Last week, the world was brushed up by a "final warning" issued by the United Nations:
The United Nations Inter-government Panel on Climate change (IPCC) released the IPCC Global warming 1.5C report on Oct. 8: global warming is likely to reach 1.5C between 2030 and 2052 at current warming rates.
There are only 12 years left to save the earth.
You may take a quick glance at the title and feel that 1.5 degrees Celsius is nothing too big for you. Perhaps the body is not aware of it at all.
Our oceans, however, are extremely sensitive to temperature.
This warning is actually a sign of the death of the Earth's marine ecosystem: the Great Barrier Reef (Great Barrier Reef) is gone.
In the past 30, 000 years, the Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef, has survived five devastating extreme climates.
But this time, the Great Barrier Reef may not survive.
You may not know, coral is actually an animal, coral, is a simple structure of the creature, it itself is gray-white
One hundred million and six millennia ago, corals found their symbiosis partner: tiny algae, and that's why we saw it on the Great Barrier Reef. It's like Van Gogh knocked over the palette.
These two creatures gave each other life, and coral algae for hundreds of millions of years witnessed the vicissitudes of the earth, from the Jurassic to the Cretaceous, which survived the extinction of dinosaurs.
Until about 30, 000 years ago, they came to the northeast coast of mainland, Australia, where the right water temperature and quality created the perfect environment for coral worms to survive and multiply.
From then on, corals take symbiotic algae to take root here, year after year, generations of coral corals secrete limestone bones together with algae, shells and other marine debris cementitious, piled up into coral reefs
Stretching 2300 kilometers across Australia's northeast coastline and nearly 2/3, they are the only coral reefs to be seen from outer space.
An area of nearly three hundred and fifty thousand square kilometers, equivalent to 70 million football fields or a Japanese
It's just a landscape for humans, and millions of people come here every year because they say it's beautiful, but for thousands of species of marine life, it's a home to live on.
Over the past 30,000 years, it has formed a huge ecosystem that provides nutrients and habitats for marine life, including endangered animals.
More than 1500 species of fish can be found on the Great Barrier Reef
Nearly 5000 species of mollusks
More than 30 species of dolphins
And rare whales and turtles.
This is originally an alien source, is the beginning of life look, beautiful and simple.
But in 2016, the Great Barrier Reef experienced a record high-temperature heat wave due to excessive greenhouse gas emissions.
Because of the heat, corals expel symbiotic algae out of the body, losing their gorgeous colors, and losing nutrients, rapidly dying.
This process is also known as "whitening". The albino corals look like this:
1/3 of coral reefs have died permanently on the Great Barrier Reef since 2016 because of rising temperatures.
Once vibrant submarine rainforest, now there is only a dead white, hundreds of millions of years of life has disappeared, marine animals have been deprived of their homes
Thousands of creatures are homeless and endangered.
"We don't have a home. Where are we going?"
Coral, just because it's a simple creature, doesn't even have a heart, and it can't travel long distances.
They have been quietly blooming in the South Pacific for tens of thousands of years, trying to live the most beautiful appearance on earth, sheltering the life of an entire ocean.
"but now, I'm sorry, I can't protect you anymore."
It is also because it is simple, life will not bleed, will not shed tears, the human can not feel its pain
For humans, at most, it's the decline of a landscape. It's not painful.
They existed hundreds of millions of years ago, survived how many climatic disasters they survived, survived the demise of dinosaurs, and witnessed thousands of years of changes in human civilization that ended up being defeated by the two centuries after the industrial revolution.
They were so real on this planet, fragile and powerful, amazing time, gentle life.
They have no heart, but they are a place for God to rest his heart.
Now that marine scientists have announced that the Great Barrier Reef has only 12 years to live, grin politicians clench their pockets: "our money is for economic development and space exploration."
As soon as 2030, or 12 years from now, the Earth's temperature will rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius, and 70% of the corals will die, and 90% of the corals will die.
If the earth warms up by 2 degrees Celsius, coral, the marine animal, will be completely extinct.
Twelve years, what's the concept? That is, 144 months or more than 4300 days later.
We're going to say good-bye to this coral sea forever, and in our lifetime we're going to tell the story of the Great Barrier Reef to the next generation.
Later, there was no color, no life, only a dead silence.
But most humans don't feel a sense of crisis. Just as corals and seaweeds faced the demise of dinosaurs, they wouldn't think that the word "death" would come to them one day.
If coral reef ecosystems are completely destroyed, the marine food chain will collapse, and the entire marine system will collapse, and no creature can survive alone.
It is possible that the emergence of human beings has triggered a programmed death on the planet itself.
The future survival of the Great Barrier Reef depends largely on the ability of Australia and other countries to agree on a 2 °C target for the Paris Agreement.
According to the Paris Agreement, the signatories agreed to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
In April 2016, nearly 200 countries, including the United States, signed the Paris Agreement, but in June 2017, Trump announced the withdrawal of the United States government.
The last coral on the Great Barrier Reef died in 2030. It slept quietly and never woke up again.