Actor Joshua Jackson took a scuba diving tour recently, and he did not like what he saw.
On National Geographic’s “Years of Living Dangerously,” the “Dawson’s Creek” alum explores the one place on Earth where the impacts of climate change are most profound and yet practically invisible: the oceans.
Wednesday’s episode sees Jackson traveling to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to look at the devastating impacts of ocean warming on the world’s largest reef system and the predicted impact of ocean acidification. He then travels to the Philippines where he looks at the impact of climate change in a place where hundreds of millions of people rely on healthy reefs for food, income and protection from storms. The picture isn’t particular pretty there, either.
“In just hours, a reef that took thousands of years to flourish and grow, was wiped out,” Jackson narrates over some hard-to-watch underwater video.
This particular set of coral was weakened by bleaching, which led to a single storm destroying the ecosystem. Watch the video above.
“Years of Living Dangerously” airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on National Geographic.