What can we do?

I wrote my previous post on the threat climate change poses to coral reefs around the world. In a comment a reader asked me a critical question.

What can we do to save the corals and maintain the reefs so that they can provide life for our fellow living creatures??

I wanted to write a response to this comment because this sort of response is exactly what I am looking for. I personally believe that each individual has the ability to not only take action but make a difference for our oceans. My response to this comment got so long that I decided to give it an entire post so that I could try to do it justice.

Photo from goodplanet.org

Stopping or even reversing climate change is a complicated problem, with many intricate components. For a large issue such as this it is easy to adopt the mentality that there is nothing any single person can do. Simply not true. There are so many things we could do every day that would reduce the effects of global warming, some of which are so small that we disregard them. It's just one plastic bottle, one light bulb, one plastic bag, one piece of paper... all those ones can add up fast. Making little adjustments in your daily routine could not only save energy and CO2 emissions, but your hard earned dollars as well. Check out this site for a list of things you could do and just how helpful they are.

Photo from www.alertdiver.com/Biorock_Electric_Reefs

But how do we bring the coral reefs back even if we do stop global warming? Just this week I received a new issue of Alert Diver and much to my pleasant surprise there was an article about Biorock Reefs. Biorocks are submerged wire-mesh structures connected to a renewable energy source such as tidal and wave generators or windmills. The low-voltage current flowing through the structure in combination with the surrounding water results in the formation of a limestone layer, the skeleton of every coral reef system. Salvaged coral is "transplanted" onto the limestone skeleton. These transplanted corals grow up to six times faster than normal! It's advances such as this that make me hopeful that my friends on the reefs will live to see another day.

Rainforests of the Sea

Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Coral reef diving is every scuba diver’s dream. Diving a coral reef is like jumping into a giant fishbowl. The reef itself is a patchwork of colorful coral housing multitudes of fish. The abundance and diversity of life it can sustain never ceases to amaze me, from the shy clownfish hiding in the anemone to the poisonous lionfish protecting its hunting grounds.

Maroon Clown Fish (Great Barrier Reef, Australia)

Red Lionfish (Great Barrier Reef, Australia)

In the eyes of species extinction is it easy to preach population research and heightened protection status, but the answer is not quite as simple when the ocean itself is the problem. Marine Protection Areas are the equivalent of National Parks and can help promote fishery management and habitat protection, but they can’t protect against the water itself.

Harlequin Ghost Pipefish (Great Barrier Reef, Australia)

Great White Wall (SomoSomo Straits, Taveuni, Fiji)

White Spotted Puffer Fish (Rainbow Reef, Fiji)

Climate change plays the biggest role in coral loss in several different ways. The increase in ocean temperature is causing coral bleaching and coral disease. In addition a quarter of the ever-increasing CO2 produced enters the ocean and causes ocean acidification, which will only amplify the numerous other problems.

If the beauty of coral reefs alone doesn’t move you to want to keep them around, a few facts about their importance might help. Coral reefs have global economic value of $375 billion a year, something that we literally cannot afford to lose. In addition, reefs are home to 25% of all marine life on the planet, despite the fact that their total area amounts to only about a quarter of a percentage of the entire marine environment. 

Climate change is not just a charade, dreamed up by the politicians. You merely have to look at the water around us to know it is real. I could sit here and expound the mountains of proof, but I think it is more important to realize exactly how much we have to lose by not taking action. It would be a shame to lose so much beauty because we are unwilling to admit that our actions affect our planet. Time is not something we have on our side, it is predicted that by the end of the 21^st century we could lose coral reefs entirely. Once the reefs are gone the slow growth rate of coral will mean we have a long time to wait before we see them again, and that's assuming we can fix the problems that caused them to disappear in the first place. The Great Barrier Reef is 500,000 years old. I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to wait that long to see it again.