Comment Re:Corals are Ancient (Score 1) 44
Exactly. We're heating the oceans rapidly, as well as changing their chemical composition. We're making it more acidic and adding toxins. We're doing it on a timeline that is much faster than evolution operates at.
Since coral is a fundamental part of ocean life, the consequences can be a lot worse than just the coral dying out. It could devastate most ocean life. Some life on land relies on ocean life, so the impacts would be planet wide. A comparable situation that is easier for us land dwellers to understand would be if we lost all forests by the end of the century.
A rational reaction to this science would be to do everything in our power to stop this from happening. If the study is right and we do nothing, we've already put things on a path towards eradicating most life on the planet. Whereas if we take urgent action and the study turns out to be wrong and the coral would've been fine either way, we will have "wasted" a lot of effort to save the coral but we will also have given ourselves a less polluted planet with a safer climate.