Anyone that’s snorkeled or dived 30 years ago vs now has seen the stark difference. Places that were vibrant and full of color are lucky to have shades of brown with very few exceptions. Coral is dead, dying or unhealthy and it so upsetting to see it even from a few years ago. There’s this movement of last-chance tourism around this as reefs begin to fade away into bleached deserts.
My only wish is that people had the ability to care and therefore “wake up”. Outside of 0.2% of the global population, they don’t and they won’t. Our brains are, overall and by mass majority, as dead as the reef is about to be.
I disagree that it was a good run. There have been great people, great ideas… but they’ll all get washed away to nothing in the deluge of those who are empty and careless. I think that’s really what bothers me the most. It’s not that there are so many terribly stupid people. It’s that the intelligent people are so exceedingly rare that they cease to matter within the masses. Actually, maybe that is truly the problem. Intelligence inequality. If we were all stupid or all smart, I feel that everything would be less tragic. If we were all stupid, I and others wouldn’t be intelligent enough to experience the differential that causes suffering. If we were all smart, climate change wouldn’t even be happening. There are people who do want to help, who do want better. Few can hear. Most can’t even understand when they do. That is unfortunately the nature of being alternative. Perhaps eventually such won’t be alternative. Only time can truly tell. Perhaps being human will be something to be proud of… however, I sincerely doubt it. The death we have caused just because we could, within my lifetime let alone further, is basically unforgivable. Our current global oligarchs make Hitler look like a bitch. The devastation that has ensued in the last half century and what’s coming in the near future is beyond atrocious. The struggle that so many people live every single day, the torture that so many species are actively experiencing, we humans have turned our planet into a literal hell. Maybe something will miraculously break the societal bubble, people will realize how wrong everything has become, and we’ll have a sudden burst of sociological evolution. Many are trying! There’s just so many more that aren’t. In fact, the ones that are most against those trying are the ones with the most power in our world. Until that changes, the odds against us all do seem insurmountable.
From a relevant article:
In March, the Great Barrier Reef Authority said that aerial surveys on over 300 inshore, midshelf, and offshore reefs confirmed that “widespread, often called mass, coral bleaching event is unfolding” across the reef. A month later, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) and the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) confirmed that the world is undergoing its fourth global coral bleaching event. It is the second in the past ten years. Among the 53 regions affected are Florida, Eastern Tropical Pacific nations including Mexico, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia, and Australia. According to the most recent report by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), the world has lost approximately 14% of corals since 2009.
“Save the planet!”
Naw mother fuckers, the planet is going to be just fine, it’s humanity we need to save. The planet will be around millions of years after we’re long gone.