美国国家公共电台 NPR While Corals Die Along The Great Barrier Reef, Humans Struggle To Adjust

 

A MARTINEZ, HOST:

There are few places on Earth where the impact of climate change is more noticeable than along the Great Barrier Reef. It's the planet's largest living organism that now has become the world's largest dying organism. In the past 18 months, rising ocean temperatures have caused the single greatest loss of coral ever recorded along the reef. The die off is devastating¹ for the thousands of species that depend on the reef, including those who are responsible for its decline, humans. NPR's Rob Schmitz reports.

(SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING)

ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE²: Nearly a hundred miles off the shore of Port Douglas, Australia, tourists jump into the water of the outer reef. On their dive, they see giant clams³, sea turtles and a rainbow tropical fish all swimming above brightly colored coral. Back on the boat, marine⁴ biologist Lorna Howlett reviews the coral they saw.

LORNA HOWLETT: How many people out there today saw a coral that was highlighter yellow? Yeah. What about highlighter blue? Yeah. Anyone see some hot pinks?

SCHMITZ: Eager hands shoot up among the few dozen tourists lounging on the deck of the boat in their wet suits. Everyone's still smiling from their Technicolor tour of the Great Barrier Reef. Then Howlett breaks the news to them.

HOWLETT: Those are not natural coral colors. That is actually coral that is stressed, OK? So it's got a sniffly nose. It's got a bit of a sore throat.

SCHMITZ: It turns out the neon coral depicted⁵ in Pixar's "Finding Nemo" is not normal. It's the first sign coral is dying.

JOHN EDMONDSON: Then you see it getting white.

SCHMITZ: Marine biologist John Edmondson runs Wavelength⁶, the tour operator on the reef. He says the second sign is when coral bleaches⁷ and turns white.

EDMONDSON: That's when it's most dramatic-looking. You've got the real visual impact of being white. You don't know if it's going to die or it's going to recover. And then the real impact on people working on the reef is when you then start to see what's recovering and what's dying. And then when you start to see the coral actually dying and getting covered with turfing algae⁸ and looking horrible, that is when it really hits home.

SCHMITZ: In the past 18 months, Edmondson has watched as two-thirds of the coral along this 400-mile northern stretch of the Great Barrier Reef has turned white and died. It's left him and thousands of others who work on the reef in a state of shock.

(SOUNDBITE OF WAVES)

SCHMITZ: Nearly 300 miles down the coast on a beach in Townsville along the midsection of the reef stands Terry Hughes. He's the director of the Coral Reef Center at James Cook University.

TERRY HUGHES: I did not expect to see a loss of corals to this extent in my lifetime. This has come sooner than we had hoped.

SCHMITZ: That's because oceans have absorbed the heat from the global rise in greenhouse gas emissions⁹. And their waters are now warmer than any time in recorded history. Coral is sensitive to temperature swings. Much like the human body, a rise of several degrees can lead to illness and death. For the past two years, Hughes has led a team of scientists in both aerial and underwater surveys of the reef.

It took a while. The Great Barrier Reef is made up of more than 3,000 individual reefs, as long as the entire West Coast of the United States. Their findings were published in March in the journal Nature. They estimate that an average of one-third of the coral along the entire Great Barrier Reef died between March and November of 2016 due to warmer-than-average water temperatures.

HUGHES: So this was much worse than the biggest cyclones¹⁰ we ever get. And, tragically¹¹, it happened again for a second time in a row this year. This year, we expect to see about 20 percent more of the corals die. So close to half of the corals on the Great Barrier Reef have died in a period of about 18 months. So this is the new normal.

SCHMITZ: Hughes is calling on everyone who studies and protects the world's coral reefs to adjust to this new normal. He says coral reef management is always focused on restoring reefs to their condition before the oceans began to warm.

HUGHES: And we argue that that's no longer possible. What we should be aiming for is keeping reefs functional¹², recognizing that the world is on a conveyor belt. We are going to a new type of coral reef ecosystem¹³. But if we're careful how we do that, we'll still have a functioning ecosystem that will provide benefits to people.

SCHMITZ: But not everyone at the coral reef Center shares Hughes's optimism. Research fellow Jon Brodie used to direct water quality for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. He believes it's too late to save the coral. Water temperatures are rising too fast. And he predicts in 30 years, most of it will be gone. The 70-year-old has given his life to the reef. For him, the new normal is hard to swallow.

JON BRODIE: I find it quite difficult with students now. I still have lots of young - youngish, I guess - Ph.D. students and the like. And it wasn't too many years ago when I think I could still inspire them to - this was a great area to work in and make a difference. I find that more difficult now - much more difficult now.

(SOUNDBITE OF FOGHORN)

SCHMITZ: A dismal¹⁴ outlook is hard to see along the waterfront in Cairns, where kids splash in a pool and diving boats sound their horns. The city is the main hub of tourism along the Great Barrier Reef, a $5 billion industry that employs 60,000 people. Many tour operators here take issue with the surveys scientists like Hughes have taken of the reef.

COL MCKENZIE: When they try and pint¹⁵ holistic¹⁶ pictures from a sampling, you don't get the real story.

SCHMITZ: Col McKenzie directs the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators in Cairns. He questions how accurate these scientific surveys have been. And he thinks the media has run with the numbers, making people think the reef has become the Great Barrier Graveyard¹⁷.

MCKENZIE: If we were taking tourists out of Cairns to reefs that were destroyed, our business wouldn't survive it for more than a month. We just wouldn't be able to keep doing it. Yet you go and talk to the people coming off these boats. They've had a fantastic time. They've seen what they came here to see.

SCHMITZ: McKenzie maintains there's still a lot of healthy habitat to see, and there will be for years to come. But he's worried about the amount of coral that has died and what it's going to do to the region's bottom line.

MCKENZIE: My guess is that they - that we've seen the end of double-digit growth, that we're probably going to get back into 2 or 3 percent growth instead of the 20 to 30. The big issue is that we've got a lot of money being spent on additional infrastructure¹⁸ here in Cairns, new pontoons, new boats, new hotels going up.

SCHMITZ: And that's why McKenzie thinks rash measures should be taken to save the reef. He proposes installing enormous turbines in the deep ocean surrounding the reef.

MCKENZIE: If you can imagine a massive, big ceiling fan like a turbine - and it's pushing the cold water to the surface.

SCHMITZ: In an email, Terry Hughes called McKenzie's solution one of the most harebrained ideas he's ever heard. He says tackling climate change would be easier.

(SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING)

SCHMITZ: Caught between the reef scientists and tour operators are the tourists themselves. Seventy percent of them are from outside Australia, like Alan Crabtree (ph) from Bellingham, Wash.

ALAN CRABTREE: One of the reasons we came now is we wanted to see the Barrier Reef before it disappeared. We wanted to take advantage of that.

SCHMITZ: It's the end of a day of snorkeling, and the tourist boat pulls into Port Douglas, where thousands of colorful lorikeets fly between palm trees as the sun sets behind them.

(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS TWEETING)

SCHMITZ: Wavelength Tours owner John Edmondson sits on his boat, talking about how the tourism industry is having a hard time dealing¹⁹ with the reef's loss of coral. Some operators don't mention it to tourists for fear of spoiling a fun day out on the reef. But he's chosen to educate his customers about what's going on and what they can do to prevent climate change.

EDMONDSON: If you've got a fantastic product, but there is a negative aspect of it, how do you deal with that negative aspect? You know, it's best, I think, to explain it because most people are understanding.

SCHMITZ: After all, says Edmondson, this isn't Disneyland. It's the world, our world. Rob Schmitz, NPR News, the Great Barrier Reef.

1 devastating   

adj.毁灭性的，令人震惊的，强有力的

参考例句：

• It is the most devastating storm in 20 years.这是20年来破坏性最大的风暴。
• Affairs do have a devastating effect on marriages.婚外情确实会对婚姻造成毁灭性的影响。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 clams   

n.蛤；蚌，蛤( clam的名词复数 )v.（在沙滩上）挖蛤( clam的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The restaurant's specialities are fried clams. 这个餐厅的特色菜是炸蚌。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We dug clams in the flats et low tide. 退潮时我们在浅滩挖蛤蜊。 来自辞典例句

4 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

5 depicted   

描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述

参考例句：

• Other animals were depicted on the periphery of the group. 其他动物在群像的外围加以修饰。
• They depicted the thrilling situation to us in great detail. 他们向我们详细地描述了那激动人心的场面。

6 wavelength   

n.波长

参考例句：

• The authorities were unable to jam this wavelength.当局无法干扰这一波长。
• Radio One has broadcast on this wavelength for years.广播1台已经用这个波长广播多年了。

7 bleaches   

使（颜色）变淡，变白，漂白( bleach的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Oxidation of soils by bleaches can break down large molecules into smaller segments with polar sites. 关于漂白对污垢的氧化作用，使其大分子裂解为带极性基因的短链段。
• Clean up spilled medicines, bleaches and gasoline and other flammable liquids. 清除溢出的药品，漂白剂、汽油和其他易燃易爆液体。

8 algae   

n.水藻，海藻

参考例句：

• Most algae live in water.多数藻类生长在水中。
• Algae grow and spread quickly in the lake.湖中水藻滋蔓。

9 emissions   

排放物( emission的名词复数 )； 散发物（尤指气体）

参考例句：

• Most scientists accept that climate change is linked to carbon emissions. 大多数科学家都相信气候变化与排放的含碳气体有关。
• Dangerous emissions radiate from plutonium. 危险的辐射物从钚放散出来。

10 cyclones   

n.气旋( cyclone的名词复数 )；旋风；飓风；暴风

参考例句：

• The pricipal objective in designing cyclones is to create a vortex. 设计旋风除尘器的主要目的在于造成涡旋运动。 来自辞典例句
• Middle-latitude cyclones originate at the popar front. 中纬度地区的气旋发源于极锋。 来自辞典例句

11 tragically   

adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地

参考例句：

• Their daughter was tragically killed in a road accident. 他们的女儿不幸死于车祸。
• Her father died tragically in a car crash. 她父亲在一场车祸中惨死。

12 functional   

adj.为实用而设计的，具备功能的，起作用的

参考例句：

• The telephone was out of order,but is functional now.电话刚才坏了，但现在可以用了。
• The furniture is not fancy,just functional.这些家具不是摆着好看的，只是为了实用。

13 ecosystem   

n.生态系统

参考例句：

• This destroyed the ecosystem of the island.这样破坏了岛上的生态系统。
• We all have an interest in maintaining the integrity of the ecosystem.维持生态系统的完整是我们共同的利益。

14 dismal   

adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的

参考例句：

• That is a rather dismal melody.那是一支相当忧郁的歌曲。
• My prospects of returning to a suitable job are dismal.我重新找到一个合适的工作岗位的希望很渺茫。

15 pint   

n.品脱

参考例句：

• I'll have a pint of beer and a packet of crisps, please.我要一品脱啤酒和一袋炸马铃薯片。
• In the old days you could get a pint of beer for a shilling.从前，花一先令就可以买到一品脱啤酒。

16 holistic   

adj.从整体着眼的，全面的

参考例句：

• There is a fundamental ambiguity in the use of word "whole" in recent holistic literature.在近代的整体主义著作中，“整体”这个词的用法极其含混。
• In so far as historicism is technological,its approach is not piecemeal,but "holistic".仅就历史决定论是一种技术而论，它的方法不是渐进的，而是“整体主义的”。

17 graveyard   

n.坟场

参考例句：

• All the town was drifting toward the graveyard.全镇的人都象流水似地向那坟场涌过去。
• Living next to a graveyard would give me the creeps.居住在墓地旁边会使我毛骨悚然。

18 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

19 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。