追逐珊瑚 Chasing Coral(EN)Subtitles
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1 00:01:48 [Vevers] I've always been drawnto the magic of the ocean.
2 00:02:00 It feels like time slows down.
3 00:02:10 Most people stare up into spacewith wonder.
4 00:02:19 Yet, we have this almost-alien worldon our own planet...
5 00:02:24 just teeming with life.
6 00:02:36 But it's a worldmost people never explore.
7 00:02:51 [man 1] Richard Vevers is documentingthe oceans' reefs
8 00:02:54 the same way Google maps out streets.
9 00:02:57 [man 2] ...s napping a 360-degree picture
10 00:02:59 every three seconds.
11 00:03:01 This is the 21st country that we've done
12 00:03:03 as part of a global survey of coral reefs.
13 00:03:06 [man 2] Hidden below the surfaceof the world's oceans,
14 00:03:08 spectacular gardens of coral.
15 00:03:11 Reefs are where muchof the seafood we eat begins life.
16 00:03:14 [man 2] Reefs are a source of foodand income for over 500 million people.
17 00:03:20 [Vevers] It's really about tryingto communicate with science,
18 00:03:23 as much as doing the science itself.
19 00:03:26 To take people on a journey.
20 00:03:28 [man 3]... that incredible journey under the sea,
21 00:03:30 which could be the closest many of us come
22 00:03:33 to seeing an exotic underwater site.
23 00:03:34 [man 2] Giving anyone with Internet accessthe chance to go on a virtual dive
24 00:03:38 in many of the survey sites.
25 00:04:30 [Vevers] I used to be an ad man.
26 00:04:33 I spent ten years in advertising,
27 00:04:36 working at someof the top London agencies.
28 00:04:39 Over time, you realizeyou're having these conversations about...
29 00:04:42 toilet rolls, and it's heated debate.
30 00:04:45 And it's about sellingfour-ply toilet tissue
31 00:04:49 rather than three-ply.
32 00:04:50 And you go... [sighs]
33 00:04:52 "I'm sure there's something betterI can be doing with my life."
34 00:05:03 I've been diving since the age of 16.
35 00:05:08 I used to go lookingfor these weedy seadragons,
36 00:05:10 which are these incredible animals.
37 00:05:13 It's like a seahorse,but it's a dragon about a foot long...
38 00:05:18 that most people don't even know exists.
39 00:05:22 But then, one year,they were all disappearing
40 00:05:26 from all my favorite sites.
41 00:05:29 You know, this was oneof my favorite creatures in the world.
42 00:05:33 And you go, "Well, if it's happeningto one of my favorite creatures,
43 00:05:36 what else is it happening to?"
44 00:05:41 And that's when I realized
45 00:05:42 one of the biggest issueswith the ocean is
46 00:05:44 it is completely out of sightand out of mind,
47 00:05:48 and that, essentially,is an advertising issue.
48 00:05:52 You know, when you look at our planet,it's unique in the known universe
49 00:05:56 because we've got an oceanthat is the source of life.
50 00:05:59 And it controls everything.
51 00:06:01 It controls the weather.
52 00:06:03 It controls the climate.
53 00:06:04 It controls the oxygen we breathe.
54 00:06:07 Without a healthy ocean,we do not have a healthy planet.
55 00:06:12 How do you communicate these issues?
56 00:06:17 The project was calledthe XL Catlin Seaview Survey.
57 00:06:22 What we wanted to do was revealthe oceans to the world.
58 00:06:27 People were engaging with the imagery,
59 00:06:29 they were going for virtual dives,
60 00:06:31 but they weren't understandingthere's a problem.
61 00:06:34 So, we had to really go backto the drawing board...
62 00:06:38 and I thinkthat was a shocking realization
63 00:06:41 that we're only at the start of a journey.
64 00:06:46 [Dustan] Okay, this one is gonnabe behind, in the back-reef.
65 00:06:49 -So, what year was this?-This is 1975.
66 00:06:52 -Right.-Okay?
67 00:06:53 -Yep.-This whole area back here
68 00:06:55 -was just thick with Acropora palmata.-Right.
69 00:06:58 -The elkhorn coral.-And how much is there left?
70 00:07:03 .01%.
71 00:07:04 Whoa.
72 00:07:05 Something like that. You'll see.
73 00:07:07 -Yeah.-We'll go see.
74 00:07:42 [Dustan] So, you wanna knowwhat we're looking at.
75 00:07:45 This flat-- This is all dead reef flat.
76 00:07:48 This is all dead elkhorn coral.
77 00:07:52 You can see all the skeletons in place,but there's nothing alive.
78 00:08:00 So, this is what the reef looked likein 1971.
79 00:08:05 This is all covered with living corals.
80 00:08:10 This is very typical.
81 00:08:11 Very, very typical of the Florida Keys.
82 00:08:14 And 50 years ago, that wasn't the case,
83 00:08:17 30 years ago, that wasn't the case.
84 00:08:19 All of it, gone.
85 00:08:24 [Vevers] Phil told me that we've lost80 to 90% of corals in Florida.
86 00:08:31 I had no ideathat these issues were so advanced.
87 00:08:54 -I think it might be this one.-[man] Yep.
88 00:08:56 -Morning. I'm Richard.-Jim Porter. Pleased to meet you.
89 00:08:59 [Vevers] Very nice to meet you.
90 00:09:00 Thanks so much for coming down.
91 00:09:01 [Porter] So, all of this stuffthat I'm showing in here...
92 00:09:05 um, is from 1976.
93 00:09:10 -This is Discovery Bay, Jamaica.-[Vevers] Yep.
94 00:09:13 And that's what it looked like then.
95 00:09:16 -And this is a what it looks like now.-[Vevers] Right.
96 00:09:19 This survey sat unanalyzed.
97 00:09:22 Just little bits and pieces,but not the whole story.
98 00:09:27 [Vevers] His imagery was designedfor scientific purpose.
99 00:09:31 It doesn't capture you instantlywithout explanation.
100 00:09:35 This is what we have lost.
101 00:09:38 -This is the way it was.-Yep.
102 00:09:40 I started my careerin love with a place...
103 00:09:44 and those places have diminished.
104 00:09:48 To see that lost is very devastating.
105 00:09:54 [Vevers] A lot of scientists I've methave got really depressed
106 00:09:57 about this issue.
107 00:09:59 Whereas I've had the experienceto do ten years in advertising,
108 00:10:03 where you believeany problem can be solved
109 00:10:06 in a ridiculously short period of time.
110 00:10:08 You just gotta do a bitof creative thinking.
111 00:10:16 -That's great. Lovely. Thank you.-Thank you.
112 00:10:19 Excuse me. Do you know where Ruth is?Ruth Gates?
113 00:10:22 Um, and the classroom's right here.All those screens go up.
114 00:10:26 We'll go in and have a look.
115 00:10:36 [Vevers] Oh, wow.
116 00:10:38 -Wow.-[Gates] Is it cool?
117 00:10:40 Unbelievable.
118 00:10:43 Wow.
119 00:10:44 -Okay, um...-[laughing]
120 00:10:48 It's the fact that it's moving.
121 00:10:50 -[Gates] Isn't it amazing that after all---Yeah.
122 00:10:52 [Gates] Twenty-five yearsI've been working on corals,
123 00:10:54 I can look down a microscopeand go, "Bloody hell"?
124 00:10:57 -I know, that...-[laughing]
125 00:10:59 My understanding was this was an animal,this was an animal.
126 00:11:02 -Yeah.-Are they the same animal?
127 00:11:03 -They are.-But, um...
128 00:11:05 I know they're identical animals...
129 00:11:07 -Yeah.-...but are they the same?
130 00:11:08 -They are.-So, they...
131 00:11:10 -They are one animal. I---Yep.
132 00:11:12 It's one animal.
133 00:11:14 Okay, but they're not considered...
134 00:11:17 I thought polyp was an animal...
135 00:11:20 not a coral was an animalwith lots of polyps.
136 00:11:24 -That make sense?-A coral is an animal with lots of polyps.
137 00:11:27 But the polyp isn't an animal?
138 00:11:30 Well... it's part of the animal.
139 00:11:33 Right. 'Cause this is a--No one's ever explained...
140 00:11:36 -what a coral is.-Your amazement is,
141 00:11:38 why did you not know that?
142 00:11:39 -Why didn't I know that?-I'm stunned.
143 00:11:41 -And it's the---You're a smart guy.
144 00:11:43 What's wrong with you? [laughing]
145 00:11:48 I get completely overwhelmed sometimes,underwater, on a reef.
146 00:11:53 Because I can't believethat these structures
147 00:11:56 are sort of createdby these simple organisms,
148 00:11:58 or "seemingly" simple organisms.
149 00:12:00 I have the utmost respect for corals,'cause I think they've got us all fooled.
150 00:12:04 Simplicity on the outsidedoesn't mean simplicity on the inside.
151 00:12:07 We think we're really evolved'cause we're highly complex beings.
152 00:12:11 We can do lots of things.We have opposing thumbs.
153 00:12:14 But corals... they've decided,"Forget the external complexity.
154 00:12:18 Let's just be really sophisticatedin a quiet way."
155 00:12:23 A coral individual is really made up
156 00:12:26 of thousands of small structurescalled polyps.
157 00:12:32 Each polyp is a circular mouth...
158 00:12:36 surrounded by tentacles...
159 00:12:39 and they can combineto be millions of them
160 00:12:43 across a single animal.
161 00:12:45 They have, inside their tissues,small plants,
162 00:12:49 these microalgae...
163 00:12:51 a million per centimeter squared.
164 00:12:54 The plants that live inside themphotosynthesize,
165 00:12:58 and the animal uses that for their food.
166 00:13:01 They essentially have food factoriesliving inside of themselves.
167 00:13:05 So, as the animal grows,
168 00:13:07 what you see is the animal is growingover the skeleton
169 00:13:11 and depositing the skeleton underneath it.
170 00:13:22 They photosynthesize during the day.
171 00:13:25 At night...
172 00:13:26 the plant's really essentially asleepand the animal comes active.
173 00:13:29 They expand their polyps.
174 00:13:32 The tentacles come out.
175 00:13:33 And now anythingthat swims by is caught
176 00:13:37 by these stinging cellsthat are on the tips of the tentacles.
177 00:13:42 There are many different speciesof corals,
178 00:13:46 and the different species of coralsare different shapes.
179 00:13:50 Some are very boring to look at.They look like big rocks on the bottom.
180 00:13:54 Some are incredibly beautiful to look at.
181 00:13:56 They have huge, huge branching patterns,or massive plates.
182 00:14:01 Some of them look like petals of a flower.
183 00:14:06 These are foundation species.
184 00:14:09 They have all these other organismsthat depend on them.
185 00:14:12 They are the reason we have reefs.
186 00:14:16 A consortium of organismsthat cooperate together...
187 00:14:21 that now manifestsin this massive structure
188 00:14:24 that can be seen from space.
189 00:14:38 [Vevers] There's a famous reefin American Samoa called Airport Reef.
190 00:14:43 We heard that there was an areawhere the corals were turning white.
191 00:14:49 Because we'd been there previouslyto do a survey...
192 00:14:52 we wanted to go backand take the same images again.
193 00:15:09 I was truly shocked by what I saw.
194 00:15:12 The reef was whiteas far as the eye could see.
195 00:15:18 To be honest, I didn't have the knowledgeto know how to process it.
196 00:15:22 Was this dead?
197 00:15:24 Was it alive?
198 00:15:33 This is... Airport Reef.
199 00:15:37 Before. So, this is in December.
200 00:15:43 And that's it now.
201 00:15:54 [Hoegh-Guldberg]When Richard saw that white coral,
202 00:15:56 it was a turning point for him.
203 00:15:59 I think I admitted to himthat I thought this was far more deadly
204 00:16:03 than some of the other thingsthat are facing reefs.
205 00:16:05 And so, what we've seensince the early 1980s
206 00:16:08 when this first occurs,
207 00:16:10 we've actually lost an enormous amountof coral,
208 00:16:13 just due to this phenomenon alone.
209 00:16:14 I think that was the first timethat he saw the enormity of the issue.
210 00:16:19 That this was a threat across the planetto coral reefs,
211 00:16:22 which would happen very quicklyand cause a lot of damage.
212 00:16:29 Back in the '80s, we started lookingat this weird phenomenon.
213 00:16:34 Large sections of--of reefs were turning white,
214 00:16:37 literally over a couple of weeks.
215 00:16:39 And no one really knew why this was.
216 00:16:44 As we did more and more experiments,
217 00:16:46 it turned out that it wasn't a disease,
218 00:16:49 it wasn't too much light.
219 00:16:50 And the only thing you could doin an experiment
220 00:16:53 that would cause corals to go white
221 00:16:55 was to raise the temperatureby two degrees Celsius.
222 00:17:01 By the end of my PhD,
223 00:17:03 we were putting cautious wordsin the literature saying:
224 00:17:07 "Well, you know,maybe this is global warming,
225 00:17:09 and this is one of the early impactson reefs."
226 00:17:19 [Vevers] We look at climate changeas if it's an issue in the air.
227 00:17:23 And you go, "One or two degrees Celsius?
228 00:17:26 Does that really matter?"
229 00:17:28 But when you talk about the ocean...
230 00:17:30 it's like your body temperature changing.
231 00:17:33 And imagine your body temperaturerises one degree centigrade
232 00:17:38 or two degrees centigrade.
233 00:17:40 Over a period of time,that would be fatal.
234 00:17:43 And that's the seriousness of the issuewhen you look at it in terms of the ocean.
235 00:17:50 [Gates] Coral bleaching itselfis a stress response,
236 00:17:54 much like a fever in humansis a stress response.
237 00:18:00 If the temperature spikes justa little bit above their normal range...
238 00:18:04 corals will start to bleach.
239 00:18:07 The small plantsthat live inside their tissues,
240 00:18:09 their ability to photosynthesizeand feed the animal host is impaired.
241 00:18:16 The animal essentially senses that:
242 00:18:18 "I've got something inside of methat is not doing what I expect it to do,"
243 00:18:22 and as happens with us, with--
244 00:18:24 When we get a bacteria,
245 00:18:26 we try to get rid of itas quickly as possible.
246 00:18:28 That's exactly what these animals do.
247 00:18:30 They try to get rid of those plantsthat are no longer functional...
248 00:18:34 and leave behind the transparent,naked tissue.
249 00:18:39 They've lost the very most importantfood source that they have.
250 00:18:43 So, it's starting to starve.
251 00:18:48 [Vevers] When the coral bleaches,
252 00:18:50 the flesh becomes clear.
253 00:18:52 And what you're seeingis its skeleton underneath.
254 00:18:55 So, the bright whitesthat you see in the pictures...
255 00:18:58 is just the skeletons everywhere.
256 00:19:02 [Gates] If it's a very clean white lookabout the coral...
257 00:19:06 it will still be alive.
258 00:19:09 It's not allowing anything elseto grow on it.
259 00:19:13 It will generally not grow.It will generally not reproduce.
260 00:19:17 It is likely to die.
261 00:19:23 You'll see these fuzzy microalgae.
262 00:19:28 The whole surface suddenly becomemuch, much fuzzier to look at.
263 00:19:36 That's an indication thatthat coral has died.
264 00:19:42 [people chattering]
265 00:19:44 [Vevers] Oh. Can you, uh, mark that one?
266 00:19:46 Coral bleaching is very difficultto communicate.
267 00:19:51 You see a pictureof a beautiful white reef.
268 00:19:53 Is that a good or a bad thing?
269 00:19:57 So, we need to communicate itin a different way.
270 00:20:09 I was flying on a plane,and I watched a film, Chasing Ice .
271 00:20:15 That film was about the documentationof the disappearing glaciers.
272 00:20:19 And it suddenly dawned on methat we had almost identical projects.
273 00:20:24 So, pretty muchas soon as I got off that plane,
274 00:20:28 I contacted the director.
275 00:20:30 The cameras are shooting every hour,
276 00:20:31 but we're only showing every,you know, week or two...
277 00:20:34 Richard sent an e-mail, out of the blue,and he attached two photographs,
278 00:20:38 one of a healthy coral reefand one of a dead coral reef.
279 00:20:42 And when I saw those photos,the light bulb immediately went on.
280 00:20:45 It's like,if you can document that change,
281 00:20:48 you can reveal this to the publicin a powerful way.
282 00:20:50 We knew from the start there was somethingwe wanted to get involved with.
283 00:20:54 These images were chosen...
284 00:20:55 We started talking pretty early on aboutwhat a time-lapse camera could look like.
285 00:20:59 But we were missing this one piece.
286 00:21:02 We needed a wiper system or somethingthat would keep the glass clean.
287 00:21:06 When Richard and the team wantedto do underwater time-lapse,
288 00:21:09 they approached us to design something.
289 00:21:12 So, this one is, uh... a little dirty.
290 00:21:14 [Rago] We designed a magnetic arm
291 00:21:17 that pulls a windshield wiperaround this glass dome
292 00:21:20 and keeps it cleanfor long periods of time.
293 00:21:22 When we first met them,their deadline seemed absurd.
294 00:21:25 Nobody's done anything even close to this.
295 00:21:29 We had all of the issues associatedwith just dealing with the time-lapse,
296 00:21:32 the camera,but we also had just so many unknowns.
297 00:21:41 [Rago] When you have a camera system
298 00:21:43 that you need to be submerged in saltwaterfor months on end...
299 00:21:48 that is subject to huge stormsand hurricanes...
300 00:21:52 at depth,with all the tremendous pressure
301 00:21:55 of billions of gallonsof water pressing down,
302 00:21:58 that is very, very difficult to do.
303 00:22:01 If we're tethered to a BeagleBoardor Raspberry Pi and SSH in,
304 00:22:05 I need at least 12 volts.Probably get away with 11.
305 00:22:07 Then we could use a 12-to-5for the Beagle.
306 00:22:09 -Let's say 300 milliamps.-Okay.
307 00:22:11 Twelve minutes a day.
308 00:22:12 -Seven-point-two watt-hours.-Yeah.
309 00:22:15 -Okay.-Cool.
310 00:22:16 Well, I thinkthis is gonna be pretty easy.
311 00:22:19 [Orlowski] They're 3D-printing parts,
312 00:22:21 they're building custom circuit boards,they're building custom wireless hotspots.
313 00:22:26 It is really, really complicated.
314 00:22:29 [Mendelow] Person in boat wirelesslyconnects to a computer in a case
315 00:22:34 which is hardwired to an umbilical cable
316 00:22:37 that goes down to a routerinside an underwater housing
317 00:22:41 that communicates wirelesslyto the camera.
318 00:22:46 When you're done, you just unplug it.
319 00:22:49 [Rago] This is, by far,the most complicated thing
320 00:22:52 I've seen built by View Into the Blue.
321 00:22:55 At the time, Jeff and Richard had no ideathat I was a coral nerd.
322 00:23:01 Secretly, I'd been sitting in my office,really stoked
323 00:23:04 that I was even in the same roomas this project about coral was going on,
324 00:23:08 and we were helping support it.
325 00:23:10 Because I wanted more than anythingto do something for the coral.
326 00:23:14 These are Lobophyllia.
327 00:23:15 The chalices are either Oxyporaor a kind of phylia.
328 00:23:18 Montastrea, Favites, Favia , Platygyra.
329 00:23:24 That might not be Platygyra...
330 00:23:25 I got involved in the aquarium industryat a pretty young age.
331 00:23:29 Growing up in the mountainsand in Colorado
332 00:23:31 actually made my obsessionwith the ocean a little bit worse.
333 00:23:36 See, on this coral, there's a lot of life,
334 00:23:38 but then there's a lot of, like,death here, so this is just skeleton.
335 00:23:41 So, that could very well bebecause it got too close
336 00:23:44 to this Euphyllia, perhaps,they fought with each other,
337 00:23:47 and this one stung that one to death,right there.
338 00:23:49 [Mendelow] He just loves coral.
339 00:23:51 Even to the pointwhere he has coral reef tanks at his house
340 00:23:55 with no fish in them.
341 00:23:56 And nobody has coral reef tankswith no fish in them.
342 00:24:00 [Rago] The beauty of coralor why I enjoy coral more than fish
343 00:24:03 is because if a coral dies,it's your fault.
344 00:24:05 As long as you don't mess upand, like, crash your tank
345 00:24:09 or kill that coral,then they're all gonna continue living.
346 00:24:12 They're just perpetual machines.
347 00:24:13 They don't really have a life expectancy,more or less.
348 00:24:16 They just kind of continue to go on
349 00:24:18 as long as their environmentallows them to.
350 00:24:21 That's the same with jellyfish, too.
351 00:24:22 Jellyfish technically live forever,but they just get eaten by so many things
352 00:24:26 that it just doesn't happen.
353 00:24:30 For me, the most interesting thingin nature is symbiosis.
354 00:24:35 Two separate organismsthat have adapted to each other,
355 00:24:40 and are now benefiting each other.
356 00:24:42 They're working together, and...
357 00:24:44 the first thing that comes to my mindis an anemone and a clownfish.
358 00:24:51 The anemone provides protectionfor the clownfish,
359 00:24:53 and the clownfish usually provides foodfor the anemone.
360 00:24:57 It's a mutually beneficial relationship.
361 00:25:01 In the case of a coral,it goes deeper than that.
362 00:25:06 The symbiont itself is incorporatedin the organism.
363 00:25:10 The coral doesn't existwithout these little tiny plant cells.
364 00:25:16 They are completely reliant on each other,and you don't have one without the other.
365 00:25:22 That relationshipbetween the two of them is...
366 00:25:25 the most interesting thingin the world to me.
367 00:26:06 Is the color change fairly uniform,
368 00:26:11 -or does it do this?-Don't know.
369 00:26:12 -Don't know.-Don't know.
370 00:26:14 - Pocilloporas could go overnight, right?-It's never been shot in the wild before.
371 00:26:17 That's what so thrilling to meabout what's going on here
372 00:26:20 is that it's gonna be the first timewe'll actually be able to ask that
373 00:26:23 -and answer that question.-Yeah.
374 00:26:25 [Mendelow] But the Pocilloporascould go overnight, couldn't they?
375 00:26:28 [Gates] Yeah, a lot of the Pocilloporashave already gone.
376 00:26:30 -Completely wiped.-Wiped already.
377 00:26:32 [Mendelow] But the Montiporas arethe important reef-building corals.
378 00:26:35 Montipora and Porites compressa,yeah, are the two.
379 00:26:38 And Lutea, that big one that you saw. So--
380 00:26:40 [Mendelow] And what'sthe tissue thickness on Porites?
381 00:26:42 [Gates] So, they can be downa half a centimeter.
382 00:26:45 [Mendelow] Do the ga--?Do the fertilized gametes carry those...?
383 00:26:48 [Gates] Yes, 'cause most of them--In Hawaii, we have a very high proportion
384 00:26:52 of the coral species that...
385 00:26:53 [continues indistinctly]
386 00:26:57 [Vevers] We knewthis was gonna be incredibly hard,
387 00:26:59 predicting where to put a camera down.
388 00:27:03 We thought, "We just need to do thiswherever the bleaching is happening."
389 00:27:07 [video call ringing]
390 00:27:08 -Good morning, Mark.- Good afternoon, Richard.
391 00:27:11 It's, uh... getting a little depressing.
392 00:27:15 Yes. And I've read your e-mail,
393 00:27:17 which was, you know, about the El Niñostarting earlier this year.
394 00:27:21 Mark Eakin provided us with the toolsto be able to understand
395 00:27:24 where we should be going.
396 00:27:25 [Eakin] What we're looking at is...
397 00:27:27 I work for the National Oceanicand Atmospheric Administration or NOAA.
398 00:27:31 We use satellitesto look at the sea surface temperatures
399 00:27:34 that cause coral bleaching.
400 00:27:36 The one thing the temperatureshave shown us, with no question,
401 00:27:39 is the oceans have been warming.
402 00:27:43 Temperatures in the oceango through normal cycles.
403 00:27:46 If the temperature were staying constant,
404 00:27:49 then all those ups and downswould be around that average temperature.
405 00:27:54 But now we've reached the pointthat we've changed that average.
406 00:27:59 Your warm temperatures keep getting warmerand warmer and warmer.
407 00:28:05 The first widespread bleaching eventoccurred in the early 1980s.
408 00:28:12 '97, '98, this wasthe first global-scale mass-bleaching.
409 00:28:18 A lot of corals bleached,a lot of corals died.
410 00:28:22 2010, only 12 years later,
411 00:28:26 we saw the secondglobal-scale mass-bleaching.
412 00:28:30 Now, only five years later...
413 00:28:34 we've got the potential of the thirdglobal-scale mass-bleaching event.
414 00:28:40 Basically, at this point, about two-thirds
415 00:28:44 of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islandsare seeing a level of warming
416 00:28:48 where you're usually seeing bleaching.
417 00:28:50 The stress levels are high...
418 00:28:52 [Vevers] I'm zooming in on Hawaii,
419 00:28:54 and you can see here,it's 4.7 degrees hotter
420 00:28:58 than it should be at this time of year.
421 00:29:00 And you look at someof the other hotspots around the world,
422 00:29:04 it's 11.3 degrees, five degrees hotter,
423 00:29:06 8.2 degrees hotterthan it normally would be.
424 00:29:10 There's this big heat wavethat's traveling around the planet,
425 00:29:13 and it's killing coralswherever it's going.
426 00:29:17 This is a small window of opportunitythat we've got right now
427 00:29:21 to be able to capture this bleaching eventand communicate it in a massive way.
428 00:29:26 There's no plug in here right now.
429 00:29:27 Normally, we would have done extensivefield-testing with these cameras,
430 00:29:31 given how complicated they were,
431 00:29:32 but they just neededto be put in the water.
432 00:29:47 [woman] Well, we have a lot of bags.
433 00:29:48 I'm not sure how happythe airport people are gonna be.
434 00:29:55 [Vevers] One-oh-one.
435 00:29:56 [Rago] It's fairly watertightthrough the exterior.
436 00:29:59 So, guess what we're up to right now.
437 00:30:02 We're whittling plastic awayfrom the underwater solar panel.
438 00:30:05 [Orlowski]Otherwise, we can't take it on the plane.
439 00:30:09 Listen up. Listen.
440 00:30:13 Ninety-nine-point-five.
441 00:30:16 -Is that good?-[indistinct chatter]
442 00:30:18 [Vevers] So, based on the datathat we got from NOAA,
443 00:30:21 we decided to put cameras downin Hawaii, Bermuda and the Bahamas.
444 00:30:29 [Ackerman] We'll go down, we'll scout,we'll find a bunch of spots,
445 00:30:32 we'll mark the GPS coordinates.
446 00:30:33 It's right around that corner.
447 00:30:53 This was completely differentfrom any other scuba diving I've done.
448 00:30:56 And any other scuba divingthat one would normally do.
449 00:30:59 This was construction underwater.
450 00:31:03 [Rago] You're working in an environmentthat humans weren't built for.
451 00:31:07 You also can't communicatewith your team,
452 00:31:09 other than through sign language,
453 00:31:11 and we are not good at it.
454 00:31:14 [Orlowski] So, the camera gets mountedflush to this. This plate.
455 00:31:17 We can adjust the height of thisand adjust the angle of this.
456 00:31:25 [Rago] You're in zero-gravity.
457 00:31:27 So, if you're trying to get leverageto put something into the ground,
458 00:31:30 you don't have that.You're floating, you're buoyant.
459 00:31:35 -[thunder rumbling]-[warning alarm]
460 00:31:37 -[woman] Is that thunder?-[man 1] That's a weather alert.
461 00:31:40 -I hear a crackling sound.-[man 1] That's-- Yeah.
462 00:31:42 [man 2] Is that static?
463 00:31:44 -I hope that's not lightning---[woman] Oh, my God. That's lightning.
464 00:31:47 -Do you hear that?-[woman] Yes, I hear it in my microphone.
465 00:31:51 I think you should probably turnthe cameras off. I don't know.
466 00:31:53 [woman] Can we get the metal thing down?
467 00:31:55 [Mendelow] I kind of don't wanna touch it.
468 00:32:00 [Vevers]Because of this vacuum-sealed glass dome,
469 00:32:03 we couldn't actually changeany of the settings inside on the cameras.
470 00:32:07 So, they attach this wire going to a boxon the boat on the surface.
471 00:32:11 [Rago] You have a cable attachedto a stationary device underwater
472 00:32:15 and it's pluggedinto a very delicate piece of equipment.
473 00:32:17 Boom, we're in.
474 00:32:19 Now let's seeif this is gonna behave today.
475 00:32:22 [Ackerman] And you can sit thereon the boat with a tablet
476 00:32:26 and you can adjust the settings
477 00:32:27 and you can seewhat the camera is doing underwater.
478 00:32:32 Um, watch this cable. Are we...?
479 00:32:35 Can you move us closer?
480 00:32:36 I'm just nervous--
481 00:32:38 [woman] The slack is getting too tight!
482 00:32:42 Hold it.
483 00:32:45 Hand it down to me.
484 00:32:46 [thunder crashes in distance]
485 00:32:52 The wind just took us.The stern anchor didn't hold.
486 00:32:56 We're just drifting.
487 00:33:11 [Rago] Bummer.
488 00:33:13 [Orlowski] It flooded?
489 00:33:16 That's gonna go down the cable, too.
490 00:33:25 Something...
491 00:33:31 [Mendelow]All right, so, let's take a look.
492 00:33:33 So, basically you got a few millimetersof water in there.
493 00:33:35 Probably splashedon an electrical connection,
494 00:33:38 - blew the 12-volt fuse. You'll be fine.-[Rago] It did blow the 12-volt.
495 00:33:41 Here is what that's looking likeat the moment.
496 00:33:44 We've kind of tore her apartto access her and attempt to clean.
497 00:33:49 [Mendelow]Jiminy Cricket, look at that mess. Okay.
498 00:33:52 We're gonna be just fine.
499 00:33:53 I basically would like you to take12 volts directly from the battery...
500 00:34:07 All right, let's give this one more try.
501 00:34:09 All right. Here goes everything.
502 00:34:13 [Rago] Do we have a new message?
503 00:34:15 Oh! [laughing]
504 00:34:18 We're good. Oh.
505 00:34:21 Ah! We're connected.
506 00:34:23 [beeping]
507 00:34:25 [Mendelow]That does look killer. Look at that!
508 00:34:28 That is brilliant, man.
509 00:34:31 I have a file on my computer.
510 00:34:33 [Ackerman] Whoo!
511 00:34:36 -[Mendelow] All right, we're done.-[Ackerman] What?
512 00:34:38 -We're done.-[Ackerman] We're done.
513 00:34:42 [Orlowski] Yeah. [laughs]
514 00:34:45 [Rago] Oh, I'm so happy right now.
515 00:34:49 This is awesome.
516 00:34:52 [Ackerman] After that,there was nothing to do but wait.
517 00:35:26 [Rago] As a kid growing up, I alwayshad this sweet spot for taxonomy...
518 00:35:32 which I don't really knowhow to put my finger on that.
519 00:35:35 I always wanted to know what things were,and I wanted to know the scientific name.
520 00:35:41 So, I fell in love with catchingall of these little critters
521 00:35:44 and coming backand having a bunch of guides
522 00:35:46 to help me figure out what they were.
523 00:35:48 And so, when I got into coral,
524 00:35:51 there were only a handful of resourcesfrom one guy.
525 00:35:55 This guy, Charlie Veron.
526 00:35:58 Every time I was looking something up,there he was.
527 00:36:02 There are about 340 species of coralon the Great Barrier Reef.
528 00:36:06 There's one just over therethat's about six meters high.
529 00:36:11 [Rago] For all intents and purposes,he's the godfather of coral reef science.
530 00:36:16 He's the first guy to really go downand start cataloging corals,
531 00:36:20 and I wish I could be that guy,but I was born a little too late.
532 00:36:25 Here we have thousands upon thousandsof species all interreacting together
533 00:36:29 in a complex way.
534 00:36:31 Corals, unlike any other formof life on Earth, except man,
535 00:36:34 have the capacityto build their own environments,
536 00:36:37 to create their own habitats.
537 00:36:42 [Gates] Think of a city.
538 00:36:45 Corals are experts at creating high-rises.
539 00:36:50 They're basically creatingthis incredible dimensionality,
540 00:36:54 this three-dimensional framework.
541 00:36:57 The more complex a structure,
542 00:36:59 the more biodiversitycan potentially live there.
543 00:37:04 In a healthy coral reef system,
544 00:37:06 the entire landscape is coveredwith coral.
545 00:37:09 They're competing for spacewith one another,
546 00:37:12 they grow over and under.
547 00:37:16 [Hoegh-Guldberg]Look at Great Barrier Reef,
548 00:37:17 it's really the Manhattan of the ocean.
549 00:37:20 This hugely diverse and complex city.
550 00:37:23 And like in a city, the fish are livingin very specific places.
551 00:37:28 [Marshall] It's a bit like a neighborhood.
552 00:37:30 You go back to a neighborhoodand you see the same people.
553 00:37:34 The same fish is livingin the same piece of coral
554 00:37:37 week after week.
555 00:37:39 They live therepretty much their entire life.
556 00:37:43 In the morning and afternoon,you have traffic on the reef.
557 00:37:46 You've got fish which have,like, spent the night on the reef,
558 00:37:49 and then they go out to feedand all swim together.
559 00:37:53 So, they're busy places.
560 00:37:57 When the sun starts coming up,you actually have a morning chorus,
561 00:38:00 similar to what we getwhen we hear the birds
562 00:38:03 waking up in the forestwhen the sun comes up.
563 00:38:05 When you listen closely,you hear things purring.
564 00:38:09 You hear the grunts and the groansof so many different animals.
565 00:38:12 It's not a silent world at all.
566 00:38:14 It's actually pretty noisy.
567 00:38:17 Each fish, each animal, has its own job,and it does its own thing.
568 00:38:22 There are fish that farm.
569 00:38:24 They actually grow little plants or algae.
570 00:38:27 And they'll go pick a piece of algaeand plant it, and look after that area.
571 00:38:32 There are crabs and lobsters...
572 00:38:34 and little shrimps that will do thingslike defend corals.
573 00:38:38 There are strange partnerships,
574 00:38:40 like moray eels,which will hunt with coral trout.
575 00:38:44 Completely different fish,but they work together
576 00:38:46 to hunt across the reef,and they share the meal.
577 00:38:50 One of the things you noticeis the sort of crunching noise.
578 00:38:53 And this is the parrotfish.
579 00:38:55 These are fish that have beaks.
580 00:38:56 They actually eat the coral.They're crunching away at the coral.
581 00:39:00 When that coral passesthrough the parrotfish,
582 00:39:03 it comes out as sand.
583 00:39:04 So, in fact, every single beach,
584 00:39:06 you're basically walkingon parrotfish poo.
585 00:39:13 [Vevers] Coral reefs are hugely importantfor the ocean,
586 00:39:16 because they're essentially the nursery.
587 00:39:18 And they say something like 25%of all marine life relies on coral reefs.
588 00:39:25 [Eakin] We've got half a billionto a billion people
589 00:39:28 that rely on coral reefsas their main source of food.
590 00:39:33 [Porter] Without that protein,they're going to be malnourished.
591 00:39:37 Their culture, their way of life,
592 00:39:39 their economies are all relianton healthy coral reefs.
593 00:39:44 And many of the new drugsthat are coming to help humans
594 00:39:48 come from the sea.
595 00:39:51 There's a drug called prostaglandinthat comes from sea fans,
596 00:39:55 and that fights cancer.
597 00:39:56 There's another one called bryostatinthat comes from coral rhizomes,
598 00:40:00 and it fights cancer, too.
599 00:40:03 There are so many thingsthat we don't know yet
600 00:40:06 that could help society,
601 00:40:07 through the novel chemistriesthat we find on coral reef organisms.
602 00:40:14 [Eakin]Coral reefs are producing a breakwater
603 00:40:17 that's protecting us from big waves,from cyclones.
604 00:40:21 They're better than the onesthat we can produce,
605 00:40:23 because they're growingand rebuilding it all the time.
606 00:40:28 [Kleypas] The corals are the real basisof that ecosystem.
607 00:40:32 You can't have a city without buildings.
608 00:40:36 And you can't have a coral reefwithout the corals.
609 00:41:04 [Rago] So, we went back to the Bahamas
610 00:41:07 to retrieve Camera Number 1after its time.
611 00:41:33 We're gonna keep our fingers crossedand hope we have plenty of footage.
612 00:41:37 Hoping that there'sat least a month and a half.
613 00:41:48 Bingo.
614 00:41:54 That's out of focus.
615 00:42:01 All of these are out of focus.
616 00:42:05 This is a big bummer.
617 00:42:09 In focus... and then the first oneafter that's out of focus.
618 00:42:15 And it progressively gets worse.You see that?
619 00:42:19 All this footage is out of focus.
620 00:42:22 And pretty much useless.
621 00:42:30 I hope they worked elsewhere.
622 00:42:53 We're out of focus here.
623 00:42:57 I thought we were okay.
624 00:43:00 Damn it.
625 00:43:04 [Orlowski] So, how bad are the images?
626 00:43:07 Bad.
627 00:43:09 -Not usable.-Unusable.
628 00:43:10 -[Mendelow] Yeah.-[Orlowski] And so, it's really soft.
629 00:43:13 [Mendelow] Yep.
630 00:43:15 There it gets softer and softerand softer.
631 00:43:17 [Orlowski] I've never heardof manual focus changing over time.
632 00:43:20 [Mendelow] Yeah.
633 00:43:25 [Vevers] Hawaii bleached.
634 00:43:27 It had the worst bleaching it's ever had.
635 00:43:30 It's just that we didn't manageto capture it.
636 00:43:35 We put a lot of effortgetting those cameras down,
637 00:43:38 and we thought we'd...
638 00:43:40 we'd done everything right...and it's a huge knock-back.
639 00:43:43 More so because we knewthe clock was against us.
640 00:43:48 We didn't know how longthe bleaching event was gonna last.
641 00:43:58 [Hoegh-Guldberg] I've been lookingat the latest sea temperature values
642 00:44:01 for the Australian region.
643 00:44:02 Definitely warmer than it's beenfor quite a while.
644 00:44:04 That coastal areais probably gonna continue to warm.
645 00:44:08 Yeah.
646 00:44:08 If you're into bleaching... [chuckles]
647 00:44:12 -this is a good sign.-Yeah.
648 00:44:13 Of course,it means horrible things for the reef.
649 00:44:16 [man] Beat, 30 seconds.
650 00:44:17 [Ackerman] Zack and Trevor went all-inand just fixed the problems.
651 00:44:21 -The square that pops up on this...-[Rago] We changed to a fixed lens,
652 00:44:25 and it allowed us to get ridof all of the focus issues that we had.
653 00:44:29 We have such a better system going.
654 00:44:32 I'm much more confident it's gonna work.
655 00:44:39 Yeah. Yeah.
656 00:44:45 Awesome! A stingray.
657 00:45:00 I'm standing on oneof the two and a half thousand or so
658 00:45:02 enormous platform reefs that make upAustralia's Great Barrier Reef.
659 00:45:06 Very few people can realizethat this is the largest structure
660 00:45:10 ever made by life on Earth.
661 00:45:13 These reefs extend alongthe tropical coastline of Australia,
662 00:45:16 a distance of over 2,000 kilometers,
663 00:45:19 the length of the entire East Coastof the United States of America.
664 00:45:23 [Rago] I always wanted to goto the Great Barrier Reef.
665 00:45:26 I wanna see it for its beauty,and always wanted to get there.
666 00:45:29 That's the goal. Always been the goal.
667 00:45:41 [Orlowski] Dude, you're about to seethe GBR from the air.
668 00:45:45 That's actually a very exciting thing.
669 00:45:54 And it's just amazingto think about how massive it is.
670 00:45:59 And it's all alive.
671 00:46:44 [Vevers] So, we're sending two teamsto the southern Great Barrier Reef.
672 00:46:47 We're sending Jeff and Zack to Keppel,
673 00:46:50 and we're sending Andrew and teamto Heron.
674 00:47:23 [beeping]
675 00:47:25 [Orlowski] Camera's in and it's running.
676 00:47:28 The most smooththat any of these have gone.
677 00:47:31 [Ackerman]It was so much smoother than Hawaii.
678 00:47:40 [Rago] And then we waited.
679 00:47:43 Waited for that warm water to come.
680 00:47:48 [man] Already biologists saysome corals are dying,
681 00:47:52 bleached white,a sign in the first stage of death.
682 00:47:55 You're talking... an event similarto the rain forests of the world
683 00:47:59 turning whiteover a very short period of time.
684 00:48:03 Everyone would be jumping upand taking notice,
685 00:48:05 wondering what the hell is happening.
686 00:48:08 You may think, "Well, this is just a cyclethat we go through."
687 00:48:12 Good morning. Coral bleaching in Hawaiihas gained a lot of attention.
688 00:48:15 -So much that...-[Vevers] This isn't a natural cycle.
689 00:48:19 This is a phenomenondirectly attributed to climate change,
690 00:48:24 and it's somethingthat we've only seen in recent years.
691 00:48:32 [Marshall] One of the waysof looking back in time with a reef
692 00:48:35 is to take coral cores,or slices through coral.
693 00:48:38 You can look at growth rings in corals
694 00:48:40 in the same way as you lookat growth rings in trees.
695 00:48:46 [Cantin] You can see a regular,normal growth pattern.
696 00:48:48 This coral grows at around
697 00:48:51 a centimeter and a half per year,
698 00:48:53 every year, right up until 1998,
699 00:48:55 where you start to see the signatureof a coral bleaching event.
700 00:49:00 [Marshall] By tracking back in time,by looking at the history of the reef,
701 00:49:03 we're absolutely certainthat what we're seeing now
702 00:49:06 is not a natural fluctuation.
703 00:49:09 The cause is, unequivocally,global climate change,
704 00:49:12 driven by emitting carboninto the atmosphere.
705 00:49:16 [Hoegh-Guldberg] I think a lot of peopledon't realize climate change is happening
706 00:49:20 because most of the extra heat trappedby greenhouse gases
707 00:49:23 has been transferred to the oceans.
708 00:49:27 When you burn fossil fuel...that's burning oil, gas or coal...
709 00:49:32 carbon dioxide goes upinto the atmosphere.
710 00:49:35 Carbon dioxide has the propertythat it's able to trap heat.
711 00:49:40 So, the more you have in the atmosphere,
712 00:49:42 the greater the amount of heat trappedby the Earth.
713 00:49:46 It's a bit like putting extra woolinto your sweater.
714 00:49:50 What people don't know is that 93%
715 00:49:53 of the heat that's trappedis going into the ocean.
716 00:49:56 That's a lot of energy.
717 00:49:59 If the oceans weren't doing this jobof absorbing the heat,
718 00:50:02 the average surface temperatureof the planet would be 122 Fahrenheit.
719 00:50:10 There are rates of change going onin tropical oceans,
720 00:50:14 which, if projected forward...
721 00:50:16 it means that coral reefsare a likely casualty
722 00:50:19 of any global climate change.
723 00:50:22 I published thatin the peer-reviewed literature.
724 00:50:25 At that point in time,people weren't quite ready for that,
725 00:50:28 and I had a lot of colleaguesthat were confronting me,
726 00:50:31 challenging me, attacking me.
727 00:50:34 [Marshall] He was ridiculed for this,for being an alarmist.
728 00:50:38 But over time he's been proved right,time and time again.
729 00:50:44 [Hoegh-Guldberg] I just love the reef.That's why I did this.
730 00:50:46 That's why I came here when I was 18to this island
731 00:50:49 and started to study the reef.
732 00:50:50 It wasn't because I thoughtit was gonna disappear
733 00:50:52 or I was trying to battle a problemcalled global climate change.
734 00:50:57 It's unfortunatethat I can't look at this thing
735 00:50:59 and still see the beauty.I see the problems.
736 00:51:05 This wonderful thing, this thingthat's been around for a very long time...
737 00:51:09 is threatened,in our lifetime and on our watch.
738 00:51:13 And however hard we try to...
739 00:51:17 to get people to listen, um...
740 00:51:20 it seems to be lost in the wind, you know?
741 00:51:46 [Rago] Storms and the weather is reallythe controlling factor right now.
742 00:51:50 The wind and the stormscontinue rolling through,
743 00:51:53 and we get cloud coverage,
744 00:51:55 we might not see a whole lot happenhere at Keppel.
745 00:51:59 [thunder rumbling]
746 00:52:04 [woman] Tropical cyclone Winston,
747 00:52:05 the strongest tropical cyclone everrecorded in the Southern Hemisphere.
748 00:52:10 -The big threat going forward...-[Rago] For the first time...
749 00:52:13 we felt we were in the right placeat the right time.
750 00:52:15 And when Hurricane Winston happened,all of that changed.
751 00:52:19 It caused a lot of cold waterand a lot of rain
752 00:52:22 to cometo the Southern Great Barrier Reef.
753 00:52:25 Part of me is happy that the coralsaren't gonna bleach here.
754 00:52:28 Actually makes me ecstatic
755 00:52:30 to think that they're gonna make itthrough this event.
756 00:52:33 But at the same time,we've tried so hard to capture this.
757 00:52:38 We essentially hadto make a difficult decision
758 00:52:40 to stick to our original plan,with less-than-ideal odds,
759 00:52:45 or we go check out some of theseother portions of the Great Barrier Reef
760 00:52:49 that were getting really warm.
761 00:52:52 It's all of this to the northof New Caledonia
762 00:52:54 and below and even these splotch areasare at Level 2.
763 00:52:58 It's just... nothing short of catastrophicfor the coral.
764 00:53:03 [Orlowski] We know nowNew Caledonia is bleaching.
765 00:53:06 Lizard Island is bleaching.
766 00:53:09 I guess it is a simple decisionin some ways.
767 00:53:12 We should just pick up and move over,and reset up at those new locations.
768 00:53:17 The problem is the time-lapse cameras.
769 00:53:19 It'll take weeks to move those systems,and we'll have missed the bleaching.
770 00:53:26 We're gonna haveto figure something else out.
771 00:53:31 [Ackerman] I went to turn my computer off,and there was this message from Jeff,
772 00:53:34 saying, "How soon can you pack?"
773 00:53:38 We were gonna abandonthese camera systems...
774 00:53:42 and do manual underwatertime-lapses every single day.
775 00:53:48 I think we, as a team,realized that there was no going back.
776 00:53:53 [Rago] We headed up to Lizard Island,
777 00:53:55 and the other portion of our teamwent out to New Caledonia.
778 00:54:46 It's the most amazing reef.
779 00:54:48 And it's just demolished.
780 00:54:52 It's just so hot.
781 00:54:55 Like, it literally feels like a bathtub.
782 00:55:08 Anybody order a large Coke?
783 00:55:12 Here we are talkingabout coral reef bleaching
784 00:55:14 and global climate change...
785 00:55:17 and here's our other problem.
786 00:55:19 When we went to Lizard Island,
787 00:55:21 we didn't haveour time-lapse cameras anymore.
788 00:55:24 [Orlowski] The idea is to take one tripodand one camera,
789 00:55:27 and get as many shots as we canin as many positions
790 00:55:29 of as many pieces of coral as we can,and to repeat that every single day.
791 00:55:34 [Rago] Get on the boat at 9:15,go out to your first site.
792 00:55:40 You would find your markingsfor the tripod,
793 00:55:43 put down each leg at the correct heights,
794 00:55:45 and then you would have reference pointsyou could then attach the laser beams to,
795 00:55:49 and then I had a laminationof the first day's shots.
796 00:55:52 And then you would taketwo minutes of footage,
797 00:55:55 then you'd pick everything back up,
798 00:55:57 move onto the next site,and do the same again.
799 00:55:59 And then again and again.
800 00:56:00 And you do that essentially25 times a day.
801 00:56:04 Between Jeff and I, we had 60 sites.
802 00:56:10 The reason we built the time-lapse systemswas it seemed absurd
803 00:56:13 to have people camped on the beachat multiple locations
804 00:56:16 and having to go downand do what a machine is designed to do.
805 00:56:20 [Rago] Logistically, it was a nightmare.
806 00:56:22 Getting it in the right position,and you're fighting the current,
807 00:56:26 so you're getting bounced around a lot,
808 00:56:28 your knees are bleeding everywhere,your body is cut up, you're tired.
809 00:56:36 It got to the point where you'respending four hours a day underwater.
810 00:56:40 Weird things start happening.
811 00:56:43 [Mendelow] I don't know if it's funny.
812 00:56:47 It's, uh...
813 00:56:48 You do what you have to do.
814 00:57:35 [Vevers] We were getting reportsthat the corals in New Caledonia
815 00:57:38 were doing something completely weird.
816 00:57:44 [Ackerman] Richard was there, he said,"It's the craziest thing I've ever seen.
817 00:57:47 I don't know what it is."
818 00:57:48 The locals didn't know what it was.
819 00:57:52 We didn't know what was happening.
820 00:57:56 I asked Richard to explain.
821 00:57:57 He's like, "Don't know what to tell you.It's glowing."
822 00:58:20 [Vevers] This was different.
823 00:58:24 The corals were... were fluorescing.
824 00:58:29 They're producing a chemical sunscreento protect themselves from the heat.
825 00:58:38 You can't even describe it.
826 00:58:43 They were the most vivid colorsI've ever seen.
827 00:59:02 This is the most beautiful transformationin nature.
828 00:59:08 The incredibly beautiful phase of death.
829 00:59:15 And it feels as if...
830 00:59:17 it's the corals saying:
831 00:59:20 "Look at me.
832 00:59:24 Please, notice."
833 01:00:14 [Ackerman] We were diving every dayfrom a floating restaurant.
834 01:00:19 [dance music playing over speakers]
835 01:00:20 That was kind of funny, the first day.
836 01:00:27 Like, that whole thoughtjust became much more depressing.
837 01:00:33 Bit of a shock.
838 01:00:45 This is one of the rarest eventsin nature happening...
839 01:00:51 and everyone's just oblivious to it.
840 01:00:59 And you can't blame them for it.I mean, it's... It's just...
841 01:01:04 almost typical of all of humanity.
842 01:01:09 This is going on...
843 01:01:12 and no one is noticing.
844 01:01:21 [Rago] We designed something originally
845 01:01:23 to do this project without emotions.
846 01:01:26 And when we began doing this manuallyat Lizard Island...
847 01:01:30 you have the emotional ties to it.
848 01:01:32 You are down there.
849 01:01:33 And to sit there for a month,
850 01:01:35 and every single day,watch something new around you die
851 01:01:40 that you saw yesterday...
852 01:01:42 it's just difficult.
853 01:02:09 You forget what it looked likeat the beginning.
854 01:02:13 And some days, when you go back,
855 01:02:16 and you're sitting down there,looking at it now,
856 01:02:18 and it doesn't look real.
857 01:02:21 And you-- It's not even--You can't even accept it.
858 01:02:28 And then you open your eyes,and it's dead as far as you can see.
859 01:02:56 It's algae and dead coral skeletons.
860 01:03:34 It's flesh.It's living tissue... that's rotting away.
861 01:03:45 It's disgusting, really.
862 01:04:29 [sighs]
863 01:04:38 I thought we would find bleaching.
864 01:04:42 I thought we would capture it.
865 01:04:44 But I don't think I ever prepared myself,
866 01:04:48 or thought we were gonna see this.
867 01:05:00 See, I'm not even mad that I'm leaving,because it's just so miserable here.
868 01:05:06 [sniffles]
869 01:05:38 [Marshall] When coral bleaches and dies...
870 01:05:41 you're losing the coral animal.
871 01:05:43 And that's a shame,'cause it's a beautiful thing.
872 01:05:45 But a coral is... a fundamental partof a huge ecosystem.
873 01:05:51 It is, in a way,just like the trees in a forest.
874 01:05:54 If coral reefs are lost,we're affecting the life
875 01:05:57 of a quarter of the ocean.
876 01:06:00 If the little fish disappear,the big fish disappear,
877 01:06:03 and then you can look at humansas one of the big fish.
878 01:06:10 [Porter] It's easy to think about the fateof an individual species.
879 01:06:15 But what is a little harder to explain...
880 01:06:19 it's the beginningof an ecological collapse
881 01:06:23 of the entire ecosystem.
882 01:06:26 It's more than the species,the genus, the family, the order.
883 01:06:30 We're talking about the possibilitythat entire classes of organisms
884 01:06:35 would go extinct.
885 01:06:40 [Hoegh-Guldberg] When scientists saythey're researching climate change
886 01:06:42 and coral reefs,
887 01:06:44 it's not about whether or notclimate change is happening or not.
888 01:06:47 It's really the uncertainty
889 01:06:48 between knowing whetherit's going to be bad or really bad.
890 01:06:54 When we look at ocean temperatures,there are a range of projections
891 01:06:57 of how they're gonna changeinto the future.
892 01:07:00 If you take the average,in about 25 years,
893 01:07:03 all across the planet,
894 01:07:05 the oceans become too warmfor coral reefs to survive.
895 01:07:10 That means they'll bleach every year
896 01:07:12 and they won't be healthy enoughto recover.
897 01:07:15 Coral reefs will not be able to keep up,they will not be able to adapt,
898 01:07:19 and we will see the eradicationof an entire ecosystem
899 01:07:24 in our lifespan.
900 01:07:27 That is a very gloomy statement.
901 01:07:31 But, unfortunately, it is true.
902 01:07:35 [Hoegh-Guldberg]Everything on our planet is connected.
903 01:07:39 What we're doing is pulling out the cardcalled "coral reefs"
904 01:07:43 from this house of cards.
905 01:07:46 And the real fear is thatwe'll take out enough of those cards
906 01:07:49 where the whole thingwill just simply collapse.
907 01:07:53 [Kleypas]If we can't save this ecosystem...
908 01:07:56 are we gonna have the courageto save the next ecosystem down the line?
909 01:08:02 [Dustan] Do we need forests?
910 01:08:05 Do we need trees?
911 01:08:08 Do we need reefs?
912 01:08:12 Or can we just sort of livein the ashes of all of that?
913 01:08:35 [Orlowski] So, tell me where we're going.
914 01:08:36 [Rago] We're actually just goingto Charlie Veron's house.
915 01:08:40 Used to literally sit behind a deskfor hours a day
916 01:08:43 using Charlie Veron's coral liststo ID things.
917 01:08:48 Like... he was the boss.
918 01:08:49 He was the informationthat I used on a daily basis
919 01:08:53 to learn everything that I know of corals.
920 01:08:56 And now, I'm about to go sitin his living room and interview him.
921 01:09:00 So, that's quite a big step.
922 01:09:06 -Hello.-[Veron] Hello.
923 01:09:07 -Charlie.-How are you? I'm Zack.
924 01:09:08 Pleasure to meet you.
925 01:09:13 [dog barks]
926 01:09:21 [groans]
927 01:09:26 While I was in collegestudying evolutionary biology,
928 01:09:28 I actually got a job at an aquarium.
929 01:09:30 And so, for five years, I grew coral,
930 01:09:33 used all of your work to teach myselfas much of coral taxonomy
931 01:09:37 -as I possibly could.-Oh, okay.
932 01:09:38 So, I was very nervous about it--Coming here, so--
933 01:09:41 I'm not the sort of personto be nervous about.
934 01:09:43 No, not at all, but--
935 01:09:44 -Yeah.-I guess I just wanna hear
936 01:09:46 your perspective of the changethat you've seen over time.
937 01:09:50 Then it was...it was a totally different mindset,
938 01:09:54 because the reef was there forever,there was no question about it.
939 01:09:58 -Yeah.-I even wondered
940 01:09:59 why you would wanna make it a marine park.
941 01:10:02 It's so big, nothing's gonna touchthe Great Barrier Reef.
942 01:10:05 But it's changed enormously.
943 01:10:06 And this bleachingand the degrading of the Great Barrier
944 01:10:10 that I've seen in my lifetime...
945 01:10:13 it really upsets me.
946 01:10:14 Up at Lizard, we essentially havefluorescing or bleached corals
947 01:10:18 going through their transition to death,being covered in algae.
948 01:10:21 You covered the whole thing.Yeah, way to go.
949 01:10:24 Yeah, the whole horrible,horrible, ghastly mess.
950 01:10:26 Yeah. It was actually quite difficultwhile we were up there.
951 01:10:30 I got quite frustrated a few times whereI just didn't wanna be there anymore.
952 01:10:34 I didn't wanna watch it anymore.
953 01:10:35 I was over it. And...
954 01:10:37 I'm glad I'm not your age.
955 01:10:41 You know, I'm ready to check out when--
956 01:10:43 when the Great Barrier Reef gets trashed,'cause it's been the most...
957 01:10:47 loved thingin the physical world of my life.
958 01:10:50 You know, I've been diving on itfor 45 years.
959 01:10:52 And I'm damned if I'm ever gonna stopuntil I go completely senile.
960 01:10:56 [laughs]
961 01:10:57 I'm gonna keep going,
962 01:10:59 and as long as I can influence people,I will.
963 01:11:01 -Because we have to.-Absolutely.
964 01:11:03 We've got no choice.You've got no choice, I'm afraid.
965 01:11:05 -You've gotta keep at it. You've got to.-Yep, yep.
966 01:11:08 Otherwise, you're not gonna like yourselfwhen you're an old man.
967 01:11:11 You'll think...You're gonna like yourself much more...
968 01:11:14 if you can say,"Well, I sure tried to turn that around.
969 01:11:17 And maybe I did influence peoplehere and there and..."
970 01:11:22 Don't let a-- Don't let anything stop you.
971 01:11:27 [speaking indistinctly]
972 01:11:32 Just gotta get my glasses.
973 01:11:39 [Vevers] Losing the Barrier Reefhas actually gotta mean something.
974 01:11:45 You can't let it just die,and it becomes an old textbook.
975 01:11:51 It's got to... cause the changethat it deserves.
976 01:11:57 Us losing the Great Barrier Reefhas got to wake up the world.
977 01:12:03 [Hoegh-Guldberg]We have a really interesting situation.
978 01:12:06 Over the next 30 years,we're going to be facing
979 01:12:09 shifting ocean temperaturesand conditions.
980 01:12:11 And that's just a matter of fact,because we've got point-five...
981 01:12:19 [Vevers]I usually get to these things and...
982 01:12:22 and you start kind of almost shaking.
983 01:12:25 [Rago] I definitely have a little bitof nervousness going.
984 01:12:29 How much talking is too much talking?
985 01:12:31 Is getting personal a bad thing?
986 01:12:34 Like, "This one was one of the moredifficult sites for me to go back to."
987 01:12:39 [Vevers] Really good to showthat it actually affected you.
988 01:12:43 -[Rago] Right.-That's really important.
989 01:12:45 Um, and good. Um...
990 01:12:47 -As long as you don't start crying.-Yeah.
991 01:12:49 [Vevers] Yeah.
992 01:13:02 So, over the last two years,
993 01:13:04 we've been amassinga huge amount of bleaching imagery
994 01:13:08 from all over the world.
995 01:13:10 Now Zack's gonna show yousome of that imagery.
996 01:13:12 So, if you wanna pop up, Zack.
997 01:13:18 We spent the last four monthsin Australia
998 01:13:21 and we documentedthe ongoing bleaching event.
999 01:13:24 And so, I wanted to just show youwhat our team was able to document.
1000 01:14:38 [Rago] In just two months,
1001 01:14:39 we've lost the majority of fish lifeon this coral colony.
1002 01:15:17 The soft corals disintegrate.
1003 01:15:20 Fields and fields of soft coral
1004 01:15:22 that then just turnsinto a barren rock face.
1005 01:15:28 I didn't even think it was possible.
1006 01:17:12 [Vevers] This has been a mortality eventon a massive scale.
1007 01:17:18 29% of the coralson the Great Barrier Reef alone have died.
1008 01:17:24 To lose 29% of the coral animalsin a single year,
1009 01:17:29 it's just mind-blowing,the scale of this bleaching event.
1010 01:17:38 I think the most shocking partwas how widespread it was.
1011 01:17:42 'Cause it affected almost all the reefs
1012 01:17:44 from Lizard Islandnorth through Torres Strait.
1013 01:17:48 And it was severe.
1014 01:17:51 It's the equivalent of losingmost of the trees
1015 01:17:53 between Washington, DC, and Maine.
1016 01:17:58 [Rago] Well, this isn't justthe Great Barrier Reef.
1017 01:18:00 This is a global massive event.
1018 01:18:04 There are a large number of placesthat are experiencing bleaching right now.
1019 01:18:09 And that's why we need help.
1020 01:18:10 We're looking for peoplewho have access to a local reef
1021 01:18:13 to help photographwhat's happening in your own backyard.
1022 01:18:16 If you are a diver, please,join our effort and get in touch...
1023 01:18:19 [Rago] Everybody's come togetherthat saw our call-out.
1024 01:18:23 At this point,we are on the bleaching threshold
1025 01:18:26 and under a warning alert for bleaching.
1026 01:18:28 Behind me, you can seewe have the Akumal reefs.
1027 01:18:32 Basically, we've seen...that one is almost completely bleached.
1028 01:18:37 Water temperature has been rising,and the coral has been bleaching.
1029 01:18:43 [Rago] You're talking about the Caribbean,two years in a row,
1030 01:18:46 about Hawaii, two years in a row.
1031 01:18:47 This last summer was especially horrific.
1032 01:18:50 25 to 50% of the coralis already long-since dead.
1033 01:18:54 We know the waters herestarted warming up in May, 2015,
1034 01:18:58 to about three degrees Celsiusabove normal.
1035 01:19:01 Most of the Acropora,the most common branch corals, are dying.
1036 01:19:05 [speaking Bislama] The climate is stillchanging. The ocean temperature is rising.
1037 01:19:09 The El Niño this yearhas bleached what's left.
1038 01:19:14 [speaking English] Reefs herehave been under major stress,
1039 01:19:16 -like other places across the globe.-We're here in the Republic of Palau.
1040 01:19:20 I'm in Cebu City, and...
1041 01:19:22 The corals have been bleachedover the past month.
1042 01:19:25 The coral is 75% bleaching,and about half of them is dead already.
1043 01:19:30 We now have a mass coral bleaching eventhappening here on Christmas Island.
1044 01:19:34 ...degrees centigrade.
1045 01:19:35 A lot of the reefs around Sri Lankawere heavily bleached.
1046 01:19:38 Bleaching is happening right now.
1047 01:19:40 The coral are showingmassive signs of bleaching,
1048 01:19:42 and for that reason,we have massive mortality rates.
1049 01:19:45 We've found the branch--
1050 01:19:46 Branching Arcoporas, Pocilloporashave started to show signs of bleaching.
1051 01:19:50 I've been helping capture imagesof coral bleaching in the Red Sea.
1052 01:19:53 Bleaching has occurred here, recently.
1053 01:19:55 Uh, there was a bleaching event...
1054 01:19:57 [overlapping reports]
1055 01:20:18 [Veron] I get cross with myself...
1056 01:20:20 because I don't think I did enough.
1057 01:20:22 I didn't make enough noisewhen I realized what was happening.
1058 01:20:26 I didn't do enough.
1059 01:20:27 Better at it than I am.
1060 01:20:29 [Veron] Zack has an optionof being part of that fight.
1061 01:20:34 Maybe Zack will say, "Charlie...
1062 01:20:37 he's just a gloomy old man,
1063 01:20:39 and, uh... we can fix these things."
1064 01:20:42 -[man] All good?-Yeah.
1065 01:22:00 [Rago] How are you guys doing today?
1066 01:22:02 -[kids] Good.-Are you guys excited?
1067 01:22:04 [kids] Yeah.
1068 01:22:05 [Rago] Let's go diving.
1069 01:22:07 [kids] Diving!
1070 01:22:09 [kids chattering]
1071 01:22:11 [kid 1] I see a fish.
1072 01:22:12 [kids chattering]
1073 01:22:14 -[Rago] Take a look around.-[kid 2] I see a turtle.
1074 01:22:16 -[kid 3] I see a turtle.-[kid 4] I see a turtle.
1075 01:22:20 [Rago] In my mind,all kids are born scientists.
1076 01:22:22 They're born adventurers.
1077 01:22:24 They wanna explore.
1078 01:22:26 If we can get the kidsto hold on to that curiosity,
1079 01:22:29 then our planet would bea much better place.
1080 01:22:32 I could-- I could see a stingray.
1081 01:22:36 -[kid 5] What is that?-[Rago] Turtles, fish, coral,
1082 01:22:38 crabs, starfish.You name it. It's all there, right?
1083 01:22:41 [chatter continues]
1084 01:22:43 We're gonna take you on an expedition
1085 01:22:45 to go seethe third global bleaching event.
1086 01:22:47 I think having been on the journeythat I've been on,
1087 01:22:50 I should be the most depressed personon the planet.
1088 01:22:53 I'm seeing the ecosystem
1089 01:22:54 that I've fallen in love with...
1090 01:22:56 die before my eyes.
1091 01:22:58 Having said that,I'm not actually depressed.
1092 01:23:03 And that's becausethere's been a big shift.
1093 01:23:07 You look at every pieceof climate change action,
1094 01:23:09 and it's about improving people's lives.
1095 01:23:13 Creation of jobs, reducing pollution,greenifying cities.
1096 01:23:18 It's essentially a great transformationthat is already beginning.
1097 01:23:24 [Hoegh-Guldberg]It's not too late for coral reefs,
1098 01:23:26 indeed, for many other ecosystems
1099 01:23:28 that are facing challengesfrom climate change.
1100 01:23:31 It's still possible to reduce the rateat which the climate is changing.
1101 01:23:35 And that's within our power today.
1102 01:23:39 [Vevers] It's all achievable.
1103 01:23:41 It's not like we don't have the money,not like we don't have the resources.
1104 01:23:44 It's not like we don't have the brains.
1105 01:23:48 This is inevitable,this great transformation,
1106 01:23:51 and that's what makes meso optimistic is...
1107 01:23:54 all we gotta dois give it a bit of a shove.
1108 01:24:22 ♪ I was just born, I was just born ♪
1109 01:24:24 ♪ I been crawlingTill I learned to walk ♪
1110 01:24:28 ♪ When I met you, I was so young ♪
1111 01:24:31 ♪ I didn't know that it could fall apart ♪
1112 01:24:33 ♪ Tell me what do I do ♪
1113 01:24:36 ♪ Now I see what we've done ♪
1114 01:24:39 ♪ And I know that it's true ♪
1115 01:24:42 ♪ You gave me nothing but love ♪
1116 01:24:47 ♪ Tell me how long, tell me how long ♪
1117 01:24:49 ♪ Till we see the pieces that'll break ♪
1118 01:24:53 ♪ Tell me how long, tell me how long ♪
1119 01:24:56 ♪ Tell me how long will it take ♪
1120 01:24:58 ♪ Till we wake up ♪
1121 01:25:01 ♪ Till we wake up ♪
1122 01:25:05 ♪ Tell me how long, tell me how long ♪
1123 01:25:08 ♪ Till we wake up ♪
1124 01:25:18 ♪ I been tryingI been trying to tell you ♪
1125 01:25:21 ♪ What's inside my soul ♪
1126 01:25:24 ♪ I been dying, I been dying ♪
1127 01:25:27 ♪ But the ocean changes slow ♪
1128 01:25:29 ♪ And it's hard to see it ♪
1129 01:25:32 ♪ But I know that it's true ♪
1130 01:25:35 ♪ That I gotta be better ♪
1131 01:25:38 ♪ So much better to you ♪
1132 01:25:43 ♪ Tell me how long, tell me how long ♪
1133 01:25:46 ♪ Till we see the pieces that'll break ♪
1134 01:25:49 ♪ Tell me how long, tell me how long ♪
1135 01:25:52 ♪ Tell me how long will it take ♪
1136 01:25:54 ♪ Till we wake up ♪
1137 01:25:58 ♪ Till we wake up ♪
1138 01:26:01 ♪ Tell me how long, tell me how long ♪
1139 01:26:04 ♪ Till we wake up ♪
1140 01:26:09 ♪ Oh, I know we're gonna wake up ♪
1141 01:26:13 ♪ I scream in color ♪
1142 01:26:16 ♪ Tell me, can you hear meThrough the waves ♪
1143 01:26:19 ♪ If we keep on waiting ♪
1144 01:26:22 ♪ Do we lose the thingsThat we can save ♪
1145 01:26:25 ♪ If we hold each other ♪
1146 01:26:29 ♪ We don't have to let it slip away ♪
1147 01:26:32 ♪ We don't have to let this slip away ♪
1148 01:26:39 ♪ Tell me how long, tell me how long ♪
1149 01:26:42 ♪ Till we see the pieces that'll break ♪
1150 01:26:45 ♪ Tell me how long, tell me how long ♪
1151 01:26:48 ♪ Tell me how long will it take ♪
1152 01:26:50 ♪ Till we wake up ♪
1153 01:26:54 ♪ Till we wake up ♪
1154 01:26:58 ♪ Tell me how long, tell me how long ♪
1155 01:27:01 ♪ Till we wake up ♪
1156 01:27:06 ♪ I know we're gonna wake up ♪
1157 01:27:09 ♪ I know we're gonna wake up ♪
1158 01:27:15 ♪ Oh, we're gonna wake up ♪
1159 01:27:21 ♪ Oh, we're gonna wake up ♪
1160 01:27:29 ♪ Tell me how long, tell me how long ♪
1161 01:27:35 ♪ Tell me how long, tell me how long ♪
1162 01:27:38 ♪ Tell me how long will it take ♪
1163 01:27:40 ♪ Till we wake up ♪
1164 01:27:43 ♪ Till we wake up ♪
1165 01:27:48 ♪ Tell me how long, tell me how long ♪
1166 01:27:50 ♪ Till we wake up ♪
1167 01:27:55 ♪ I know we're gonna wake up ♪
1168 01:27:59 ♪ I know we're gonna wake up ♪
1169 01:28:05 ♪ Oh, we're gonna wake up ♪
1170 01:28:11 ♪ Oh, we're gonna wake up ♪
1171 01:28:18 -♪ Till we wake up ♪-♪ Tell me how long, tell me how long ♪
1172 01:28:23 -♪ Oh, we're gonna wake up ♪-♪ Tell me how long, tell me how long ♪
1173 01:28:28 -♪ Tell me how long will it take ♪-♪ Till we wake up ♪
