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.

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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.

I’m no scientist but this seems obvious, as someone who’s had a saltwater aquarium and done maintenance myself.

I didi’t even bother with coral, the closest I got was an anemone. I had the tank in balance for about a year with a great ecosystem that all but took care of itself with minimal water changes. Then one long weekend vacation the power went out for several days and it was enough to throw things out of whack. I tried for a year to carefully get it back and never could.

Until we can stop/control climate change, it is a losing battle and even then, it will be difficult if not impossible to get them back to what they once were.