What if all the coral reefs disappeared? | HowStuffWorks
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Huge sections of the Great Barrier Reef, stretching across hundreds of miles of its most pristine northern sector, were recently found to be dead, killed last year by overheated seawater. More southerly sections around the middle of the reef that barely escaped then, are bleaching now, a potential precursor to another die-off.“We didn’t expect to see this level of destruction for another 30 years; literally two-thirds of the reefs were dying and are now dead. The state of coral reefs is a telling sign of the health of the seas. If most of the world’s coral reefs die, which is increasingly likely, some of the richest & most colorful life in the ocean could be lost, along with huge sums from reef tourism.In poorer countries, lives are at stake: Hundreds of millions of people get their protein primarily from reef fish, and the loss of that food supply could become a humanitarian crisis."
At www.nytimes.com
