After breaking news announcing the death of the Great Barrier Reef hit the Internet, social media users connected in grief surrounding the 20 million year old tourist hot-spot. The next day, new reports showed that the Reef is not all dead yet, but is under an immense amount of pressure to keep the remaining three-quarters alive. Although the Reef did not actually die, the topic ignited conversations all over the world about humans and their effects on the planet, and how our damage could one day put such a glorious natural habitat to rest.

The devastating phenomenon that is behind the degradation of the Reef is called coral bleaching. Coral has a symbiotic relationship with certain bacteria, allowing it to receive food while providing a home for these microorganisms. Coral bleaching breaks the symbiosis between the two, causing the coral to reveal its white tissue and skeleton. The bleaching is most commonly caused by rising ocean temperatures, which greatly explains the current crisis with the Reef going alongside global warming. Other factors can include low salinity levels in the water, poor water quality, and any other kind of pollutant, including sunscreen. If these poor conditions proceed for more than eight weeks, the coral dies and its white skeleton collects algae.

Right now, most of the Great Barrier Reef is undergoing bleaching, but that does not mean it has not happened before. There have been a few other mass bleaching events in the Reef within the past two decades, most of them tying back to high water temperatures. The first major one in 1998 recorded water temperatures higher than the coast has ever seen, and put 50 percent of the Reef under the bleaching process. Another significant occurrence in 2002 was the largest coral bleaching event in history, causing approximately 60 percent of its area to turn the dreaded translucent white color. It is possible and quite natural for coral to recover from bleaching, as it did in the past few incidents, but scientists say the one of 2016 will be extremely hard to bounce back from. With mass bleaching increasing consistency, it makes it harder each time for the coral to spawn and produce offspring. Having said this year’s bleaching is the worst of the previous years, scientists believe it will take several years of spawning to replace the damaged coral.

This should not make anyone feel hopeless and give up on the Reef as a whole, as scientists are encouraging citizens to keep a conversation about climate change open so that we can progress towards a more environmentally conscious society. The chaos resulted in the news of the bleaching events of this year in the Great Barrier Reef allowed for a light to shine on the topic of the environment and what we can do to help.