[Coral-List] Another way of looking at the GBR bleaching

[Peter Sale]

Hi,
The bleaching currently happening on the northern GBR is getting lots of media attention, and the effort by the Aussie science community to document it should give some solid information on what is happening, and perhaps some answers to questions like whether corals show much capability of adapting to the increasingly warmer water.

Despite the global media attention, however, I think the message that should be getting sent is not getting through the fog.  To many people are seeing this bleaching as yet more bad news for coral reefs.  But, to paraphrase James Carville, it's not about the corals, it's about our existential crisis, stupid.

Since the media are not getting this more dire message out, the reef science community needs to find new ways to tell it like it is.  If pristine reefs are now bleaching, why do we sit complacently by assuming that climate change, and all the other environmental stressors, are about the other rather than about us, and our future?

A somewhat lengthier statement of my frustration is at http://www.petersalebooks.com/?p=2198

Peter Sale
Distinguished University Professor
University of Windsor, Canada

web:                      www.petersalebooks.com<http://www.petersalebooks.com/>
Twitter:                @PeterSale3