Losing Nemo

There’s really no good way to say this, but, the thing is: we’re losing Nemo.

Some of you – many, probably – will know Pixar/Disney’s (mostly) wonderful animated films. Bringing up our kids in the noughties, 2003’s Finding Nemo was one of our favourites. With 40 million copies sold, it’s the most popular DVD of all time, so we obviously weren’t alone! The adventures of Nemo the reef-dwelling clownfish, it’s a heartwarming tale of family, friendship and letting go that brings vividly to life the underwater world of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

And since those days, I’ve had the immense privilege of diving coral reefs in real life. Seeing for myself clownfish nestling in sea anemone, giant barracuda pulling up to the cleaning station, napoleon fish, sunfish, parrotfish, angelfish, immense manta ray wheeling overhead, sharks of every kind – nursing, blue, ragged tooth, whale, hammerhead. All on reefs of living corals in all their kinds, like trees and bushes, fingers and fans, plates and leaves, sheets, heads, tables and mushrooms, an incredibly intricate living system, home to a million (about a quarter of) marine species, the most diverse habitat in all God’s creation.

But – and this is the place where there’s no good way to say it – that world is disappearing before our eyes. Reefs have long had much to contend with from humans – overfishing, sewage and plastic pollution, careless tourism – but now they have marine heatwaves too. With global warming, the oceans are becoming hotter, and marine heatwaves more frequent and more widespread. They cause corals to bleach – turn nearly white – and then, if too prolonged or too frequent – to die, and with them the million species that rely on them.

Right now, we’re in the midst of a “mass bleaching event” that’s been ongoing since 2023. Over 80% of reefs have experienced bleaching-level temperatures, and observers at reefs round the world – from the Great Barrier Reef to the Caribbean – have reported extensive bleaching. Scientific consensus has long expected we will lose 70–90% of reefs at 1.5°C of global warming and more than 99% at 2°C. With 1.5°C set to be passed in the next decade, this now looks to be all but inevitable.

This is no light thing. It’s almost too heavy to write. What was abundant when I was born will be mostly gone in my lifetime. I’m not however writing this to say “act now and we can save Nemo”. I’m afraid that that time has probably passed. But rather to ask soberly what this – the loss of this jewel of creation – means for us as Evangelicals, what it means to be the image of God, to “have dominion over” every living thing, to guard and keep the earth, to worship the One who is both creator and redeemer of all things.

And to ask what response it calls out in us. Lament, perhaps, for beauty lost, praise that falls silent. Repentance, perhaps, of ways that have brought us here, of choices made, or left unmade. For the global warming that’s causing it has not come from nowhere, nor from natural causes, but – as is well-known by now, I’m sure – from the fossil fuels we burn, our flights, our cars, how we heat our homes.

The time to make the choices that bring life is surely long overdue. When the climate penny dropped for me some years ago now, my first step was to cancel the flight that would have taken me to my Indian Ocean dive-site holiday. It may not have changed the world, nor saved our reefs, but at least I wasn’t any longer participating in their destruction.

Coral reefs are the canary in the coalmine – what’s happening to them sounds the alarm. They may be all but lost, but much yet remains, much beauty, much that praises the creator. And we, who await the coming of the restorer of all things (Acts 3v21), have every reason still to live now in a way that works for the flourishing of all creation. And perhaps on that day of restoration yet to find ourselves finding Nemo once again.