"It turns out fish are essential to the health of a reef."

Scientists say the world's reefs are being harmed by a complex combination of factors; including pollution, agricultural runoff, coastal development, and overfishing. It turns out fish are essential to the health of a reef. Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other leading institutions are also very concerned about climate change because they believe rising ocean temperatures are triggering a process called "bleaching" in which the coral weakens, turns white and often dies.

Captain Obvious to the rescue!

There is a very important message from this news report. The risks to coral reefs are dominated by local interference by humans on its ecosystem function. Such effects include local pollution (e.g. runoff from rivers and shorelines and from shipping; overfishing including the major predator species such as sharks).

What seems to be a minor, or even an inconsequential effect, is any warming of the ocean (i.e. global warming) despite the reference by NOAA in the CBS show to bleaching (they also showed a calving glacier :-)).

Despite this short reference to global warming in the CBS report, the report is quite an important addition to the broadening out of environmental issues beyond the mypopic focus on global warming. The contrast between reef health near Veracruz, Mexico and the Cuba Preserve should convincingly show objective readers that coral bleaching from global warming is clearly not the largest threat to the health of tropical coral reefs.