Without hesitation, we believe in climate change and we believe that certain human activity has a direct negative effect on our warming planet. While humans can see and feel changing weather patterns on the surface of the planet, we are much more removed from the life in our oceans. Home to the oldest lifeforms on the planet, Earth's underwater ecosystems have thrived for millennium and have withstood millions of years of natural climate change. But now the world's oceans are rapidly absorbing heat, heat that is being created from unprecedented and unnatural amounts of CO2 trapped in Earth's atmosphere. This heat absorption has caused shallow areas of the ocean to rise in temperature by as much as 2° Celsius, causing widespread bleaching and death to coral reefs. This phenomenon is documented with stunning visuals in the new documentary, Chasing Coral.Chasing Coral illuminates how a global oceanic temperature change in 2° Celsius will devastate our oceans. We caught the film at Telluride Mountainfilm Festival this past May and we cannot get it out of our heads. With beautiful, haunting imagery and startling facts about climate change, Chasing Coral is up there on our list of movies every person should see. Renowned marine biologists and camera designers document the bleaching of the coral reef with the first ever underwater time-lapse camera. The result is a combination of breathtaking beauty and striking fear. The good news? It's not too late to save our coral reefs, and by proxy, our planet. Chasing Coral is now streaming on Netflix.
Featured image credit: The Ocean Agency.