Coral Reefs Gone By 2050, Why will the world miss them???

I know when I think about coral reefs I imagine a tourist attraction that I cannot afford to go visit or something that is only good for a computer background picture. So why should I care if they vanish by 2050? I'll be 56 goddamn years old! Well, my views have drastically changed after even a little research on the subject.

What Coral Reefs do for our oceans?

• Provide habitat for early stages of Marine life. HALF of all fish species make their homes in coral reefs, the ones that we eat.
• Protect fish from their predators.
• Coral pulls carbon from the ocean in order to construct their calcium carbonate structures which helps regulate the amount of carbon in the ocean.

What would happen if they were gone?

• Its estimated that 1 billion people across Asia depend on coral reefs and the fish that inhabit them for survival. So people's livelihoods would be turned upside down.
• Nation's such as those in the Caribbean and South East Asia will have their economies crippled from a dramatic decrease of fishing and tourists.
• Organisms further up the food chain such as dolphins will have their populations drop off because of a lack of food.

One Green Planet

Huffington Post - Brian Skoloff