the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Nov 10, 2025
Two species of coral off the Florida coast have become so few in number that they can no longer reproduce and will become extinct, scientists reported in late October. As with many current extinctions, human activity under capitalism is the fatal factor.
Elkhorn and staghorn corals have been forming colonies of thickets in shallow water in the Caribbean for the last 5,000 years. They provide habitats for very diverse fish. In turn they depend on hosting photosynthetic algae, which give them their tan color and provide chemicals they need to live, like oxygen.
These algae are very sensitive to small changes in water temperature. They don’t survive when the ocean heats up. But the oceans are warming because of heat-trapping gases that human practices under capitalism release willy-nilly into the atmosphere. The 2023 and 2024 heat waves killed off the corals that had survived earlier white band pox bacterial outbreaks in the 1980s—which were apparently caused by waste dumped into the ocean.
Coral reefs are not just beautiful places to visit. They are part of fragilely balanced ecosystems that capitalism is incapable of preserving.