Caribbean Coral Reefs Mostly Dead

Corals are colonies compounded by small animals such as hydras, jellyfish and sea anemones. They are animals that stay in one place and feed themselves catching tiny fishes and plankton with their tentacles. They secrete some kind of hard calcium carbonate skeleton, which serves as a uniform base or substrate and it also provides protection against predators. Calcium carbonate is constantly deposited by the living colony, adding size to the structure. The coral size may vary depending on the environmental conditions and it can grow from 0.3 to 10 centimeters per year. 

Healthy coral reefs.

"The plant-like algae live inside the coral polyps and perform photosynthesis, producing food which is shared with the coral. In exchange the coral provides the algae with protection and access to light, which is necessary for photosynthesis. The zooxanthellae also lend their color to their coral symbionts. Coral bleaching occurs when corals lose their zooxanthellae, exposing the white calcium carbonate skeletons of the coral colony. There are a number of stresses or environmental changes that may cause bleaching including disease, excess shade, increased levels of ultraviolet radiation, sedimentation, pollution, salinity changes, and increased temperatures. "The coral bleaching could have a devastating impact on coral reef ecosystems by killing coral and destroying food chains in the ocean. Communities who depend on the oceans for their livelihoods may see a huge impact from this event."

Monitoring changes in water quality can help local resource managers understand the implications of actions occurring in watersheds that are associated with particular coral communities. These connections will help in development of sound management plans for coral reefs and other coastal and marine resources." (EPA, 2012). Also the association on between reefs and men is extremely important due to the uses given to them, for example fishery and nursery areas, as well as a tourist attraction in many caribbean islands. It can protect coastlines from erosion

Some problems exist

"The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting severe bleaching for parts of the Coral Sea, near Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and the Coral Triangle, causing immense damage to an important global marine environment over the next few months."

The marine ecosystem are in danger of collapse, according to The international Union for Conservation of Nature, the Caribbean's reefs are in sharp decline, with live coral coverage down to an average of 8 per cent. The lost is mostly the result of severe environmental problems including over exploitation, pollution and climate change.

 "Last year, scientists estimated that 75 per cent of the Caribbean’s coral reefs were in danger, along with 95 per cent of those in south-east Asia. That research, from the World Resources Institute, predicted that by 2050 virtually all of the world’s coral reefs would be in danger. This decline is likely to have severe impacts on coastal villages, particularly in developing countries, where many people depend on the reefs for fishing and tourism. Globally, about 275 million people live within 30 kilometres of a reef." (Global Reef Monitoring Network, 2011).

Unhealthy, bleached coral reefs.

What can be done?

"There have been increasing efforts to establish better management and conservation measures to protect the diversity of these biologically rich areas. Management practices have historically focused on the coral reef proper and not considered associated communities, such as seagrasses, mangroves, mudflats or defined watersheds (which transport complex mixtures in their waters), in a meaningful manner. This attempted to manage the reef in isolation, like an island.

When reefs are considered as part of a larger watershed, the recognization of the complexity of environmental stressors can be understood. Management plans can be developed to lessen impacts to mangroves, seagrasses and the reef ecosystem, based upon scientific data and a better understanding of the system. EPA is in the process of developing guidance for a watershed approach to coral ecosystem protection." (EPA, 2012). Individuals can also help by not exploiting the seas anymore. It is not recommendable to people to start "creating" new corals because if they do not know about the topic or the methods that should be used it can cause more damage.  

Global warming, cause and effect.

First of all, what is global warming? According to the Oxford Dictionaries, "it's the name given to a gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth's atmosphere generally attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide". 

But what are the causes of it? 

One of them is deforestation, because forests are natural carbon dioxide removers but due to the high demand for wood and paper products the threes are being destroyed, therefore carbon dioxide is going to the atmosphere straightaway, when this happens companies intent to plant threes and make them grow faster using tons of nitrogen-rich fertilizers which have 300 times more heat trapping capacity per unit of volume than carbon dioxide and this creates the so called "dead-zones" in the oceans. 

Traffic congestion

A major man-made cause of global warming is population because as it increase the needs and wants from each individual will rise, therefore they will create more of them, transportation can be taken as an example because "the modern car culture and appetite for globally sourced goods is responsible for about 33% of emissions in the U.S." (EPA) "With the population growing at an alarming rate, the demand for more cars and consumer goods means that individuals are increasing the use of fossil fuels for transportation and manufacturing. The consumption is outpacing the discoveries of ways to mitigate the effects, with no end in sight to our massive consumer culture." (Dereck Markam, 2009)

Although there are also some natural causes such as the release of methane gas from the arctic tundra or the wetlands. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is produced when organic matter "is broken down by bacteria under oxygen-starved conditions (anaerobic descomposition) as in rice paddies. It can also take place in the intestines of herbivorous animals" (Dereck Markham, 2009)

Chamber used to measure methane emitions in Sweden. (Dentren, 2009)

Why is it a problem? What are the effects?

"Global warming will probably make life harder, not easier, for most people. This is mainly because we have already built enormous infrastructure based on the climate we now have. People in some temperate zones may benefit from milder winters, more abundant rainfall, and expanding crop production zones. But people in other areas will suffer from increased heat waves, coastal erosion, rising sea level, more erratic rainfall, and droughts.

The crops, natural vegetation, and domesticated and wild animals (including seafood) that sustain people in a given area may be unable to adapt to local or regional changes in climate. The ranges of diseases and insect pests that are limited by temperature may expand, if other environmental conditions are also favorable." (Holli Riebeek, 2010)

One of the most noticeable effects is the rise in sea levels is also a huge concern, "a team of scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the National Center for Atmospheric Research concluded that the ice is melting much faster than climate models had predicted. They found that from 1979 to 2006 the summer sea ice shrinkage accelerated to 9.1 percent a decade. In 2007, Arctic sea ice shrank some 20 percent below the previous record set in 2005. This suggests that the sea could be ice-free well before 2050, the earliest date projected by the IPCC in its 2007 report." (Earth Policy Institute, 2009).

Starvation Island, Zimbabwe

Also the society is going through intensive crop failures, “climate change is expected to have the most severe impact on water supplies. “Shortages in future are likely to threaten food production, reduce sanitation, hinder economic development and damage ecosystems. It causes more violent swings between floods and droughts.”" (Guardian, 2009). Finally the extreme temperatures and bipolar weather are leading to the extinction of several animal species, according to a research done by the magazine Nature it could lead to the annihilation of more than million species. Which is bad news for humans because we could be one of them. 

What can the conclusion be?

There is no way to completely stop global warming yet but there are many ways to decrease the quickly ascendency of it. One person cannot make a huge impact on their own, therefore people should be conscious about their daily life acts and start being responsible about them. More and more development which, is not needed still in process, so it should be stopped, controlled or at least find ways that do not lead to an increase in global warming. If people do not start taking the issue seriously, the consequence is simple, humans will be one more of the extinct species in the list.