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Half the Coral in the Great Barrier Reef Has Died Since 2016

The Atlantic Apr 19, 2018
This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
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Great-Barrier-Reef destruction
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Giving Compass’ Take:

• The Atlantic explores the rapid erosion of The Great Barrier Reef in Australia starting in 2016, choking off half the coral. The cause? Global warming.

• This should raise the alarms over whether the world is meeting the goals set by the Paris Agreement. We’re currently off track by a wide margin, and it’s causing tangible damage.

• For a more visual representation of what’s going on, check out the documentary “Chasing Coral.”


Once upon a time, there was a city so dazzling and kaleidoscopic, so braided and water-rimmed, that it was often compared to a single living body. It clustered around a glimmering emerald spine, which astronauts could glimpse from orbit. It hid warm nooks and crannies, each a nursery for new life. It opened into radiant, iris-colored avenues, which tourists crossed oceans to see. The city was, the experts declared, the planet’s largest living structure.

Then, all at once, a kind of invisible wildfire overran the city. It consumed its avenues and neighborhoods, swallowed its canyons and branches. It expelled an uncountable number of dwellers from their homes. It was merciless: Even those who escaped the initial ravishment perished in the famine that followed.

Many people had loved the city, but none of them could protect it. No firefighters, no chemicals, no intervention of any kind could stop the destruction. As the heat plundered the city of its wealth, the experts could only respond with careful, mournful observation.

All of this recently happened, more or less, off the east coast of Australia. The Great Barrier Reef — which, at 1,400 miles long, is the longest and largest coral reef in the world — was blanketed by dangerously hot water in the summer of 2016. This heat strangled and starved the corals, causing what has been called “an unprecedented bleaching event.”

Though that bleaching event was reported at the time, scientists are just starting to understand how catastrophically transformative it was. A new paper, published recently in the journal Nature, serves as a kind of autopsy report for the debacle.

Read the full article about the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef by Robinson Meyer at The Atlantic

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Interested in learning more about Environment? Other readers at Giving Compass found the following articles helpful for impact giving related to Environment.

  • This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
    Click here for more.
    Deepening Commitment in a Moment of Change

    Giving Compass' Take: · Writing for the Center for Effective Philanthropy, Rose Letwin of the conservation-focused foundation Wilburforce discusses the importance of strategizing and the ways funding can be influenced by the surrounding political environment.  · An important part of any organization it planning for the future. But funding challenges happen all the time. What causes this change and how can leaders adjust? · Read more about the relationship between funders and grantees. I grew up in a small Midwestern farm town and have always had a passion for animals. I moved to Seattle in the 1970s and fell in love with the outdoors. These interests led me to volunteer at a wildlife rehabilitation center, where I faced the devastating truth that many of these animals, once healed, had no home to return to. Seattle and its surrounding communities were growing rapidly, and there were fewer spaces where wild animals could just be. In 1991, after a successful career in technology, I founded Wilburforce Foundation. Nearly three decades into this work, I remain equally committed. But these past couple years have been particularly unsettled for the issues I care so much about. I knew we had to make some changes. I always carefully plan for the future, wanting to ensure that Wilburforce has the resources to respond to the next set of opportunities and challenges. It is not my plan to have the foundation exist in perpetuity. But I am committed to keeping the foundation funded long enough to see many decades-long conservation campaigns through to their successful completion. I have to consider the downstream implications of financial decisions I make today. These times are so critical for our work that I feel that money spent now will have more impact than the same money spent later. For our part, Wilburforce acted quickly after the U.S. elections. In January 2017, we began planning a summit for a diverse cross-section of grantee leaders from across the western U.S. to: share learnings, approaches, and tactics to help us become more effective in the new context; identify individual, organizational, and collaborative capacities that we need to develop to be effective in our work; gain a deeper understanding of key leadership competencies needed in the new paradigm; and develop a refreshed and deepened sense of connection, shared support, and inspiration. Read the full article about taking action and planning for the future by Rose Letwin at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.


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