Coral reefs – you can’t go wrong with coral reefs and I enjoyed this programme more than the two preceding ones. Why was that? I’m really not sure.
Manta rays, spawning groupers, another grouper working with an octopus to catch their prey and saddleback clown fish. All terrific. And all potentially to be lost from our planet within the lives of people born today.
I’m not sure what ‘half the world’s coral reefs are affected by bleaching’ actually means but I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t mean that half of the Earth’s coral reef area is now bleached and dead. Sir David’s calming tones then told us that includes ‘since 2016, two thirds of the shallow-water corals of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef’ which didn’t make complete sense to me at the time (but see here), but it obviously doesn’t sound good. I snorkelled on the Great Barrier Reef about a decade ago and I’m saddened that coral bleaching is rubbing out the colours that I saw there.
The programme was right to mention, and show, coral bleaching but it ended on a strangely upbeat note claiming that there was hope because ‘as long as some reefs survive, coral reefs can regenerate’ but it wasn’t clear why there was hope because there was no solution suggested for ocean warming. This felt like false hope to me.
Next week, programme 4 out of 7, it’s the open oceans. I’m already wondering what the message of the last programme will be.
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Let’s hope the message is a strong one because it is needed, the ocean seems to be treated as an open sewer in so far as plastic waste is concerned and there needs to be international cooperation to address that already out there and to prevent more entering. Then there’s the issue of bleaching, warming, resources, population etc. etc.
If the BBC dumb down any message then it would be failing in it’s duties as a well known and regarded authority IMHO and it would be a missed opportunity given the wide reach such a programme has, not to mention the high regard in which Sir David is held.
I suspect there is a conflict between the high costs and potentially high income series like this losing marketability if the message is in any way direct, hence the anodyne chunter that Sir David is required to provide.
My understanding is that coral bleaching is caused by the acidification of the ocean due to warmer water’s ability to absorb more carbon dioxide.
Since there seems little prospect of oceans cooling down any time soon the implication is of an accelerating problem.
In my recollection David Attenborough (or should we be saying the BBC?) was very late in mentioning climate change in previous programs… planet Earth etc.
We badly need a new approach to Natural history programs by the BBC and fronted by people with more integrity than our supposed national treasure.
Chris – thanks. I agree.
I’d guess US sales are important and we don’t want to scare them too much do we…?
‘half the world’s coral reefs are affected by bleaching’ probably means just that. But bleached does not mean dead, it means critically effected which could (soon) lead to death. According to Wikipedia – quoting the Guardian and the Independent (quoting the Queenland Government and the United Nations) – between 29 and 50 percent of the Great Barrier Reef is already dead, while 90% of it is effected by bleaching. Other media reports indicate that in 2017 the situation has worsened still further:-(
You could say that, rather like our effect on the base of the terrestrial food chain (insects) we have also inadvertently enacted a partial destruction of the base of the marine food chain (plankton).
I’d say the message was pretty serious because reversing these processes are nigh on impossible while maintaining civilised society:-(
Keith – thanks. You are quoting back to me what was in the links in my original post.
I’m afraid I felt this was more like ep1, a bit meh. Maybe I’ve just seen too many programmes about reefs (I have seen a lot) and have read too many articles on bleaching and destruction (a real lot) for me to be the target audience for this one. I still felt the episode on the deep abysses was the best.
Maybe that is my childhood love of undersea communities which often delved into the midnight zones for their drama. I read a lot of those books when I was a little girl, I do recommend especially Willard Price’s Underwater Adventure, and Arthur C Clarke’s Dolphin Island, if anyone has a child with a similar love of the sea. Be prepared to have some serious discussions on sexism and post colonial racism though, both books were written many decades ago and while the stories are sound (and so is a lot, but not all, of the science) there are a lot of unexamined racist and sexist language that is typical of the era.
Error correction: I meant Willard Price’s “Diving Adventure” there, not Underwater Adventure; which is a different book. I got those mixed up. His whole “Adventure” series is worth a look (except Whale Adventure which suddenly goes from 1940s/50s straight into the 1850s, complete with tall ship whalers and harpoon boats, for some reason) but the caveat on racism and sexism applies.
This idea about hope relies on there being sufficient islands with water temperatures capable of supporting coral reefs and also assumes reproductive propagules from the coral actually reach these islands. These islands will probably end up in the Arctic and Antarctic at the current rate.
I wonder if anyone has modelled this?