Coral Reefs Are In Trouble

By Positivity Reigns

In the last few years, media around the world has worked to call attention to one visible effect of how climate change is affecting our environment, coral bleaching.

As much as they look like plants or rocks, corals are actually animals, and they often have more than one way of obtaining nutrients and energy. They have algae living inside their tissues which supply them with their fantastic colors, but also deliver energy and nutrients. They also have tentacles that they use to capture food. Coral bleaching is the process in which, when corals are stressed for varying reasons such as being too hot for too long due to increasing temperatures, they flush the beneficial algae living in their tissues out, thinking the algae may be the cause of the stress. The coral first appears white after flushing its algae, then turns brown and fuzzy-looking soon thereafter after it starves and dies due to the significant loss of nutrients and energy.

Bleaching events have been documented all over the world, such as in this recent article by Graham Readfearn covered in The Guardian. According to Professor Jane Williamson who was interviewed for the story, while performing research at one coral reef which is one smaller section of the much larger Great Barrier Reef area, "at least 97% of the corals had died during those three months."

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