We Can Restore Our Ocean’s Within 30 Years – But We Have To Act Now
A major new scientific review says that we have a narrow window of opportunity to be able to restore the world’s oceans to their “former glory” within a generation.
So we have this window – what’s the prescription? In order to achieve this, they say, we need to protect large swathes of ocean, practice sustainable fishing and mandate pollution control. It could cost billions of dollars a year, but they estimate the benefits would be 10 times as high. The alternative? Our ocean ecosystems collapse and our grandchildren inherit a polluted watery wasteland without any life. That’s not good for industry, and definitely not good for humanity.
It’s not one and done though: the climate crisis must be solved so the oceans don’t fall to acidification, loss of oxygen, and the devastation of coral reefs first. Luckily, awareness of the problem is turning the right direction, and we have people working to solve it.
New Mass-Bleaching Event Confirmed – Heat Resistant Coral Getting Closer
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority confirmed that the reef suffered a third mass coral bleaching episode in five years. The damage is described as “very widespread”
Researchers at the Australian Institute of Marine Science are using a method called assisted gene flow to crossbreed 25 strains of coral with “super corals” that can survive increased water temperatures. It’s in the early stage, but has shown encouraging results in their sea simulator and where they’ve transplanted on the reef.