Two-thirds of Great
Barrier Reef hit by back-to-back mass coral bleaching – video
‘The combined
impact of this bleaching stretches for 1,500km, leaving only the
southern third unscathed,’ says Prof Terry Hughes, director of the
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, who undertook aerial
surveys in 2016 and 2017. He has warned Australia faces a closing
window to take action on climate change in time to save the reef.
How did the Great
Barrier Reef reach 'terminal stage'? – video explainer
Back-to-back severe
bleaching events, caused by warming oceans, have affected two-thirds
of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, new aerial surveys have found.
Climate change is not the only challenge – runoff-affected water
quality, reef-killing crown of thorns starfish and the destruction of
Cyclone Debbie also threaten the reef’s health. Scientists are
warning that Australia has little time left to act on climate change
and save the world’s largest living structure.
Australia's
politicians have betrayed the Great Barrier Reef and only the people
can save it
David Ritter
The
big lie propagated by government and big business is that it is
possible to turn things around for the reef without tackling global
warming
• Great Barrier
Reef at ‘terminal stage’: scientists despair at bleaching data
Sunday 9 April 2017
22.02 BST Last modified on Monday 10 April 2017 02.47 BST
Once upon a time, in
the distant 60s and 70s, the Great Barrier Reef faced imminent
destruction. Tenement applications for drilling and mining covered
vast swathes of the reef, with both government and industry
enthusiastically backing the plans for mass exploitation.
In the face of the
reef’s impending doom a motley collection of ordinary Australians
shared a common determination that something had to be done. But the
odds didn’t look good. The poet turned campaigner Judith Wright
wrote that “if it had not been for the public backing for
protection of the reef that we knew existed, we might have given up
hope”.
The optimism of the
poet was well founded. First in the hundreds, then in the tens of
thousands, a people’s movement grew to defend the reef. Everyday
Aussies turned activists and campaigners. Scientists and lawyers came
forward with vital expertise. At a crucial moment the Queensland
Trades and Labour Council approved a total black-ban by all
affiliated unions on oil drilling on the Great Barrier Reef.
As hard as is now to
believe, the Murdoch-owned Australian opined that the ban would have
an unprecedented measure of public support and would probably
succeed. It deserved to. Only finally did the politicians follow the
will of the people. Through the power and determination of the
Australian people, the greatest marine park in human history was
established and the Great Barrier Reef lived to fight another day.
Two-thirds of Great
Barrier Reef hit by back-to-back mass coral bleaching
Inherently
democratic in its size and closeness to the shore, the Great Barrier
Reef is truly the people’s reef. Looking back on the first great
struggle for the reef between the Australian people and the fossil
fuel industry, Wright wrote that “if disasters in the shape of
weather, accident and climate change lie ahead, the work done already
has shown what can be done to shield it from such dangers and has
proved that people will agree, in the event, to supplying the help it
needs”.
Unhappily, those
disasters are now upon us. Global warming brought the great bleaching
of 2015-16 and the dreadful and unprecedented sequel over the summer
that has just finished. Our reef is in dire trouble.
But while the
people’s reef is grievously wounded, it is still very much alive.
And life fights for life. Innumerable animals are now doing what
creatures do, navigating the hazards of life as best they can to
survive and reproduce in the warming waters. Given time and the right
conditions, the people’s reef can recover and life will flourish
again.
So how this time
around do we supply the help the reef needs? The big lie propagated
by Australian government and big business is that it is possible to
turn things around for the reef without tackling global warming. As
scientists have made clear, it isn’t – we have to stop climate
pollution to give our reef a chance.
It is true that
Australia can’t save the reef alone because climate change is a
global problem. But that does not mean we are powerless to act and we
should not be deterred. Because when you love something deeply – as
we Australians cherish our people’s reef – then you do all that
is within your power to save that thing which you hold so dear. And
there is much that is within our power to do.
So what is to be
done? The answer does not lie in false techno-fixes or the
faux-democratic farrago of the government-business funded Citizens of
the Great Barrier Reef. Australia’s greatest contribution to global
warming is through our coal, exported and burned in foreign power
stations. So our most determined Australian efforts to save the reef
must be directed to closing down the coalmining industry, while
ensuring decent new jobs and fair transitions for all affected
workers and communities.
Again, the balance
of power seems loaded against us. First the Queensland premier,
Annastacia Palaszczuk, and now the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull,
have betrayed both the reef and the trust of the Australian people by
snivelling across the seas, pledging allegiance to the Carmichael
coalmine. All too often, the rest of big business is complicit in the
crisis by explicitly or tacitly supporting the coal industry.
Financial institutions such as CommBank continue to invest in the
fossil fuel projects that are bringing disaster to the reef.
But, once we are
roused, never underestimate the power and determination of the
Australian people to defend our iconic animals and the natural beauty
of our lands and seas. The extraordinary success of the Stop Adani
Roadshow – which sold out across the eastern Australian capital
cities reaching an audience of thousands – is just a glimpse of the
popular will to fight the coal industry for the future of our reef.
We have the
opportunity to write our own story, not of despair but of defiance.
If we, the people of Australia, stand determined together against
coalmining and the rest of the fossil fuel industry then the future
of our reef is not bleak but hopeful.
The roadmap to full
recovery for our reef will be decades or even centuries in the
making. And it is going to get worse before it gets better. But we,
the Australian people, can again agree to supply the help it needs,
to give the reef we love the best chance of future flourishing. Now
is the time to get involved.
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