Diatoms are a keen interest of mine and heres a e360yale article that as with all others never seems to involve or stress the importance of diatoms in the symbiotic relationship /actual existance of coral reef.
I might be wrong, I’m only an interested layman with a few hundred hours of hobby microscope time ie freshwater algae but it vexes me when this vital aspect is basically ignored. The answer is already there ie temperature rise.
Show any child an image or view of diatoms and they will be fascinated, its hard to be otherwise.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-disease-ravages-coral-reefs-scientists-scramble-for-solutions
postscript … at our mostly okay Secondary School north UK circa 1969-74 maybe only once did the microscopes come come out of their dark cupboard; the teacher himself must have never realised life at microscopic level, algae etc its wonders and beauty. Or maybe just too lazy, probably the latter. He was too interested in his beloved youth club, forms and paperwork that should not have displaced his teaching effort. I have literally sat through complete lessons playing ‘hangman’ (many times in fact) a kids pen and paper time filler whilst the pillock was busy on admin he should have done elsewhere. A lot of hangman….
I mention this because a couple of days ago a bbc radio news reporter was ‘alarmed’ to interview a cash strapped African teacher of biology and he admitted they did not have a microscope to help reveal a great number of otherwise hidden detail. Alarm! How upsetting, how tragic. How bullshit! No such facility was offered to us up in our village Secondary School in England. And anyway, a textbook is all you need to get through any O level or as we did a simpler thing called CSE.
Likewise here locally a more industrial area a couple of years ago publicity was made re a group of students from China (say fifteen year olds?) and that old standby photographic prop the microscope was featured, it was obvious this was a prop, merely to give ‘an impression’ of a more involved level of competence and enquiry. Again. B/S raises its ugly head….
climate-change-briefing 