Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Ben See Profile picture
@ClimateBen
Aug 11, 2019 • 14 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X
The Great Barrier Reef will be dead by 2029, with catastrophic consequences for all life on Earth.

[THREAD] Image
'Terrifying':

🔥 2°C of global warming (2029 - 2039) means the destruction of 99% of the world’s tropical reefs.

🔥 Even at 1.5°C (2023 - 2028) 70-90% will die.

Overfishing & pollutants from agriculture, which are also killing the Reef, are 'escalating'.interactive.carbonbrief.org/can-great-barr…
Terrifying consequences.

"You like to breathe?"

⚠️ 85% of oxygen humans breathe comes from the Ocean - we need healthy reefs to survive.

⚠️ Rippling ecosystem collapse

⚠️ 50% of world's coral now dead due to sea floor dredging, pollution, & emissions.businessinsider.fr/us/coral-reefs…
Will the Great Barrier Reef really be dead as early as 2029?

Yes. See this thread on likely temperature rise.

Anyway, it's not just climate:

'By 2025, ...15.7 billion plastic pieces could come into contact with coral reefs.'
blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/06/13/los…

x.com/ClimateBen/sta…
I'm probably guilty of downplaying the ecological emergency when I say 2029.

See this thread on (amongst other things) Coral Reef calamity by 2025.👇
'It is well known in climate science that, even if we stopped harmful emissions tomorrow, global warming would not peak for another several decades. By then, most of the Reef will be long gone.

The argument is simple...the conclusion difficult to avoid'independentaustralia.net/environment/en…
“I dread to think that it might be as soon as next year":

"The problem with a 10-year window that’s required for a decent recovery is that the chances of us having a fifth bleaching event in that time period is actually very high because of global warming"mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-2…
'Irreversible damage to the Great Barrier Reef by 2030 unless immediate action is taken', marine scientists warned in 2014.

Urgent, radical action was required 35 years ago.

⚠️ 160 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted since 2014, and emissions are accelerating.
dailymail.co.uk/travel/article…
Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, who worked on the new research paper, said it confirmed what he predicted back in 1999, when he controversially forecast the loss of reefs on the Great Barrier Reef by 2040.

His old predictions now appear to be conservative.

news.com.au/technology/env…
The 2016 bleaching event was unprecedented in scale and severity:

'some of the headlines it has generated are factually incorrect or misleading...'

The wider truth: state-corporate media downplay ecological catastrophe and keep it off the front pages.
theconversation.com/great-barrier-…Image
The opening image is from here:
theguardian.com/environment/pl…

State-corporate media, **@guardian included**, are the key reason for inaction.

If the public aren't allowed to grasp the severity of the ecological crisis, they won't try to force system change:👇
x.com/ClimateBen/sta…
Increasingly frequent marine heatwaves can lead to the almost instant death of corals, scientists working on the Great Barrier Reef have found.

These episodes of unusually high water temperatures are - like land heatwaves - associated with climate change.bbc.com/news/amp/scien…
🌡️Back-to-back marine heat waves killed half the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 & 2017.

🌡️Extreme marine heat waves - which will be more frequent, larger, more intense, and longerlasting - are 'just around the corner'.

sciencemag.org/news/2019/01/o…
The Great Barrier Reef's inexorable demise appears to confirmed by official assessments:

'In decades to come they will probably still contain some corals, but ecologically speaking they will not be growing, or even functioning.'

theconversation.com/this-situation…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Ben See

Ben See Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @ClimateBen

Ben See Profile picture
Oct 5
Conservative analysis reveals utterly horrific global warming of 1.75-2°C is likely set to hit within 4 to 12 years with truly catastrophic consequences for food systems.
Estimate of 1.44°C (20-year average) warming for 2015-34:

metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/news-…
Read 5 tweets
Ben See Profile picture
Sep 18
12-40% of species extinct is considered catastrophic. So many amphibian species (~50%), plant & bird species (~40-50%), insect & mammal species (~30-40%), and reptile & fish species (~25%) are currently seen as being at risk. 48% of species are in decline. How will humans cope?
1. under a pessimistic global warming scenario (~4°C increase), climate change alone might only cause the extinction of ~20–30% of extant species in the next ~50–100 years [41,42]. Taken together, these losses would be catastrophic, but very far from 75%.'
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
2. 'Current projections of future extinction seem more consistent with ~12–40% species loss, which would be catastrophic but far from the 75% criterion used to argue for a 6th mass extinction.'

Some experts fear >50% at 3-4°C even with moderate emissions.
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Read 4 tweets
Ben See Profile picture
Sep 10
Earth's species will suffer 2-2.6°C and rising even in capitalism's most ambitious decarbonization scenario. Scientists anticipate unsurvivable 3-7°C, with geologic periods like the Miocene climatic optimum (MCO) seen as good analogues for our current 21st century climate hell.🧵 The multimethod, multitaxon pCO2 reconstruction presented here indicates that pCO2 was moderately elevated at ~450–550 ppm during the MCO. These results are somewhat higher than most previously published pCO2 records, which generally report pCO2 < 450 ppm (see Foster et al., 2017), but still considerably lower pCO2 than climate modeling requires to reproduce MCO temperatures (Goldner et al., 2014). This indicates that climate sensitivity must have been elevated during the MCO, leading to highly elevated temperatures at moderately elevated pCO2. With 415 ppm measured for the first time in sp...
1/The race is now on to improve our knowledge of the Earth system in order to understand whether.. moderate levels of pCO2 may.. cause a devastating..increase of up to 7°C in the (near?) future, and if so, take action to prevent it. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/20… x.com/ClimateBen/sta…
2. The temperature regime reconstructed for most of the Miocene, ∼5°C–8°C above modern, is equivalent to projected future warming in about a century under unmitigated carbon emissions scenarios.. an important warm-climate analog..
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.10…
x.com/ClimateBen/sta…
Read 7 tweets
Ben See Profile picture
Aug 27
COLLAPSE/EXTINCTION: scientists fear global warming of 3.5°C, which wipes out 33-70% of species (IPCC AR4 2007, IPCC AR6 2022), will likely hit by the 2060s give or take a decade or two 🧵
1. IPCC scenario SSP3-7.0 shows 3.5°C by 2080 or from 2062 (not the worst-case scenario). Even a moderate emissions scenario can lead to 3.5°C this century (new research shows 2060s-80s possible).


Species extinct IPCC:
3.5C 40-70% 2007
3C 29%, 4C 39% 2022esd.copernicus.org/articles/12/25…
2. A new pre-print from highly respected climate scientists implies 3.5°C by 2065-77 at current rates of warming. The authors warn this rate could increase or decrease perhaps suggesting 3.5°C by around 2055-2087 rather like IPCC high emissions scenarios.
researchsquare.com/article/rs-607…
Read 5 tweets
Ben See Profile picture
Aug 25
BREAKING: scientists say Earth's major systems are undergoing abrupt changes — and soon we'll all feel them 🧵
1. 'prepare for a future of abrupt change.. choices made now will determine whether we face a future of worsening impacts and irreversible change or one of managed resilience to the changes already locked in.' phys.org/news/2025-08-s…
2. Society must now brace for catastrophic impacts.

Thread:
Read 7 tweets
Ben See Profile picture
Aug 9
Destruction of habitats and wildlife has intensified and accelerated to an almost unimaginable degree during the capitalist era. Scientists say the 40-50% of plant species now facing extinction will be obliterated in a handful of decades. It didn't have to be like this. Rethink. Plants are going extinct up to 350 times faster than the historical norm
1. Capitalism: a 'meteorite'

'previous mass extinctions.. took 10,000s, 100,000s, even millions of years to happen. this is happening so fast, now in just two, three decades..'
google.com/amp/s/www.cbsn…

Recovery: "we most likely won’t be there to see it"..
discovermagazine.com/earth-is-on-th…
2. Current estimates of plant extinctions are, without a doubt, gross underestimates. Extinctions will surpass background rates by 1000s of times over the next 80 years. universityofcalifornia.edu/news/plants-ar…
Read 8 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

Send Email!

:(