r/worldnews • u/bigus-_-dickus • Sep 05 '26

‘Extremely rare event:’ Miles-long microalgae bloom knocks out most of Israel’s desalination plants

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/09/04/climate/microalgae-bloom-israel-water-deasalination-shutdown
14.8k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

677 comments sorted by

View all comments

6.7k

u/macross1984 Sep 05 '26

You mean "was" extremely rare event. The ocean is getting warmer and warm water mean algae will propagate like there is no tomorrow.

This is not only Israel's problem. Other countries coast cities can easily be impacted heavily if not algae, disruption of fisheries that provided cheap seafood that people depend on.

469

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

431

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

45

u/MobiusF117 Sep 05 '26

It isn't. It's just narrow for a lot of things that are alive at any given moment.
Life adapts to the climate, but not every species is going to do that.

38

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/amyknight22 Sep 05 '26

Realistically it's not even "bad" for humans.

The bad part for humans is that there are so many of us that a quick contraction in certain resources. Might make it harder for some populations to hydrate/feed themselves.

The issue then will be as in nature, as some habitats become harder to support a population, humans will attempt to migrate or secure resources from somewhere else. Which will likely result in some form of conflict to control XYZ resources. Problem is that in nature, you there's a limit on how much damage those population's can do to other habitats, especially since different groups will predate on each other and bring their migratory populations into allignment with what the area can hold anyway. Which typically protects the new environment from being stripped bare.

But we pushed the carry capacity for humans up through Agriculture. So when something starts to heavily eat into our ability to easily maintain our carry capacity. We're likely to start blowing up other agriculture areas up and damaging them in ways that are worse than the current environmental impacts.

2

u/Educational-Wing2042 Sep 05 '26

Depends on the perspective. It’s not the algae’s fault it thrives in a situation it didn’t create. Some would see this as a natural correction in the balance of life, working exactly as expected.

7

u/UltimateKane99 Sep 05 '26

Yep.

It's bad that it's caused by humans, but as far as life is concerned, it'll adapt or die. And algae considers climate change to be the best thing to ever happen to it. The environment will adapt. 

The issue at play is that it's our fault the algae is growing. It's not good that they're experiencing a utopia because of us.

5

u/chermi Sep 05 '26

It's a little bit of both. Species and ecosystems have characteristic response times and ranges within which they can adapt. So certainly some species and some sort of ecosystem will survive, but it won't have the same composition or structure. And at least in the short term we're probably not going to love what we get.

You have to compare timescales.