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Coral reefs suffering from climate change: scientists warn we've crossed a tipping point · How To Protect The Ocean

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  What if the world's coral reefs are no longer a future crisis?
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  Like we're not predicting this anymore, but a crisis is already underway.
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  A new global report warns that we've passed the first major climate tipping
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  point and the way we thought about gradual change may already be too late.
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  I remember diving in like beautiful spots in the Caribbean.
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  Grant came in, is one of the spots that I remember just profusely.
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  It's just amazing way to go down and enjoy a coral reef that
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  hasn't been touched by anything.
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  But then I've also gone diving on a lot of sites that have
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  been touched by climate change.
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  Rapid increases in temperature.
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  Throw off the corals.
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  They bleach for too long, and they end up being ruined and
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  the entire habitat's ruined.
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  The fish are gone.
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  There's nothing for that area, not just to scuba dive, but to fish on, or even just
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  to provide protection for the coastline.
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  We're gonna talk about this new tipping point, how it's already
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  underway, and the time for prediction is over on this episode of the
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  How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  Let's start the show.
• 1:02
  Hey everybody.
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  Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find
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  out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean,
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  and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action.
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  On today's episode, we're gonna be talking about what's happening in the ocean.
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  Unfortunately.
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  It's not good news.
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  There was a report that came out that I actually saw on The Guardians, an
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  article on The Guardian that talked about this report, that talked about
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  tipping points and how coral reefs have already hit the first tipping point.
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  Now, a tipping point is essentially a point in which these coral reefs or
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  habitat or something in the wild has gone past where there's really no going back.
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  Right?
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  That tipping point is where, you know, you look at something that like a
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  bottle of liquid and when you tip it over, you lose more and more liquid.
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  But at some point you're gonna tip it so much that you're
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  gonna lose most of that liquid.
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  That's the tipping point that we're kind of talking about here.
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  But in this case, we're talking about coral reef health and what we've seen over
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  the time, like in the past few decades is the prediction of hearing that coral reefs
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  are going to be lost on a regular basis.
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  We're gonna see that coral reefs in certain areas, whether it be remote
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  or on the coastline are gonna be lost for a long time, if not forever, or
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  we're going to see a shift in that change of species makeup because
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  it can only handle a specific tolerance of environmental factors.
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  So let's just talk about coral reefs for a second.
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  They are an animal.
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  They have a very narrow tolerance for different environmental
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  factors such as temperature, pH and just salinity in general.
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  If you've ever had a marine aquarium at home like I have in the past, you will
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  know that when you put a coral reef in the tank, it is very sensitive to change.
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  So when you have a smaller tank, especially when you compare it to the
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  ocean, any change in water quality, like a dip in salinity, or an increase
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  in salinity, or a dip in temperature, or an increase in temperature, or a
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  dip in pH, or an increase in pH, if it's this out of whack within that
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  narrow range in any of those, or all of those will kill the corals.
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  They will die if it's prolonged.
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  And so I was explaining this to a friend of mine at work today who was asking
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  about coral reef health, and he was like, what happens when coral reefs die?
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  And essentially when sea surface temperature related,
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  or there's something that
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  is not good.
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  That's happening in the ocean, right where the zoo the little
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  phytoplankton that live in the corals, they start to get excited.
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  They don't like what's happening in there.
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  It's either too hot or something's gone wrong.
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  The pH is off, something's gone wrong.
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  They get ad, they get expunged.
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  Actually, the coral reef skeletons like, you gotta get outta here.
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  And when that phytoplankton leave the coral skeleton.
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  It is just a skeleton.
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  The phytoplankton provide the color and provide the ability for
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  it to be fleshy kind of thing.
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  Like that flesh that you see on a coral, the softer part of
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  the coral around a hard coral.
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  If you think about like a branching coral, there's a little bit of a flesh around
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  it, like a little polyps that come out.
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  That's the fleshy part.
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  That will eventually die.
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  And then you'll just have a coral skeleton, which is basically a rock,
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  like it's made of limestone and will eventually degrade over time.
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  If there's the environmental factors there, like say high sea temperature,
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  if that's there for a prolonged amount of time, so more than like four
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  or five days, six, seven days, the phytoplankton won't come back, but if
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  it does go back to the regular range, you also get new phytoplankton in.
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  There's an ability for this coral to recover and become healthy once again.
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  So we've seen that over time.
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  The Great Barrier Reef is a great example.
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  93% of the barrier Reef a couple years ago bleach.
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  But then most of that came back because it wasn't a prolonged event.
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  It wasn't a prolonged like high sea surface temperature event where we
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  saw bleaching for a long, long time.
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  It was just in short spurts.
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  Still not great, still not healthy for the coral, but it allowed
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  it to recover in most places.
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  This happens all over the world.
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  Now we're starting to get to points where this tip, like the tipping point,
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  we're starting to get to points where
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  they're not gonna recover because the amount of days where the
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  temperature is high is elongated just it lasts for a longer time.
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  And so when we see that, we start to see the corals bleach for longer
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  and then they start to die off.
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  Now these are areas like the great barrier reef, where we've got areas
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  along the coastline where people fish, they provide security for
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  wave action against wave action.
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  When you see like tsunamis or even high sea like sea waves come through.
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  They provide all that safety because when the wave energy goes over the
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  corals, because the corals are kind of like interjecting and getting in the
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  way of the wave, the energy dissipates as it gets closer to the shore.
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  It's not as if it's gonna be like perfect, it'll just dissipate down to normal, but
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  it will take away some of that energy so you don't get as much of a storm surge.
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  Or in the case of a tsunami, you'll get less of a surge coming at the beach.
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  And that's an important part when we talk about security of a coastline from
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  erosion or even just, you know, absolute chaos when it comes to a tsunami.
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  So that's what we're talking about when we talk about tipping
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  points and how things happen.
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  You know, gradual impacts will happen.
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  But if it continues to happen and it continues to happen, we have a problem.
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  There was a point where remote reefs that weren't in contact, constant
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  contact with humans, they were fine.
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  They would bleach, but then they would come back because there was
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  nothing else that was cumulative.
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  So there nothing else that was in its way, like wasn't bad water quality, wasn't
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  people diving on it all the time and like messing it up or fishing all the time and
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  like putting anchors along the coral reef.
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  Nothing was disturbing it, but in areas where they're along the coast where we
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  had bad water quality coastal development that caused sedimentation, that like
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  would just basically smother the corals, there would be like nutrients in there.
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  So a lot of algae would grow over the corals.
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  All these little things didn't help.
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  And then you have climate change come through.
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  They didn't have a chance.
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  So a lot of these corals, if they have a lot of cumulative impacts plus
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  climate change, we have a big problem.
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  But now just climate change is causing a problem for a lot of these remote reefs.
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  And that's a big problem.
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  That's a huge problem.
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  There's no more scuba diving on, no more, snorkeling 'cause there's nothing to see.
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  The fish are gone, the turtles will be gone, the sharks will be gone.
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  You know, invertebrates will be gone because there's nothing there to hide.
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  These coastal systems, these coral reefs provide areas where
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  you can hide as a fish, as an vertebrate, so you can't get caught.
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  And there's a lot of food in there as well for specific species and stuff.
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  It's really, really a diverse system that is stable and that's what we want.
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  Right.
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  But here now we're talking about this report that came out, it says Coral
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  reefs have crossed their tipping point threshold at about 1.2 degrees
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  Celsius of warming above normal.
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  Mass
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  die off and decline are inevitable in most reef systems.
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  So we're expecting a lot of these reef systems to just start to decline.
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  Current global warming, is already at 1.4 degrees Celsius, and it's
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  predicted to go up to three degrees Celsius above what is considered quote
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  unquote normal for certain areas.
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  Now, the future warming predictions without radical emissions cuts the 1.5
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  degrees Celsius is likely within probably the decade and worsening the collapse.
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  Now, the broader earth system risks like ice sheets, Amazon, rainforest, and
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  Atlantic circulation are closer to tipping than scientists previously thought.
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  Now these used to be like way out predictions.
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  It's gonna happen in like a hundred years.
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  It's gonna happen in like 200 years and stuff like that.
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  Now the predictions are coming even closer because we've already
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  hit these tipping points and this is gonna be a cascading effect.
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  Now, of course, once one system collapses like reefs, you know,
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  death, reducing carbon storage can accelerate other stressors.
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  Like even when we talk about forest fires, right?
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  and the fact that we have wildfires.
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  As these trees burn up, all the carbon that they used to store
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  would go into the atmosphere.
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  It's the same thing with coral reefs.
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  All the carbon that they stored in the rocks, in the corals would
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  go up into the ocean, into the atmosphere, making things worse.
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  Some experts note that there is uncertainty.
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  So coral refuges and cooler or deeper waters may actually persist.
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  Local management that manages pollution and overfishing still actually matters.
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  So the fact that you can take away cumulative effects from human
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  effects, that's a huge thing.
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  That's a very big plus and allows the coral reef systems to be a little bit more
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  resilient in the face of climate change.
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  Not to say that climate change won't affect them periodically,
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  but it may not affect them on a permanent basis in certain areas.
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  Now, of course, not all scientists agree on the precise thresholds.
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  Reef resilience may vary from region to region and from species to species.
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  I remember reading studies that have different types of phytoplankton within
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  the corals, so they call 'em A, B, C, and D. The D type had a larger
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  range of temperature threshold, so that means it could handle a lot more
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  of a higher range of temperature.
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  These zoo, these phytoplankton that are in the corals, if it's a higher
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  temperature, they can actually stay in for longer, but it's only in specific species.
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  reeses, we know it could change in the makeup that they have that may
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  not be more branching corals or harder corals might be more soft corals.
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  So that might be a change that we might see.
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  Now, of course, some ecosystems show recovery potential if local stressors are
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  managed, which I talked about already.
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  These create tensions between like the Domus narratives, it's over,
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  and the resilience narratives.
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  There's still hope.
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  So I never wanna say that our coral reefs are beyond repair.
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  What I'm saying is that we're gonna see a change in coral reefs
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  if we don't make any changes.
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  If we get back through like lower than the tipping point of the 1.2
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  degree Celsius or whatever that might be, then we are in better shape.
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  Unfortunately, the actions that we've taken as a human species hasn't even
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  come close, and we're actually predicted to go to three degrees above normal.
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  So that's gonna be a problem.
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  So like some of the consequences that we're gonna see in cascading
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  risks is like reef collapse, that which is reducing biodiversity.
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  Affects keystone species that it could be good for fisheries, that
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  could be good for stabilizing the ecosystems like sharks and so forth.
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  And of course, destabilizes ocean food webs, as I just mentioned,
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  without sharks or any other types of predators that actually are like
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  apex predators for that food web.
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  Now, of course, you know, reefs are dependent and people dependent on reefs.
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  So 500 million people worldwide depend on reefs for food,
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  income and coastal protection.
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  Reef loss means that food insecurity, economic hardship and greater exposure
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  to storms are gonna be get worse.
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  And that's not good.
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  So the dying ecosystems release carbon when they die, and so they
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  lose their capacity to absorb it, worsening climate change.
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  So that's gonna cascade in a bad way, let's just say.
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  But look, there is a path forward.
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  There are a lot of paths forward, so the global actions like urgent
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  emission reductions are the only way to halt the warming.
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  That is really it.
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  Anybody else can say like, we can do as much restoration for corals or
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  sea grasses or anything like that, that will help in the meantime.
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  But while we see this happen, we have to reduce urgently these
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  emissions, like we have to cut them.
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  It's has to happen.
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  We're starting to see the emergence of renewable energy, which is great, but
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  we're also starting to see that there's a lot of halting of that renewable energy
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  or the construction of that renewable energy because of other fossil fuel favor
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  I guess is really what it comes down to.
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  a lot of countries.
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  So we're still having that push and pull, including my own, in Canada.
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  We're still having that push and pull, which is not good for us.
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  Now, local mans are reducing any kind of cumulative effects,
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  so overfishing, pollution or destructive practices can help.
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  The measures won't stop bleaching necessarily, but can help by
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  reefs like some reefs, some time, which will be great.
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  And restoration and innovation.
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  So coral nurseries assisted evolution, which has just changed like looking at
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  the makeup of how this is gonna change.
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  Like, so some researchers are working on heat tolerances of coral reefs, and
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  then of course large scale restoration, which is extremely expensive.
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  Efforts offer potential, though not at a scale that will help the crisis.
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  So there are some positive tipping points.
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  So there's renewable energy growth, as I mentioned.
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  There's following battery prices so we can store that renewable energy more.
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  And lifestyle changes can quickly reshape systems giving hope.
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  So look within, look at home, start small and then act big.
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  You know, they also say act local, you know, think global.
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  That's what we need to do.
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  Of course there is a huge role for science communicators and public
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  voices, but they need to be listened to and we need to be really cognitive
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  of how we portray this message.
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  I don't want people to feel like, Hey, it's your fault.
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  How dare you do this.
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  If you ignore the problem, it's not gonna go away.
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  No, I think there's a community aspect to it.
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  It's like we wanna take care of our community, our local community,
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  our regional community, our national community, you know,
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  our international community.
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  We wanna take care of each other.
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  We wanna take care of this planet because we love nature, we love
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  the ocean, and there's more to
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  the planet than just earning money and destroying the planet.
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  There's more to that and we need to act on it right now.
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  So while reefs are in crisis, the story isn't just about loss, it's
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  about what we can choose to do now.
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  Like I said, every personal action that you take locally
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  in your household will work.
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  Every time you vote, vote for somebody who's actually gonna vote for in
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  favor of the environment of the ocean.
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  Reduce climate change.
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  Right.
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  And advocacy steps like actually focus on looking at nonprofit
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  organizations or organizations that are out there, or even individuals
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  that are out there that are helping to support reducing climate change.
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  They're helping to support the education of what we need to do
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  to help our planet, what we need to do to reduce this tipping point
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  or get back over, hopefully, that we can stop from getting further down the road
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  and losing coral reef systems altogether in a longer term, which is not good.
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  Right?
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  So the choices between like we can go cascading collapses, or
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  we can go cascading solutions.
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  Which one do you want?
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  Let me know in the comments below.
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  I'd love to hear if you're watching this on YouTube.
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  Love to hear your opinion on this.
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  Is it to doom and gloom?
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  Or do you think that we have passed the tipping point and
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  we need to get back into it?
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  And you're ready to take some action?
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  Let me know what action you're gonna take.
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  Let me know the comments below.
• 13:39
  If you're watching this on YouTube, if you're listening to this on
• 13:41
  the audio on your favorite podcast app let me know what you think.
• 13:44
  DM me on Instagram at How to Protect the Ocean, or Go to speak up for
• 13:48
  blue.com/contact, fill out the form goes right to my email address and
• 13:52
  I will answer it as soon as I can.
• 13:54
  I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the
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  How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True Nor Strong and Free.
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  Have a great day.
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  We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.