Great Barrier Reef Crisis: Half Of It Is 'Dead Or Dying'

The health of the world's biggest living ecosystem, the Australian's Great Barrier Reef, is going bleak. Half of it is "dead or dying," according to scientists.

Only about seven percent of the Great Barrier Reef has been unaffected by mass bleaching, according to  News Daily. The bleaching happens when the water is too warm. This makes the coral eject living algae that cause the coral to harden and turn white. If the temperature drops, the coral can recover. On the other hand, if the temperature rises, the coral may die.

The Australian ministers said that the climate change is threatening the existence of the reef, according to Independent. "We've never seen anything like this scale of bleaching before. In the north Great Barrier, it's like 10 cyclones have come ashore all at once," said Professor Hughes, conveyor of the National Coral Bleaching Taskforce. He further said that their estimate is that about 50 percent of the coral is already dead or dying. Greg Hunt, the Environment Minister, said that this is a significant event and that they take it seriously.

Meanwhile, Australia is considered one of the largest carbon emitters capita due to its dependence on coal-fired power plants for electricity. Though the nation pledged to cut carbon emissions, it continued to back up fossil fuel projects. These include the Adani Enterprises Ltd.'s proposed A$10 billion ($7.7 billion) Carmichael coal project in western Queensland. Shani Tager, a Greenpeace campaigner, said that it is not good enough that they say they care about the reef but they keep on supporting the coal industry.

The  Great Barrier Reef is situated in the Coral Sea in the off coast of Queensland, Australia. It is the world's largest coral reef system. It is composed of more than 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands that are stretching for more than 2,300 kilometers over an area of nearly 344,400 square kilometers. It was declared as a World Heritage Site in 1981, and the CNN considered it as one of the seven natural wonders of the world.