Changing climate for coral

摘要

The year before Joseph Banks' brief description of the wonders of the northern Great Barrier Reef (see the extract from his journal below), James Watt patented his improvement of Thomas Newcomen's steam engine. This contributed to the world's radical changes in energy use and demand, the Industrial Revolution. Joseph Banks being a modern man of his times (and president of The Royal Society, 1778-1820) was amongst the first to buy one of the new steam engines. He thus, unwittingly, contributed to the world's current predicament, a rapidly changing climate due to increasing greenhouse gases and the potential demise of tropical coral reefs.