Demise of reefs in Belize? Coda

[I was happy to receive a lot of comments on our most recent blog post from the field in the New York Times. Since the space available to respond to those comments on the NYT site is limited, I've elected to do so here.] Thanks to all for your comments. I have always considered myself a realist, and I am as concerned as anyone with the direction planet earth is heading.  I think Roger Bradbury is largely on target in making the point that reefs -- as we have known them in the past -- are or soon will be mostly gone. But does that mean that reefs are doomed? (See the firestorm his comments have ignited here) I go back and forth about this but available evidence gives me cautious optimism that we can preserve some semblance of ocean nature --  that is, if we have political and personal will, and if we act soon.  Those are very, very big ifs. The primeval forests of the eastern United States, with their gigantic chestnut trees and flocks of passenger pigeons [...]