Australia facing threat of wildlife catastrophe

Kathy Marks, The Independent 25 Mar 08;

From the tiny tree kangaroo via the greater bilby to the quoll, some of Australia's unique and rare wildlife could disappear in the coming decades as a result of climate change, according to a report by the WWF published today.

The species, already under threat because of wide-scale land clearance and the introduction of exotic predators, could be pushed into extinction by rising temperatures and the knock-on effects, including drought and more frequent and devastating bushfires.

Australia already has the worst record in the world for conserving its beautiful and unusual wildlife. Of all the mammal species that have become extinct in the past 200 years, nearly 40 per cent are Australian. Many surviving creatures are in a precarious state.

Tammie Matson, head of the species programme at WWF Australia, said yesterday: "Australian animals are under so much pressure already that they're not going to be able to adapt to climate change fast enough.

"This is potentially catastrophic. With species like rat kangaroos, hare wallabies and frogs, it could be enough to tip them over the edge."

Rising temperatures are expected to reduce already meagre and fragmented habitats still further. Prolonged droughts could prompt agricultural expansion into wetter areas of northern Australia, which currently provide relatively intact ecosystems.

Conservationists also fear that warmer conditions could favour predators such as cane toads. And marine turtles could find themselves in populations with few or no males, since the sex of hatchlings is determined by the temperature at nesting beaches – the warmer the conditions, the more females are produced.

The report calls for larger areas of the country to be protected as national parks or nature reserves. Otherwise, it says, there will be nowhere for wildlife to move when their environment becomes uninhabitable – which could occur with a temperature rise of just 0.5C.

Burrow-dwelling bilbies (nocturnal marsupials), which are already under threat from foxes, rabbits and feral cats, are likely to find the seeds and fruit on which they feed in short supply, as a result of more frequent and intense bushfires. The loss of vegetation in which to take cover will also make them more vulnerable to attack.

Frogs are particularly sensitive to temperature change, and seven species that dwell in the Australian rainforest could lose more than half of their living space if the temperature increases by one degree.

Birds, too, are expected to suffer from reduced food sources and habitat, with the brilliantly hued Gouldian finch and several species of black cockatoo regarded as vulnerable. As well as predators, weeds are predicted to thrive in warmer conditions, wiping out native plants that provide food for wildlife.

The report points out that if greenhouse gas emissions were reduced to zero overnight, temperatures would still rise by 0.4C by 2050, according to current forecasts. That would be devastating for many Australian species, according to Dr Matson.

"If we were protecting more habitat for these species, there would be a place for them to go," she said. "But we're only protecting 11 per cent of the country. With species like wallabies, frogs and kangaroos, their core climatic habitat will become unsuitable with an increase of just 0.5 degrees in temperature.

"Where a species is already dropping off, climate change is that extra element," she said. "It's a disaster waiting to happen, and it will happen unless we act now to cut emissions."

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US Jaguars Threatened By Mexico Border Fence

Tim Gaynor, PlanetArk 25 Mar 08;

SANTA RITA MOUNTAINS, Ariz. - Jaguar biologist Emil McCain stoops over a remote-sensing camera attached to a tree in these rugged mountains a few miles to the north of the Arizona-Mexico border.

The researcher is checking for images of a handful of extremely rare jaguars that prowl up from Mexico over mountain trails in some of the wildest country in the southwest, although they are now under threat.

Scrolling through images of bobcats and deer snapped by the camera, he explains how the habitat for one of the United States' most elusive predators is being pressured by illegal immigration from Mexico and the controversial remedies sought by the US government to curb it: building fences.

In this election year, Washington hopes to complete 670 miles (1,070 kilometres) of pedestrian fencing and vehicle barriers in a bid to seal off some of the most heavily crossed areas of the nearly 2,000-mile (3,200 km) border, despite opposition from some landowners and environmentalists.

"The low flat valleys are effectively walled off to wildlife. As a result everything is funnelled up through the high mountain ranges that span the border" McCain said, standing by the camera box in an area spotted with trash tossed by illegal immigrants.

"The border barriers are directly linked with the funnelling of people into the last remaining habitats. Jaguars are very solitary animals, they can't move freely where there are a lot of people."


SOLITARY HUNTERS

Jaguars are powerful, solitary hunters that were revered by ancient cultures including the Aztecs and the Maya who believed they had supernatural powers. They roam over a vast habitat ranging from northern Argentina in the south to the rugged, borderland wildernesses of Arizona and New Mexico, although they are rarely seen.

The sturdy, spotted cats -- which are the only roaring felines in the Americas -- were believed to have become extinct in the United States until an Arizona rancher photographed one he encountered while hunting mountain lions in the far southwest corner of New Mexico in 1996.

"It was unforgettable, probably the most exciting day I have had in my life," Warner Glenn said of his brush with the burly, roaring male jaguar, which his hounds briefly brought to bay on a pillar of rock in the Peloncillo Mountains.

Proof positive of their presence in the United States was gained six months later when another Arizona cougar hunter, Jack Childs, treed and photographed a second jaguar in the distant reaches of the Baboquivari Mountains southwest of Tucson.

"They were on the brink of extirpation and to find out they were still here was a really great thing," Childs said of the animal, another male, which his hounds chased up into an alligator juniper tree.

"It was indescribable, a life-changing experience. We tipped our hats to it, thanked it for the experience and it went on its way."


NO BREEDING POPULATION

Neither jaguars were harmed. The photographs taken by Glenn and Childs helped win federal protection for the animals as an endangered species the following year and stirred interest from researchers eager to find out about their population and movements.

Childs, his wife Anna Mary and McCain subsequently founded the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project, a non-profit which set up some 40 to 50 cameras to photograph jaguars roaming through a highland wildlife corridor in the southwest known as the "Sky Islands."

The mountainous archipelago linking Arizona with the Sierra Madre Mountains in northwest Mexico is a unique zone where temperate species like the wolf and black bear mingle with Neotropical animals such as the jaguar and coatimundi, a sociable raccoon-like animal sometimes mistaken for a monkey.

Over the past seven years researchers repeatedly photographed four or five jaguars. They found that all were males straying north from breeding populations in Mexico, a discovery with considerable implications for their survival in the US southwest.

"Because there are no females and no reproduction, jaguars in the United States are totally dependent on cross-border movement," Said McCain. "That connectivity with Mexico is absolutely crucial."


UNCERTAIN FUTURE

As the construction of barriers continued to pressure that connectivity, the US government decided at the start of the year to abandon the recovery of jaguar populations as a federal goal, further calling into question the future of the animals.

McCain says he is concerned that there is no conservation plan to protect the big cats and their core habitat in the United States, which, he says, leaves them increasingly vulnerable should any decision be taken in the future to secure remaining areas of the border with fencing.

"After the Border Patrol finishes securing the lowland areas they will be forced to extend those walls out across the mountain ranges and totally seal off any hopes of jaguars crossing back and forth," he says.

While jaguars would not die out as a species -- fewer than one percent of their total number live in the United States -- losing this elusive predator would signal a retreat on protecting this fragile borderland wilderness for posterity.

"The jaguar is a great emblem of wildness and an example of a healthy ecosystem," McCain said.

"It really inspires people and creates a sense of wonder at the natural world. And in today's world, we really need that."

(Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Eddie Evans)

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China Urged To Shift Urban Growth To Supercities

PlanetArk 25 Mar 08;

BEIJING - Shifting China's model of urbanisation to favour huge supercities could boost per capita output, improve energy efficiency and help contain the loss of arable land, the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) said on Monday.

Rapid urbanisation has been a major driver of Chinese growth over the past two decades and will become more so over the next 20 years; cities will account for 95 percent of China's gross domestic product by 2025, up from 75 percent today, MGI said.

But the institute, the economics research arm of consultants McKinsey & Co, said in a report that China could reap even greater economic benefits by adopting a more concentrated pattern of urban growth.

By enforcing land acquisition rules more strictly and by tweaking incentives for local officials, national policy makers could nurture 15 supercities with average populations of 25 million people, the report said.

Alternatively, planners could develop 11 clusters of cities with combined populations of more than 60 million people.

China currently only has two cities of more than 10 million people, Beijing and Shanghai.

China's urbanisation rate doubled between 1980 and 2005 to 44 percent and will climb to 66 percent by 2025, driven by the influx of an additional 240 million rural migrants, MGI said.

This flight from the land will impose huge strains.

Urban China will need to find double the energy and water resources they now consume. Arable land could shrink 20 percent in the worst case, and pollution, no matter what, will be severe.

But MGI said supercities would be better equipped to handle the challenges than a rash of smaller cities: energy productivity would be almost 20 percent higher; public transport would be more efficient; air and water pollution would be easier to control and farm land losses could be kept to less than 8 percent.

"China's leadership has an opportunity to shape the path that urbanisation takes to maximise economic outcomes and most effectively mitigate the pressures that urbanisation will create.

"We find that shifting China to a more concentrated pattern of urban expansion would achieve both objectives," said Richard Zhang, a senior partner in McKinsey's Shanghai office.


THINK BIG

What's more, concentrated urbanisation would boost GDP per capita growth by as much as 20 percent above the current trendline, thanks to scale effects and productivity gains.

Big cities also lure skilled workers, which would enable China to move more rapidly up the value ladder.

Whatever the model of urban growth, construction over the next two decades will be unprecedented as the number of city dwellers rises by over 350 million -- more than the US population -- to 926 million in 2025 from 572 million in 2005.

By 2025, China will have 221 cities with more than 1 million people, compared with 35 in Europe today.

China will need to build between 20,000 and 50,000 new skyscrapers -- the equivalent of up to 10 New York Cities.

China will pave up to five billion square metres of road and as many as 170 cities could meet criteria for mass-transit systems, more than twice the current number in Europe.

"This could promise to be the greatest boom in mass-transit construction in history," the report said.

(Reporting by Alan Wheatley; editing by Ken Wills)

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Best of our wild blogs: 25 Mar 08

SG Recycle
a new blog for all you need to know about recycling in Singapore

The Importance of Biodiversity in Singapore's Context
from the Singaporean Attitudes to Biological Conservation blog

Last episode of Once Upon A Tree tonight
on the wildfilms blog

The Joy of (Marine) Sex
in pictures, on the wildfilms blog

What mantis shrimp see
on the fins online blog

The Tragedy of the Commons
a graphic explanation on the reuters environment blog

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Researchers trace the first farming ant

Associated Press, 25 Mar 08

WASHINGTON - Ants took up farming some 50 million years ago, according to researchers who traced the ancestry of farmer ants. An analysis of the DNA of farmer ants traced them back to an original ancestor — a sort of adam ant, at least for the types that raise their own food, according to a paper in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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In the last 25 million years ants have developed different types of farming including the well-known leaf-cutter ants, according to entomologists Ted Schultz and Sean Brady at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

Leaf-cutter ants don't eat the leaves they collect. Instead, they grow fungus on the leaves and eat the fungus.

Only four types of animals are known to farm for food — ants, termites, bark beetles and, of course, people. All four cultivate fungi.

By studying the fungus-growing ants the researchers hope to learn more about the development of ant agriculture.

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China to spend $5.9 billion on environment

Reuters, 25 Mar 08

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has earmarked 41.8 billion yuan ($5.9 billion) to fund environmental protection and energy-saving projects this year, the finance ministry said on Monday.

In a statement posted on its Web site, www.mof.gov.cn, the ministry said the funds would be used to scrap obsolete capacity, improve sewerage in central and western China and clean up several rivers across the country.

It also said that China would consider setting up a "pay to pollute" regime and a trading system for pollution quotas.

The investments underscore the growing political emphasis on sustainable development in a country with some of the world's most polluted air and rivers.

In 2006, China set a goal of cutting energy intensity, or the amount of energy needed to produce each $1 of output, by 20 percent by 2010, but it has already fallen well behind schedule. Energy intensity fell 1.33 percent in 2006 and 3 percent in 2007.

China has also cracked down on loans to polluters and raised the bar for investment in heavy industries such as cement, steel and smelting that consume large quantities of energy and belch out pollution.

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Animal group files suit to stop sea lion killings

Teresa Carson, Reuters, 25 Mar 08

PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - Animal protection groups filed a lawsuit on Monday to prevent Washington state and Oregon from killing sea lions that feed on dwindling U.S. Pacific Northwest salmon populations.

The Humane Society of the United States and others filed the suit in a federal court in Oregon after the National Marine Fisheries Services granted permission last week to the states to target up to 85 sea lions a year near the Bonneville Dam.

Jonathan Lovvorn, a vice president with the Humane Society, said in a statement it was "outrageous and patently illegal" for the government agency to allow the killing of sea lions while at the same time increasing harvest quotas for fishermen.

Salmon-gobbling pinnipeds have been a problem in West Coast waters for over a decade and at the Bonneville Dam for about five years. About 100 California sea lions make the 150-mile (241-kilometre) trip upriver to feast on spawning salmon channeling into the dam's fish ladders.

State and federal governments have spent billions trying to protect once-abundant salmon and fishery managers have also proposed a virtual shutdown of salmon fishing this year in California and Oregon coastal waters.

The Humane Society said killing sea lions is unnecessary since this year's salmon run on the Columbia River is expected to be triple last year's migration, prompting authorities to raise human fishing quotas on the river.

Officials have tried to drive the sea lions away using non-lethal methods such as protective barriers, firecrackers and rubber bullets. The Humane Society has pushed for authorities to continue with these methods.

The suit names the Secretary of Commerce and the National Marine Fisheries Service director as defendants.

Spokesmen for both the federal agency and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife declined to comment, saying they have not had a chance to look at the lawsuit.

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Big cities run short of petrol and diesel

Drivers urged to stay calm and not hoard fuel as long queues form at filling stations
Associated Press, 25 Mar 08

SHANGHAI - CHINA'S leaders are facing renewed pressure over shortfalls in diesel and petrol, with lines growing at filling stations in major cities yesterday.

The shortages, first reported in southern and inland China, appeared to be spreading to the wealthier coastal areas as filling stations struggled to get shipments from refiners.

Four stations contacted yesterday in Shanghai said their daily diesel shipments had not yet arrived. 'You could try your luck later in the day. Now we have no diesel available at all,' said a filling station attendant in the city's eastern Pudong district.

The authorities downplayed the shortages and urged drivers to remain calm and not hoard fuel. Shanghai, China's commercial centre and a key trade transportation hub, has enough diesel to last more than 10 days, the city's Economic Commission said in a statement yesterday.

'Prices are set by the government, so consumers should not panic over fears of surging prices or try to stockpile fuel,' it said.

Shortages in the second half of last year briefly affected Shanghai and other major cities. But those shortfalls disappeared after the government ordered oil companies to ensure supplies, and then raised fuel prices by about 10 per cent.

Now, as the gap widens between international crude oil values and centrally controlled fuel prices and with inflation at its highest level in a dozen years, China's economic planners are resisting pressure from refiners for price hikes.

The consumer price index saw an 8.7 per cent jump in February over a year earlier, prompting Premier Wen Jiabao to vow more stringent controls to help rein in inflation.

China supplied its own energy needs for decades from domestic oilfields but became a net importer in the 1990s as its economy boomed.

Imports, which now cater for nearly half of demand, rose 12.3 per cent last year to 1.1 billion barrels. With crude prices at over US$100 (S$139) a barrel, independent refiners have cut back or stopped production.

Major state-owned suppliers Sinopec and PetroChina have been ordered by the government to ensure supplies to major cities and key sectors such as farming and public transport.

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Urgent appeal by UN food agency for funds

WFP says rations will be cut unless donor nations give $700m by end of April
AFP, 25 Mar 08

LONDON - THE UN agency charged with relieving world hunger has launched an 'extraordinary emergency appeal' for at least US$500 million (S$700 million), it was reported yesterday.

A letter sent to donor countries by the World Food Programme (WFP) at the weekend said the money was required by the end of April, otherwise it would have to reduce food rations because of rapidly increasing commodity prices, the Financial Times (FT) reported.

'We urge your government to be as generous as possible in helping us to close this gap - which stood at US$500 million on Feb 25 and has been growing daily,' WFP executive director Josette Sheeran wrote in the letter obtained by the FT.

She added that if sufficient money was not received by May 1, the WFP may have to cut 'the rations for those who rely on the world to stand by them during times of abject need'.

The letter also quoted UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, who said: 'This is the new face of hunger, increasingly affecting communities that had previously been protected.'

Food prices have been spiralling higher globally because of rising population, strong demand from developing countries, the use of certain foods in biofuels to combat climate change and the increasing frequency of floods and droughts as a result of climate change.

The FT, citing unnamed officials, said the WFP's funding gap was now between US$600 million and US$700 million.

The WFP provided nearly 88 million people in 78 countries with food aid in 2006.

Echoing the concerns of the UN experts, the head of Nestle, the world's biggest food and beverage company, warned in Zurich on Sunday that the growing use of crops such as wheat and corn to make biofuels is putting world food supplies in peril.

'If, as predicted, we look to use biofuels to satisfy 20 per cent of the growing demand for oil products, there will be nothing left to eat,' chairman and chief executive Peter Brabeck-Letmathe said.

While the competition is driving up the price of maize, soya and wheat, land for cultivation is becoming rare and water sources are also under threat, he said.

UN food expert Jean Ziegler had made an appeal at the UN General Assembly that a five-year moratorium be imposed on all initiatives to develop biofuels in order to avert what he said might be 'horrible' food shortages.

But diplomats from countries pursuing such fuels, such as Brazil and Colombia, disputed his forecast.

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Pricier cupppa

Consumers paying more as prices of coffee beans, sugar, milk go up
Chia Yan Min, Straits Times, 25 Mar 08

ENJOYING a regular kopi at neighbourhood coffee shops has become a bit pricier in recent months, with the prices of some brews shooting up by as much as a third.

Supermarket shoppers have not been spared either, with prices of some 3-in-1 brands up 15 to 20 per cent. Upmarket cafes have hiked some prices as well.

Reality hit customers of Ya Kun Kaya Toast recently when prices rose by 10 cents across the board. Its regular coffee now costs $1.30.

A check by The Straits Times on heartland coffee shops shows that they have upped prices, with one in Toa Payoh charging 20 cents more for a regular kopi - a rise of 33 per cent - bringing the price to 80 cents.

The increases are partly due to local suppliers passing on the costs of pricier beans. Mr Tan Kok Hui, who supplies neighbourhood shops, raised the price of a 9kg barrel of beans by $3 to $5 last December. A barrel costs about $55.

'I believe the coffee shops are probably thinking of raising prices again soon,' Mr Tan said in Mandarin.

Mr Hong Poh Hin, chairman of the Foochow Coffee Restaurant and Bar Merchants Association, said coffee shops and smaller retailers may raise prices within the next six months, although other factors, such as pricier electricity, will also play a part.

'Utility prices have gone up almost 100 per cent in the past year,' said Mr Hong. 'The prices of sugar and milk are also increasing, and all of these will probably have a greater impact on coffee prices than the beans.'

He said any price increase would likely be between 10 and 20 cents a cup 'because coffee shops have to remain affordable for the masses'.

Supermarket chains have been gradually hiking prices.

In the past six months, the price of a 40-sachet bag of Nescafe 3-in-1 Regular Coffeemix has risen by 14 to 19 per cent across most major supermarkets. It costs $5.20 at Cold Storage and NTUC FairPrice. Super 3-in-1 Coffeemix is up 5 to 9 per cent, and now costs $4.95 at Cold Storage and $4.80 at NTUC FairPrice.

A spokesman for a major coffee supplier, who declined to be named, said his firm increased supply prices to supermarkets by 6 to 7 per cent last year, primarily due to the rising cost of coffee.

However, hikes at high-end cafes have been minimal. A latte at Spinelli has edged up 4 per cent to $4.50. But Gloria Jean's and Coffee Club have both held fire so far.

'Coffee is only one ingredient in a brew,' said Gloria Jean's spokesman James Donald. 'Unless we see a major increase in the price of all ingredients, we should not need to raise the price.'

Coffee drinkers, of course, will not give up their cuppa. Housewife Ang Poh Choo, 52, said: 'I still have to have my coffee regardless of the price hikes. Coffee drinking is a habit for me.'

Mrs Ang had just bought a packet of Gold Roast Instant Coffee at NTUC FairPrice for $3.50, a product that used to cost under $3.

Regular Starbucks patron Eric Leong, 35, a manager who spends about $350 a month on coffee, said his latte has increased by about 20 to 30 cents recently.

But as Mr Leong admits: 'Coffee drinking is a habit for me; if all the coffee chains increase prices, I guess I'll just have to pay more.'

chiaym@sph.com.sg

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY ONG BI HUI

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Better eyesight for kids? Let them go out and play

Jessica Jaganathan, Straits Times, 25 Mar 08

STUDIES have shown that children who spend time outdoors have better eyesight than their computer-obsessed counterparts.

With that in mind, the government-run Health Promotion Board (HPB) has launched a new programme designed to detach children from video games and the television.

During this year's Eye Care Week, which began yesterday, HPB is organising a slew of outdoor activities for about 4,000 children aged four to six.

Held next to the Singapore General Hospital, the activities are aimed at promoting good vision among children.

Preschoolers planted sunflower seeds in mini-flower pots, each bearing an eye-care message. They also played games that highlighted the outdoors as a fun alternative to computer games and television.

'We feel that organising games and activities will make it more interesting for the children,' said MrsCheong-Lim Lee Yee, deputy director of the preschool and primary school outreach department at the HPB.

Six-year-old Rachel Leow from kindergarten PCF Punggol South was happy to take part in the activities with her classmates.

When asked what she learnt,

she said: 'We cannot play too much Game Boy or sit too close to the television.'

Data from studies in 2001 and 2004 found Chinese children in Singapore who spent much of their spare time indoors were more than four times more likely to develop myopia than kids from Sydney who went outside regularly.

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Has the Great Barrier Reef got a future?

J.E.N. Veron, ScienceAlert 25 Mar 08;

Once I would have thought that a ridiculous question. Yet today, if we assemble all the best science we have, the answer can at best be “maybe”.

It may seem preposterous that the greatest coral reef in the world – the biggest structure made by life on Earth – could be seriously (I mean genuinely seriously) threatened by climate change.

The question itself is probably already relegated in your mind to a ‘here-we-go-again’ catch-bag of greenie diatribe about the state of our planet. This view is understandable given that even a decade ago, there were many scientists who had not yet come to grips with the full implications of climate change.

Very likely you have a feeling that dire predictions about anything almost always turn out to be exaggerations. What you really think is: OK, where there’s smoke there’s fire, so there’s probably something in this to be worried about, somewhere. But, it won’t be as bad as those doom-sayers are predicting.

When I started writing “A Reef in Time”, I knew that climate change was likely to have serious consequences for coral reefs, but even I was shocked to the core by what all the best science that existed was saying.

In a long phase of personal anguish I turned to specialists in many different fields of science to find anything that might suggest a fault in my own conclusions. No luck.

The bottom line remains: the GBR can indeed be utterly trashed in the lifetime of today’s children. That certainty is what motivates me to broadcast this message as clearly, as accurately and, yes, as loudly, as I can.

So, what are the issues? You probably know that there have been several major episodes of mass bleaching on the GBR over the past 20 years and that these have been caused by pulses (El Niño events) of warm surface water heated by the greenhouse effect.

The basic numbers showing the relationship between damage and temperature are there for all to see. There is no escaping the prediction that the worse bleaching year we have had to date will be an average year by 2030 and a good year by 2050.

You don’t even need a pocket calculator to conclude that the only corals left alive by then will be those hiding in refuges such as deep outer reef slopes.

What you may not know is that bleaching is only of minor concern compared to a much more insidious and devastating issue looming in the background – ocean acidification.

Put simply, the carbon dioxide we are producing is readily absorbed by water and turned into carbonic acid which is taken up by the oceans and neutralized by carbonate/bicarbonate buffers. The problem is that we are now producing carbon dioxide so rapidly that this process is actually changing the chemistry of ocean water, making it less alkaline and altering the saturation state of the buffers.

A small matter you might think, but it isn’t. Changes are already being recorded in the Southern Ocean (gases are more readily absorbed in cold water so colder oceans will show changes first), a process that will reach the equator at about the same time as the interval mentioned above: about 2030 with full effects by 2050.

Sod’s law will then apply: the coral refugees from temperature will be the most affected by acidification. Ocean chemistry is a well-understood subject and acidification is progressing in a way that is easily predicted from a few simple chemical equations.

Although much is not yet well understood about the responses of species to marginal conditions, we do know that corals and plankton cannot build normal skeletons under the acidification that is predicted; they will suffer what can aptly be described as coralline osteoporosis.

Nor is there time for them to evolve solutions. That means that they will neither build reefs nor be able to maintain them against the forces of erosion. What were once thriving coral gardens that supported the greatest biodiversity of our oceans will be red-black bacterial slime and they will stay that way.

I have already worked in such places – there’s a photo of one in my book.

There is another frightening aspect of Climate Change. It is contained in the concept of ‘commitment’, a word we will soon be hearing only too often.

In climate change speak this means the commitment of the Earth now to paths of change that will be unavoidable and unstoppable in the future. This delayed reaction is due to the inertia of the oceans, both thermal and chemical.

Put another way, the greenhouse gases we are producing now will take a couple of decades to produce the changes they are destined to make. And when they do produce those changes they will be for keeps as far as humanity is concerned.

What I must make clear is that, great though the GBR is, if climate change can destroy one reef it can destroy them all.

So let’s forget all those grandiose adjectives that are always used to describe our Great Barrier Reef. All coral reefs grow near the ocean surface and they will all be affected by changes to that surface.

As the dinosaurs discovered, size offers no protection from an environmental upheaval. We are talking about a mass extinction event.

Mass extinction events – five in total – have hit coral reefs so hard they have taken at least four million years to re-evolve. Although we know little about the first mass extinction, the next four were primarily the result of massive climatic changes, with the carbon cycle convincingly implicated in all.

What is the fast acting currency of the carbon cycle? Carbon dioxide. I can’t escape the bottom line which says we are setting conditions on Earth for the sixth great mass extinction. Coral reefs are the ocean’s canaries. They have now sounded their warning and have started leaving the same message they left in the past.

Certainly all past extinction events are associated with much higher levels of carbon dioxide than anything predicted today, but the rate of change we are experiencing now has no known precedent in all Earth history.

It is not just ‘abrupt’ (as is often described), it is geologically and evolutionarily instantaneous. That is the big picture. In our here-and-now detail of it, another decade like our last will send the Earth across the tipping-point, and our children will see the results.

Climate change is the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced. On our present tack the future looks bleak, but it is far from hopeless. We have the science and technology to stop this from happening.

What we must do now is buy enough time for this S&T to come to the rescue. We know how to cut emissions enough through individual and corporate actions alone, irrespective of intergovernmental undertakings. We just need to accept, at all levels, that the job has to be done. Then get on with it, and fast.

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