Attenborough, the BBC and coral

Some people in London yesterday asked what I thought of Attenborough's first programme in the BBC climate change series. Two comments - which I guess many others would make too: it was effective communication, and it would have been even better had he/they done this some time ago, when the intellectual and moral case was already overwhelmingly strong.

On corals specifically, it was fine to have Ove Hoegh-Guldberg swimming across the GBR talking eloquently, but among the important points missed here was that corals are not just pretty things for lucky scientists and people on expensive holidays. They support fisheries and other ecosystem services that directly benefit five hundred million to a billion people (according to some estimates). One degree Centigrade could do them in, but the projected Earth temperature rise on busines as usual is 2 to 5 C give or take, and maybe more.