Coral restoration is a speculative, feel-good science that won’t save our reefs.

benjhm , 7 hours ago

I agree. The key symbiosis between coral and microalgae depends on fundamental thermodynamic equilibria of the carbonate chemistry of seawater - which are highly sensitive to temperature and atmospheric CO2, in very predictable ways. When living in coral becomes unprofitable for the algae, they leave. My instinct, from some experience with this system, is that introducing new species won’t do better than nature, nobody can beat thermodynamics. We have to reduce the CO2.

lurch , 6 hours ago

• puts bandaid on coral reef *

“There. Good as new.”

/s

Zaktor , 28 minutes ago

This definitely feels like academics squabbling with those in an associated research area over who gets the tiny sliver of funding trickling in to them while vastly more resources are directed elsewhere to actively harmful pursuits. Their beef should be with fossil fuel subsidies, or at least the people in the geology department being funded to figure out better fracking methods. I just can’t see a world where money spent on reef restoration work is actually the critical issue hindering key climate work.

Beyond that, the “maybe reefs will just adapt” message near the end seems way more dangerous to a healthy climate than any issues they danced around with coral restoration. That’s exactly the argument made by the polluters and much more seductive to policymakers than coral restoration.