MAD Growth on Columbus Circle. ReefCity.

ES At least in the seas.

Deny.

A hundred yards off the reef.

And on land, this cannot work.

It's built entirely of coral reefs.

lots of bright, colorful fishes and things.

I've even gone to biological environments,

So let's start with the first one Christmas Island, over 5,000 people.

There are many organisms that build their shells out of calcium carbonate plants and animals both.

This is what we call the biomass pyramid.

About a hundred yards off the reef. Right where we always said she'd be.

100 percent of the coral may be wiped out before 2050 because of global warming.

And that is the same reef that's the same reef 15 years ago that's the same reef today.

You can see sharks in every single dive.

We think this is universal.

And the second thing I learned was that I knew, with profound certainty, that this is exactly what I was going to do for the rest of my life.

So that's almost an eighth of society.

And that's more or less the story of the coral reefs of the Caribbean, and increasingly, tragically, the coral reefs worldwide.

Well I'm afraid not.

(Laughter)

There are a few oysters in Chesapeake Bay.

This view of the world is a consequence of having studied degraded reefs.

Fanning Island, 2,500 people.

Just get whatever anybody wants.

I live on this reef a long, long way from here.

Very unlikely, Joe would jump on a pristine coral reef, a virgin coral reef with lots of coral, sharks, crocodiles, manatees, groupers, turtles, etc.

In this example here, we had monitored this reef in Galapagos with temperature recorders, so we know the temperature of the water the coral's growing in.

There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as

I'm an ecologist, mostly a coral reef ecologist.

For those of you who've been there, fantastic coral reefs, fantastic diving, fantastic snorkeling.

And where the diver is, this is probably where most of the reefs of the world are now, with very few corals, algae overgrowing the corals,

And I ended up in Jamaica, in the West Indies, where the coral reefs were really among the most extraordinary, structurally, that I ever saw in my life.

We have to beat this.

let's call him Joe what would Joe see?

If Joe jumped in a coral reef, there are many things the alien could see.

In fact, there's a surge channel where the tide is moving back and forth, twice a day, pretty rapidly.

And within a few months after that sea urchin dying, the seaweed started to grow.

Coral reefs are growing slower in some places because of this problem.

So if the United States removes a million dollars' worth of lobsters from a reef,

And the view of scientists about how coral reefs work, how they ought to be, was based on these reefs without any fish.

And actually most of the fish, they are a little spot on the debris, the piles of debris, were coral reef fish.

And also, as an increase in extreme weather events due to climate change, they're expecting more waves to come in over the fringing reef, which will contaminate their fresh water supply.

Already, commercial oyster larvae are dying at large scales in some places.

And all the fish species that depend on the coral reefs are also in jeopardy as a result.