Together, we can create healthy oceans and a healthy planet – but we have to stop runaway global warming and catastrophic climate change. We can’t let political leaders and mining corporations ignore the danger. Let’s change the future.
Header image: Angelina Pilarinos
We know what we need to do. We need a rapid transition from fossil fuels to cleaner, renewable energy. We need to stop approving new polluting coal mines and end fossil fuel subsidies.
Australians are resourceful and we’ve built huge, transformative energy projects before. We can do it again — we just need the willpower. We need the best minds and leaders to make a swift transition from a polluting economy to one based on renewable energy.
Coral bleaching occurs as a result of a rise in ocean temperatures. Ocean heatwaves are more common because of global warming, and this stresses coral. Even a rise of just one degree celsius over four weeks can trigger coral bleaching, and higher temperatures can cook it. If ocean temperatures stay high for eight weeks or longer, the coral cannot recover – and begins to die.
To stop coral bleaching we must stop the carbon pollution that is heating our planet and oceans. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns us - if global warming reaches 2°C - more than 99% of coral reefs are projected to decline. We cannot allow that to happen. We must quit dirty coal – and switch to clean renewables now.
Learn MoreMangroves are critical to marine ecosystems and our climate. They act as crucial nurseries for marine life like fish and turtles, which find shelter and food among the mangrove roots. They also act as critical carbon sinks, absorbing 50 times more carbon than tropical forests by area, according to Professor Norm Duke, a mangrove expert from James Cook University.
Mangroves are at risk from climate change. For example, around 10,000 hectares of mangrove forests died in the Gulf of Carpentaria in 2016 (ABC, 2016). The dieback was unprecedented and followed an un-seasonally low Monsoon rainfall, followed by extreme warming with sustained high ocean temperatures.
Source: ABC.net.au, 2016 (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-10/unprecedented-10000-hectares-of-mangroves-die/7552968)
Kelp forests are the ‘biological engine’ of our Great Southern Reef, stretching around the southern half of Australia. Great swathes of kelp forests in Australia’s temperate south west have disappeared, and their demise is probably permanent.
The Indian Ocean off the mid-Western Australian coast is warming twice as fast as the global average. The findings come from a 15-year survey in Western Australia, stretching 2,000km from Cape Leeuwin in the south, to Ningaloo in the north. Over that time, nearly 1,000 square kilometres of kelp forest have vanished.
With climate change driving warmer waters and more heatwaves, we can expect more of these dramatic changes in the future.
Mining & burning coal & other fossil fuels is heating the air and the oceans to dangerous levels.
Global warming, driven by burning coal, causes marine heatwaves - the biggest threat to oceans.
Coral bleaching endangers over 5,000 species of marine life that rely on our colourful corals.
If we act now, the Great Barrier Reef can survive and thrive into the future.
The world's largest living structure, a marvel visible from space, is in desperate need of help.
AMCS patron Tim Winton reminds us all that despair is not an option when it comes to climate change.
Learn about how our oceans have the potential to fight climate change
by storing carbon in their ecosystems