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When Coral Bleaching Becomes Background Noise, Saving the Ocean Becomes an Act of Resistance
What if we treated coral like something worth saving — not just another casualty in the doomscroll?
Last week, I was commuting back home when my girlfriend sent me a picture. It was a wide, ghostly reef shot — an expanse of bleach-white coral glowing like snow under turquoise water. “Stunning,” she wrote. “I’d love to go dive there.”
I stared at the image for a while before replying. Not because I disagreed. It was stunning — in the same way an open graveyard under the noonday sun might be. Because bleached coral is what extinction looks like underwater: silent, spectral, and slow, bone-white skeletons seen through their translucent flesh. It’s not a vibrant seascape. It’s the moment just after the funeral, when everything is still in place, but the life is gone.
My girlfriend, unconsciously, was admiring not only corals but also death.
That’s when I realized most people don’t know what coral really is. I didn’t, either — not until a few years ago.
