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They're spitting out the colored algae that lives in their skin,
它們吐出位于它們皮膚表面的有色藻類，
and the clear bleached tissue that's left usually starves to death and then rots away.
留下來的白化后的組織往往會饑餓而死然后被海水沖走。
Then the skeletons are overgrown by algae.
然后珊瑚骨架會被藻類占據。
This is happening over an unbelievable scale.
這一切正在以令人無法相信的速度發生著。
The Northern Great Barrier Reef lost two-thirds of its corals last year over a distance of hundreds of miles,
北方的大堡礁去年有三分之二的珊瑚死去，蔓延數百英里，
then bleached again this year, and the bleaching stretched further south.
今年又一次出現了白化，并且白化現象向更南方延續。
Reefs in the Pacific are in a nosedive right now, and no one knows how bad it's going to get,
太平洋的珊瑚礁的死亡速度正在加快，現在沒有人知道到底會發展到多壞的程度，
except ... over in the Caribbean where I work, we've already been through the nosedive.
除了……在我工作的加勒比海區域，我們已經經歷了這種加速。
Reefs there have suffered through centuries of intense human abuse.
珊瑚礁已經忍受了數百年人類的各種蹂躪。
We kind of already know how the story goes.
我們差不多已經知道事態會如何發展。
And we might be able to help predict what happens next.
并且我們大概能夠預測下一步會發生什么。
Let's consult a graph.
讓我們畫一張圖。
Since the invention of scuba, scientists have measured the amount of coral on the seafloor, and how it's changed through time.
自從潛水器發明，科學家就已經成功的描繪了海床上的珊瑚礁分布，以及它們隨時間的變化趨勢。
And after centuries of ratcheting human pressure, Caribbean reefs met one of three fates.
在經歷了幾個世紀人類破壞的棘輪效應后，加勒比珊瑚礁面臨了三種命運。
Some reefs lost their corals very quickly.
有的珊瑚礁上的珊瑚很快就沒了。
Some reefs lost their corals more slowly, but kind of ended up in the same place.
有些珊瑚礁上珊瑚的死亡速度慢一點，但是基本上也消失殆盡。
OK, so far this is not going very well.
好吧，目前為止事情都不算好。
But some reefs in the Caribbean -- the ones best protected and the ones a little further from humans --
但是加勒比的有些珊瑚礁——受到良好保護的和遠離人類活動的——
they managed to hold onto their corals. Give us a challenge.
它們成功的留住了珊瑚。給了我們一個挑戰。
And, we almost never saw a reef hit zero.
而且，我們很少看到珊瑚礁上珊瑚一點不剩。
