Loss of Great Barrier Reef will be part of major collapses of ocean ecosystems,

Death of the Great Barrier Reef: One scientist’s planetary tipping point, Independent Australia 12 January 2017 Nearly a quarter of the Great Barrier Reef is dead and there has been no discernible political response, writes Dr Geoff Davies.

THERE WAS no big revelation, just a train of thought. Nearly a quarter of the Great Barrier Reef is dead and there has been no discernible political response. Global temperature is rising off the chart, only glancingly noted in the torrent of chatter. The decades-long trend of ever-more perverse and destructive politics continues. Societies are fragmenting.

For perhaps two decades I have held to the thought that while ever there was a chance of avoiding a planetary tipping point I would continue explaining how we can avoid the worst. Through that time, the path to a healthy, stable world has become clearer and more obvious, demonstrated in a thousand practical, small-scale ways. All that time, the window of opportunity was closing. It is, in my judgement, barely open any more.

Few seem to understand that even if we ceased greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow the world would still warm for two or three decades more. That is about the time marine scientists give for the rest of the Great Barrier Reef to be killed off on present trends. I can’t see how the Reef can survive. Its loss, along with vast stretches of mangroves in our north, kelp forests in the west and rich continental shelf life across the south, will be see major collapses of ocean ecosystems, with unknown consequences for life on this Earth…….https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/death-of-the-great-barrier-reef-one-scientists-planetary-tipping-point,9917