratings they get from current pandering.

6. Marine plants produce 70 to 80% of the oxygen (carbon dioxide converted into oxygen and sugars) and corals are significant fixers of CO2 into O2. Most of the production is by single-celled plants like the zooxanthellae which live inside corals. Kelp and seaweeds plus flowering plants like seagrasses are important to their local habitats but single celled plants, phytoplankton, do the most to maintain stasis. The Great Barrier Reef die-off shows just how much that stasis is perturbed.

People who claim that sewage or some mechanism other than increasing carbon dioxide are lying to you outright. The Great Barrier Reef is 1400 miles long and 133,000 sq m in area. And it is dying from warming seas & higher acidity; dying from carbon dioxide pollution. One in four marine organisms lives in the water near or in the reefs.

Oil companies bought our last election because they control so much money. They'll kill to keep that control. The Constitution isn't going to protect you when the government is owned by these people. Guns won't protect you either when they can control commerce.

Get money out of politics and throw the republicans out, plus some of the democrats too. Keep the tar sand oil in the ground (Koch Brothers) and build renewable energy like there's no tomorrow because there isn't if we keep on the road we're on. We might be able to save something.

7. As we keep driving drilling shafts into Mother Earth - she returns the favor by driving nails into our coffin. I suspect she'll be done by the time my grandchild hits 30.

8. As an Australian, I'm equal parts devastated, ashamed, angry, speechless...
Successive Australian governments have stuck their heads in the sand over this issue in a bid to please their fossil fuel mates... a world leading carbon price/trading scheme was abandoned before it even had a chance to show the world it could work... and for what? a couple of extra points to some stupid pension plan, stock price, market index? Maybe humans don't deserve this planet.