The Great Barrier Reef is one of the largest living structures on Earth. Visible from space. Home to a quarter of all marine species, packed into less than 1% of the ocean floor. It is also, right now, in the middle of the worst bleaching event ever recorded.
Bleaching is what happens when the water gets too warm. The coral expels the algae living in its tissue, turns white, and waits. If temperatures drop in time, it recovers. If they don’t, it dies. The reef doesn’t disappear — it just becomes a skeleton of what it was. Still beautiful, in the way ruins are beautiful.
Most people who’ve visited a reef were wearing sunscreen. Oxybenzone — found in most chemical sunscreens — accelerates bleaching even at trace concentrations. Hawaii, Palau, and the US Virgin Islands have since banned it. Most of us had no idea we were part of the problem.
