Hope Should Not Replace Truth

Bleaching is real

Yesterday, while reading “Vive la resilience: don’t write off our corals just yet” published by Oceanographic Magazine, I felt an unexpected mix of emotions — a sense of genuine hope, knowing that some reefs still show signs of resistance, and yet, a deep lingering doubt.

Far be it from me to question scientific voices — I know the rigour, the countless hours spent observing, measuring, understanding.
But this optimism, as necessary as it is, raises a fundamental question: how far can we speak of hope without lying to ourselves?
When scientists say “not all reefs are lost,” is it a cry of resistance… or a sign of an institutional need to stay heard ?
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As I read those words, I couldn’t help thinking about what I see underwater every week: bleaching spreading like a slow tide, colonies dying quietly, and parts of the lagoon where life simply fades away.
Maybe not everything is lost — but we must still have the courage to admit that some of it already is.

Hope is necessary.

Scientists Live on ProjectsIn science, hope isn’t just a feeling — it’s a condition of survival.

To secure funding, you must convince others that solutions exist, that research can still turn the tide. A project titled “the end of coral reefs” will never receive a grant; one that speaks of “resilience” or “regeneration” almost always will.
It’s human, even understandable. But when science becomes dependent on narratives of hope, the gravity of reality gets blurred.
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And the risk is clear: truth — the uncomfortable kind — dissolves into the language of promises.

But then, which truth is real?

Hope as an Academic Survival Strategy In a world oversaturated with bad news, hope has become a tool of communication.

Institutions need it — to keep public support, to soothe fear, to maintain trust.
So we speak of resilience, of rebirth, of corals adapting to change.
All of that exists, of course; some reefs do resist better than others. But when we repeat too often that “nature can heal itself,” we normalize irreversible damage. If hope becomes an academic strategy, we are no longer talking about science — we are talking about narrative survival:
a discourse fine-tuned to reassure funders, governments, and sometimes our own conscience.

The best way to approach truth is through investigation — not opinion.

Science Under Narrative Influence Science is never completely neutral; it evolves within its era, language, and politics.
When a study highlights signs of resilience rather than signs of collapse, it’s often a matter of framing, not manipulation.
But the accumulation of these choices creates a trend — a form of science shaped by its narrative.
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Not because it lies, but because it selects what to show to avoid despair.
It’s subtle, almost invisible. Yet it changes everything.

It turns science into a kind of benevolent storytelling, where lucidity becomes risky, and hope an unspoken moral duty.
Behind that narrative, however, lies a simple reality: without funding, research stops.

Scientists must persuade their sponsors — public or private — that their work will lead to solutions, not just acknowledgements of failure.
In this system, the language of hope becomes almost a currency: it unlocks grants, European programs, political endorsements.
In other words, to keep working, one must keep believing.

Hope is not in the équation for wildlife

The Sincere but Biased Faith Most scientists I meet are sincere.
They believe in what they do — and they still hope.
And thankfully so: without that flame, who would dive again on a dying reef?
But sometimes that faith in coral resilience becomes so strong it blurs critical distance.

We begin to confuse wanting to believe with seeing what is.
And that’s where danger begins: when hope takes the place of truth, we stop measuring the true extent of loss.
We talk about regeneration without admitting that it takes decades — sometimes centuries — for a reef to rebuild.
Resilient corals do exist — often deeper, between 20 and 50 meters.
But that resilience raises another question: at what ecological cost do they survive?

A deep reef doesn’t offer the same light, the same warmth, nor the same biodiversity as a shallow one.
If the future of coral shifts to those depths, the balance of tropical lagoons will change entirely:
herbivorous fish disappear from the shallows, food chains reconfigure, and coastal fisheries — lifelines for thousands of families — become increasingly unstable.
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In other words, coral resilience does not guarantee human resilience.
It merely pushes life to places where we can no longer see it.

How long to see this again ?

When Everyone Speaks, Who Tells the Truth?In a world where funding, science, media, and politics constantly collide, the role of the field reporter — the one who goes, sees, and listens — has never been more essential.
Because even when science remains sincere, it is rarely free from influence.
Many scientists I’ve met are in the water, day after day, facing the same realities we do. Their commitment is unquestionable.
But the system they work within — the race for grants, visibility, and recognition — can shape how truth is told.
When your next expedition depends on a funder’s approval, when “hope” sounds better in a proposal than “collapse,” it becomes harder to speak without filters.
Some projects blur the line between research and personal ambition, between fieldwork and privilege.
It’s not corruption; it’s the quiet pressure of a system that rewards optimism more than honesty.
When scientists publish opinion pieces or “hope essays,” they often do so with sincerity — but without contradiction, or without the space for facts and data that challenge their narrative.
Few journals give room to opposing analyses on the same topic.
The result is not misinformation, but imbalance.
A subtle shift where communication starts to replace truth.
And this is precisely where the work of independent photographers, divers, and field journalists matters.
Not to oppose science, but to complete it.
To bring back the tangible — what the ocean actually looks like, smells like, feels like.
To show that truth doesn’t always come from a lab or a grant, but sometimes from the quiet evidence of being there, eyes open, camera in hand.

Just the fact not hope

Hope is vital — it drives us to act, to protect, to educate.
But it should never become a filter that softens reality.
Because behind every optimistic sentence are images I can’t forget:
corals white as ash, fish circling in emptiness, once-vibrant zones now silent.

They are not even “white corals” anymore — the coral is gone, replaced by bare rock.

Between hope and alarmism lies another path — that of truth.
To tell what we see, without exaggeration, without dilution.
To remind ourselves that resilience does not erase human impact, and that survival at depth does not equal recovery at the surface.
Yes, some reefs endure. But most decline.

And to speak only of resilience, without showing that decline, is to risk normalizing disaster.

Because in the end, doesn’t this constant optimism serve, ironically, as the victory of climate sceptics?
By reassuring, we disarm.
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By saying “not all is lost,” we delay urgency.
And by the time truth finds its voice again, the ocean will already have changed its face.