Imagine that a loved one has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. As you exit the hospital, heart heavy with the weight of the doctor’s words, what is your immediate course of action? Do you reach out to your loved one and assure them that you’ll remain by their side through the fight to come? Or, do you whip out measuring tape, size them for their casket, and ask, “Mahogany, or pine?”
On October 11, 2016, the world chose the latter. “Obituary: Great Barrier Reef (25 Million BC-2016),” blared the headline of Outside Online’s latest sensational news article. “The Great Barrier Reef of Australia passed away in 2016 after a long illness,” the article began. “It was 25 million years old.” Within hours, these words went viral, popping up in countless Facebook news feeds and inciting a worldwide chain of audience reactions.
Passed away? The Great Barrier Reef? But what about my bucket list?
Does this mean our grandchildren’s textbooks will read “Six Wonders of the Natural World” instead of seven?
In a turn of events that echoed Mark Twain’s famous quip, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” scientists had a very different question. Why in the world was an obituary circulating for an organism that …show more content…
Mourning the decline of the Great Barrier Reef is very different from mourning the decline of a spouse. The death of a spouse promises to leave tangible gaps in daily life: an ever-empty right side of the bed, a phone number that will forever go to voice mail, the newfound reality of a “Table for one, please.” Conversely, the repercussions of climate change are much harder to
On October 11, 2016, the world chose the latter. “Obituary: Great Barrier Reef (25 Million BC-2016),” blared the headline of Outside Online’s latest sensational news article. “The Great Barrier Reef of Australia passed away in 2016 after a long illness,” the article began. “It was 25 million years old.” Within hours, these words went viral, popping up in countless Facebook news feeds and inciting a worldwide chain of audience reactions.
Passed away? The Great Barrier Reef? But what about my bucket list?
Does this mean our grandchildren’s textbooks will read “Six Wonders of the Natural World” instead of seven?
In a turn of events that echoed Mark Twain’s famous quip, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” scientists had a very different question. Why in the world was an obituary circulating for an organism that …show more content…
Mourning the decline of the Great Barrier Reef is very different from mourning the decline of a spouse. The death of a spouse promises to leave tangible gaps in daily life: an ever-empty right side of the bed, a phone number that will forever go to voice mail, the newfound reality of a “Table for one, please.” Conversely, the repercussions of climate change are much harder to