Environmental Issues In Chasing Coral

Coral reefs worldwide have been disappearing at an alarming rate. The reason I chose the documentary Chasing Coral is that I am interested in gaining knowledge on environmental issues happening today. Corals are also fascinating creatures. From the outside, coral reefs may look like simple animals but are extremely complex on the inside. In the documentary, a group of divers, photographers, and scientists explore the causes of why coral reefs are dying off. As a result, they found that coral bleaching is caused by climate change, specifically the warming of the ocean waters. The Emmy-Award-winning documentary, Chasing Coral, was released in 2017 that explores the issue of coral bleaching globally through a three-year project and how climate

Coral bleaching is a worldwide issue and, in the film, with the help of supporters, they were able to document coral bleaching in over 30 countries. The main footage gathered was in Hawaii and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Over the span of just 2 months, the coral reef in Hawaii has all died. In Australia, just over the span of a month, the corals bleached. Chasing Coral was released in 2017 but started production in 2014. Most of the film is shown between 2015 to 2016 which is the period that the Great Barrier Reef reached record temperatures that lead to the worst coral bleaching event ever seen. The majority of the coral bleaching events occurred are driven by El Niño which is a natural climate pattern that warms the surface of the waters. Since then, the bleaching events continued in 2020 and 2022 but they both were not as extreme as the 2016 bleaching event. The 2022 bleaching event in the Great Barrier Reef brought concerns since it occurred during a La Niña climate pattern that cools the surfaces of the

The argument made in the film is that climate change is the major cause of coral bleaching by warming the oceans (Orlowski-Yang). It would be a significant concern if coral reefs went extinct since they sustain and protect numerous people and marine life. There is not much of an opposing view since climate change is the leading cause of coral bleaching driven by human activities. Some people may argue that climate change is a natural process and that human activities do not contribute to climate change. The counterargument to the film would be that coral bleaching is caused by the decline in water quality due to runoff and pollution by human activities. Besides certain temperatures, coral reefs are only found in saltwater. The runoff of precipitation or pollutant dilutes the ocean waters pushing the coral reefs into the zone of intolerance which causes them to bleach. Coral reefs need certain factors to thrive, and human activities are pushing them out of their survival zone, causing coral