Dead in 30? Australia's Great Barrier Reef

Australians are worrying about their tourist economy as it looks like that their famed Great Barrier Reef might not be able to survive the next 30 years.

Professor Hoegh-Guldberg, from the Centre for Marine Sciences at the University of Queensland, named several of the Reef's biggest problems which include ocean acidification and coral bleaching. Apparently, carbon dioxide levels are increasing at 1 to 2 ppm (parts per million) per year (about 380 ppm) and it has never been that high for the past 720,000 years. Even the industrial revolution had lower levels of atmospheric carbon - around 280 ppm.

Coral bleaching, another problem that's causing stress to the Great Barrier Reef , has previously been manageable, according to Professor Hoegh-Guldberg. Coral bleaching has been occuring over the past 30 years and there have been 6 major bleaching events since the 1980s. However, the difference is that this time, the reefs don't have time to recover.

This other article here goes into further detail about what Professor Hoegh-Guldberg says in his talk.

We're at that "fork in the road", people. Better decide which path we want to take.

posted by Sage @ 9/01/2008 07:22:00 PM Comments: 0