I wonder if, like forests, corals tend to colonize an area first with fast growing species, which then get slowly replaced by longer lived species (forest succession). I understand that it takes a while for a forest to go from clean-field to a fully matured forest though.

As with the loss of old-growth forests that's happening today, we risk species loss, and hence biodiversity. Re-population is predicated on an extant population, a return to suitable conditions, and for the pioneer species to die off. The problem is that, in sustained adverse conditions, the pioneer species may outlive the surviving population of the threatened species.

The faster growing kind is highly susceptible to the crown of thorns starfish so this causes a cycle of explosive growth in the starfish population, which in turn kills the coral it feeds off.

Yes, the branching corals are the fast-growing early colonisers. The habitat they create is attractive for fish and invertebrates. Together they make up a reef ecosystem. The resilient reef-building massive corals typically appear on the reef later and grow much slower.

TIL : https://smallfarms.cornell.edu/2016/04/forest-succession-and....

Can we just have a moment of happiness? Of optimism?

Happiness - sure. It's nice to see the reef do well.

Optimism, no. I live in the area. We are going through a record cold snap, as in literally the lowest every temperatures recorded in some areas. And yes, the coral loves the respite. It's been accompanied by record floods, doing a record amount of damage. Which is to be expected - it's the La Nina pattern.

But record low temperatures, in a time when the base temperature is up 1C? That means the "other prediction" of climate change is coming true. The extremes are getting more extreme. And it's not the warming that's hurting us or the coral really, it's the extremes - just a few continuous days in a year when the temperature is +5C. That's what kills the coral - not the 1C average rise.

The reef isn't shrinking because the temperature gets so high it can't survive. That's always happened periodically. Once it gets that high it doesn't matter whether it's 1C over what the coral can tolerate, or 10C, or lasts for a couple of days or a month, the outcome is the same - the coral is dead. But if the high temperature is followed by 5 years or continuous growth, the coral re-colonises the area. What's been happening is we have been hitting extreme temperatures (both low and high) more often, and because the highs are more frequent the coral doesn't get a chance to grow back.

Remember those bush fires Australia has a few years ago - they were the worst we've even seen. Now we are laying down another fuel load. And it looks like the La Nina will persist for 3 years - another rare event, so the size of this fuel load will be another extreme. This cold snap will be followed by another record hot period, and we will move from losing billions to floods to losing billions to fire, again.

I'm not optimistic. I'm fearful.

Thank you, this was a very informative post

We should not lie to ourselves about the real situation just for feelgood purposes. It looks nice, but is empty. We are still missing thousands of species here that can't return until much later.

If we have a oil palm monocultures, "technically" we have a forest. We have an area covered by trees, but this is not the same as having a mature rainforest, that play in a much upper level and a totally different league.

Acropora dominated reefs are the equivalent to really young forests composed mostly with 2m trees. Yes, a poor reef is better than nothing, but we must understand that they sustain a much lower Shannon index than a mature reef and that we should keep protecting it for a long, long time.

I want this too. It's actually ok to be optimistic, if you also prepare mentally for the negative. I'm glad it has increased cover, I look forward to some improvement in overall reef health.

On the 10-20 year window, its a damaged, diminished ecosystem and it will need decades to recover. There is room for hope, it has to be tempered.

Not really sorry. Climate policy in Australia is going through Parliament right now (and while much more progressive than the previous government, the result still have the Greens stating the targets are not aggressive enough and will doom the reef).

Greens have little credibility when it comes to the environment. Instead of comprising and getting an emissions trading system passed they were stubborn and Australia ended up with a decade of inaction. For me that's inexcusable and the damage it caused was immense.

The legislated 43% target is largely symbolic and is a floor not a ceiling. It is not by itself going to change anything. What will change things are concrete steps like our Environment Minister stating that she will stop the Palmer coal mine from going ahead.

The Greens are not your enemy in this fight, the Liberal and Labor parties are - as demonstrated by their decades of long-standing policies which resulted in this mess in the first place.

The Green party certainly have their issues - subjugation and subversion most of all - but to lump the damage on the Greens is an inexcusable farce.

Until Australians realize that their political system is beholden to Big Coal, nothing will change. Australia has a long history, as a nation, of being run by the corporations that provide food to the populace, and Big Coal know this better than most, with their billion-dollar social engineering programs.

> Greens have little credibility when it comes to the environment.

Hum, compared to whom?

Credibility is not a competition nor is it defined in relation to others.

It is legitimate to be critical of the position they took as well as the other parties.

If you must choose from a limited pool of options, yes, how the others behave matter.

This election really renewed my fucking optimism, at least locally for Australia, though globally it still feels dire.

I think it is important to be realistic and act accordingly, otherwise you could end up in a worse situation due to insufficiently detailed/correct information.

I think those who are naturally pessimistic/optimistic, do think they are being realistic. Unless there is overwhelmingly conclusive data, what is "realistic" is going to be tinted through their life experience and biases.

Nobody can have any optimism, everyone must hold the view that the Great Barrier Reef is in imminent peril. If you don't and are vocal about it, you risk your career.

https://phys.org/news/2021-10-court-physicist-intellectual-f...

>Australia's highest court Wednesday dismissed an intellectual freedom claim by a university physicist who was fired in part over his public statements that scientists exaggerated damage to the Great Barrier Reef caused by climate change.

>Beginning in April 2016, James Cook University took a number of disciplinary measures over two years against Ridd, which culminated in Ridd being fired, for refusing to take down confidential information which he had placed publicly online. The university denied that the dismissal was over Ridd's views on climate change.

Looks like it went back in forth in court for a few years, with the university ultimately winning on appeal that he was fired for cause (posting confidential info).

https://sterlinglawqld.com/peter-ridd-loses-high-court-appea...

http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA//...

I don't doubt that his views made the decision easier. But people made this a political issue. So it can't be fought with just facts anymore. There's going to be some politicking involved.

No, anything less than fear and self-flagellation is prohibited. I am reminded of that Michael Crichton quote:

“There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment.”

(And yes, I’m aware that one can tag Crichton with a thought-terminating label such as “climate denier.”)

Gleeful optimism is how Australia got in this mess in the first place. "She'll be right, mate" has excused far too much of the trouble Australia is currently in.

Start being real, Aussies: Our nation is ruled by corporate fascists who want nothing more than to extract its resources, whatever the cost, and build their new world order with it. Those avocadoes don't smash themselves!

A better response to this news, emotionally, is to drop the hubris and self-congratulatory tone and use it as a means of informing the stupidly gleeful in your environment that there is a BIG situation behind this story, and we better start paying more attention to it than whats on telly.

Kinda a side note, but I found it interesting that this approach has been used in NZ for regenerating native plants. Essentially gorse (a pest introduced during European settlement) is used as a shield while the native plants are too young to survive exposure on coastal cliff's

Eg https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2...

> This is apparently only for one particular kind of fast-growing coral

Plus a bit of evolution for that coral, I'm guessing. Nature will eventually adapt to whatever we throw at it, but I'm not so sure if it will be fast enough for humans to survive.

Why don't you think humans will adapt as well?

Because humans are inherently selfish.

Are rich countries like US/EU etc. going to just allow tens/hundreds of millions of Africans to immigrate into their country when large parts of their continent become uninhabitable ?

Or are we going to quietly just let them die like is happening now.

Rich countries are also sitting idly by while large numbers of Africans starve to death due to energy shortages. The Africans are going to come out worse whatever happens as long as they look to the US/EU to fix their problems out rather than sorting out their local economy.

If they could manage the sort of wealth generation seen in China or India, they probably could make it through any amount of climate change due to having lots of cheap energy.

Some of us will, and it'll suck for the rest. You know evolution is made of dying, right?

> You know evolution is made of dying, right?

Not true in the slightest; evolution is solely driven by differential reproduction rates. You'll see evolutionary dynamics even if every organism you study is immortal and invulnerable.

Dying is just one of many things that affect your ability to reproduce.

In theory, sure. But in practice, it's driven by dying.

No, that's still not true.