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It appears, that despite some claims to the contrary, the Great Barrier reef is not on deaths doorstep. Do we, need to make sure we are not polluting the waters, doing what we can to negate our impact to this natural treasure? Certainly, but hysteria doesn't help.
Coral bleaching is poorly understood by most people. Corals are incapable of photosynthesis on their own. That job belongs to protozoa that live within the coral tissues and give the skeletal structure it's color. Coral bleaching is what happens when the protozoa die or are otherwise expelled from the coral. The corals can survive for a period of time, but they can't survive in this state indefinitely and will die unless condititions improve and the protozoa return. This also means that the ecosystem of affected area of the reef collapses.