The stakes of this race extend far beyond the beauty of the islands. To lose these reefs is to suffer a "silent heart attack" of our global climate system. Reefs are the "medicine cabinets of the sea," providing the chemical blueprints for treatments for cancer, arthritis, and heart disease. Every time a species goes extinct due to thermal stress, we lose a page from the instruction manual for the next life-saving drug. Furthermore, these reefs are the primary defense against rising seas and "scary storms." Without the calcium carbonate structures of the reef to break the waves, the ocean begins to "eat" the land, flooding homes and destroying infrastructure.