Being an Odyssey content creator, finding inspiration for articles can sometimes be difficult. I was in the process of working on a simple, light-hearted, relatable write-up for the week when I came across something utterly disturbing.

Casually scrolling through my Twitter news feed before bed (like we’re always advised not to do), a certain tweet immediately caught my attention. It stated, “The Great Barrier Reef was pronounced dead today ... do you guys care yet?” Without a pause, I proceeded to Google search “Great Barrier Reef” in hopes of finding nothing but beautiful images of ocean life that are usually associated with it (Twitter is not always the most reliable source and this time I hoped this would remain true). But my stomach instantly sank when I scrolled through the top new stories with titles such as “Obituary for the Great Barrier Reef” and “After 25 million years the Great Barrier Reef is officially pronounced dead.” I could not begin to believe this. I’m sure we were all aware that the state of what is (or I suppose I should say was) one of the world’s largest ecosystems was in trouble, but I think it’s fair to say not many of us realized just how bad the state had gotten.

Literally over the weekend I was speaking with a friend and mentioned, “Going to the Great Barrier Reef before it officially dies is definitely on my bucket list.” Being exposed to its beautiful potential as a child when seeing Finding Nemo for the first time is how this goal made it on my to-do list in the first place. It makes my stomach sink knowing that this dream of mine is officially shattered.

But there is more to this. How could we let our planet get into this state in the first place? Are we that selfish and ignorant as a species that we allowed this to happen so abruptly? The Great Barrier Reef was a 25 million-year-old living structure. Humans in their primal form have been around for about 6 million years. And I think it’s safe to say that our cave-man ancestors didn’t have much to do with this. The fact that the earth is being damaged and destroyed so rapidly should terrify people. The Reef gave life to hundreds of thousands of species that never could have flourished without it, and in turn, will continue to suffer.

It was alive. And just as all living things must, it was eventually going to die, but this is far, far too soon. An obituary was even written in its honor, by Andrew Holder. It includes the fascinating history and science of the coral reef, along with the reasoning behind its pre-mature death.

Since it is obviously too late to do anything about the Great Barrier Reef, hopefully we can use this as a big, huge, giant wake-up call that warns us that our planet needs help. We cannot take this light-heartedly. We cannot say, “Aw, so sad!” and continue scrolling through our news feeds. We cannot continue to ignore these issues, viewing them as tomorrow’s problems, because guess what?

This is happening now.

Donations for protecting and enhancing the natural environment can be made on Ocean Ark Alliance’s website.