Charlie Veron on ABC Radio National

Like many coral specialists fifteen years ago, Charlie Veron thought Australia's Great Barrier Reef was impervious to climate change. "Owned by a prosperous country and accorded the protection it deserves, it would surely not go the way of the Amazon rain forest or the parklands of Africa, but would endure forever. That is what I thought once, but I think it no longer." A Reef in Time: The Great Barrier Reef from Beginning to End is Veron's Silent Spring for the world's coral reefs.

Veron, a former Chief Scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, recently appeared on ABC Radio National's "Breakfast" program to discuss the possibility that the reefs could disappear once and for all within the next 40 years. You can listen to the podcast here.