Emerging Worlds and Disappearing Worlds
Rising global temperature and ocean acidification has resulted in mass coral bleaching, shutting off important habitats for many marine species. Over the past 200 years, humans have committed crimes of overfishing, deep sea mining, cable and pipeline placement, waste disposal and unregulated sea water sampling that produces all kinds of pollutants to the sea water. The acidic gases emitted into the atmosphere dissolves in ocean and acidifies the water. This chemical process is detrimental to the ecosystem and biodiversity of the coral reef. Coral bleaching can increase the risk of diseases, and the reproduction of corals. Some species might go extinct fairly soon (Gynn, 2012). Intensive studies have found that 62% of reef fish species have decreased in abundance within a short period of 3 years. Bleaching, storms and outbreaks of destructive species, such as crown-of-thorn starfish has reduced coral cover by 10% or more. It is tragic how the delicate ecosystems have been cruelly destroyed by human misconducts. The researchers couldn’t stress enough the urgency to regulate human activities, they gave simple yet highly important solutions: stabilises the temperature and controls the carbon dioxide concentration. In such way, the coral reef might have time to adapt to the challenges in the environment.
The E-concept that I found particularly concerning and worth addressing would be this week’s ‘Extinction’. The prolonged La Niña this year due to the warm ocean waters has caused destructive floods and cyclones on northern and eastern Australia, causing many people to lose their homes. The same plight could be shared by species that dwell in endangered natural landscapes. Claire Colebrook suggested in her essay from Death of Posthuman that “it becomes possible to think of climate as the milieu that is necessary for our ongoing life, and as the fragile surface that holds us all together in one web of risked life, even if we cannot practically grasp or manage the dynamics of this totality.” The risked life is not unprecedented, and the condition only deteriorates as time goes, if we don’t become aware of and change human activity collectively. As Donna Haraway said, “the edge of extinction is not just a metaphor; system collapse is not a thriller. Ask any refugee of any species.” It is the destiny of any specie on this planet; however, we have the power to extend the doomsday, and to sustain life as much as we can. Instead of extinction, we want them to be extant. Hence, I thought of the word extantion, encapsulating the fact or process of a species, family or other group of animals or plants remaining extant.
References:
Claire Colebrook, Death of the Posthuman: Essays on Extinction Vol. 1, 2014.
Donna Haraway, Staying with the Trouble (2016)
Doubilet, David & Hayes, Jennifer. Photos show a climate change crisis unfolding – and hope for the future. National Geographic, 29 Oct. 2021. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/photos-show-a-climate-change-crises-unfoldingand-hope-for-the-future.
Hannam, Peter. “La Niña Set to Intensify Australia’s Cyclone Season, Raising Risk of Flooding.” The Guardian, 20 Nov. 2022, www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/20/la-nina-set-to-intensify-australias-cyclone-season-raising-risk-of-flooding.
Hoegh-Guldberg, Ove, et al. "Coral Reef Ecosystems Under Climate Change and Ocean Acidification." Frontiers in Marine Science, 2017. ProQuest,
https://login.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/coral-reef-ecosystems-under-climate-change-ocean/docview/2307738071/se-2, doi:https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2017.00158.