'Chasing Coral' Netflix Documentary Shows How Rapidly Corals Are Dying -- And How It's Going Unnoticed

New Netflix documentary Chasing Coral immerges people underwater and shows them how rapidly our planet is dying. The film, which will begin streaming on Netflix July 14, shows the mass bleaching event that is killing corals -- and how it’s going unnoticed.

“Nobody is seeing this, it’s just something that is out of sight and out of mind,” Chasing Coral director Jeff Orlowski told International Business Times.

Chasing Coral cites an important statistic: 93 percent of heat generated by fossil fuels goes into the ocean, which means global warming is directly impacting corals. The film also notes another fact: less than one percent of the world’s population goes scuba diving, which means many humans don’t have a chance to see the alarming situation in person.

Corals come in different species, vivid colors and shapes. They are vital to the ecosystem, supporting more species per unit area than any other marine environment, including 4,000 fish species, according to NOAA. Corals can be affected if ocean water gets too warm or if the environment rapidly changes, such as increase in pollution or overexposure to the sun. Those factors can lead corals to lose the algae living in their tissues. The algae gives the coral its beautiful colors, and when they’re gone the animals turn white, an event known as “bleaching.” Bleaching puts the corals under stress and makes them more likely to die.

This year, the Great Barrier Reef suffered severe bleaching and in 2016 it saw massive bleaching in the northern sector of the reef. Both events left more than two-thirds of the reef severely damaged. Infographics in Chasing Coral show 29 percent of coral reefs in the Great Barrier died in 2016, an equivalent to losing trees from Washington D.C. to Maine.

The film follows Richard Vevers, founder of the nonprofit the Ocean Agency, which brought Google Street View underwater, and Zack Rago, a lifelong “coral nerd.” Vevers contacted Orlowski after seeing his previous documentary Chasing Ice, which documented the loss of glaciers.

Read: Climate Change Damaging Corals In Hawaii Tourist Destination

In one part of the film, the team captures footage of corals in bright yellow and purple colors, which was them trying to survive by producing a chemical sunscreen to protect themselves from the heat.

“It’s like of the corals are saying ‘look at me, please notice,’” Vevers said in the film.

Once Vevers swims up to the surface, he stumbles upon a floating restaurant packed with people and booming music, unaware of what’s going on beneath them.

“This is one of the rarest events in nature happening and everyone is just oblivious to it,” Vevers said in the film as he is shown walking through dancing passengers. “This is going on and no one is noticing.”

Over the course of two months the team saw firsthand how the ecosystem was dying off. The film shows interactive before and after images showing how rapidly corals are dying.

“All of the scientists that we shared the footage with said they didn’t anticipate the changes happening so fast,” Orlowski told IBT. “Two months looked like years and years of change.”

The film was full of emotions too, as scientists and divers saw how rapidly corals were dying before their eyes. The documentary was especially moving when it showed Rago emotional as he saw the ecosystem die before him.

“Zack’s emotions speak for the whole team,” Orlowski said, adding that they had a “hard time to process it.”

“It was devastating watching it unfold,” said Orlowski. “To be out there and see Zack observing his favorite ecosystem in the planet dying [was] depressing, saddening, horrifying.”

However, Orlowski sees a positive aspect from the experience.

“For all the suffering and sadness that experience brought, the positive side is that we have now the imagery to show the world what is happening in the ecosystem,” he said.

The film ended in an optimistic note, reminding everyone that it’s not too late to save corals.

“I think it’s far worse than people think but also far better than people think,” Orlowski told said, adding that solutions are “far better” and “are advancing.”

He said the “clean energy revolution that is happening right now” gives him a “massive amount of optimism.”

Orlowski noted certain changes that have been made to address climate change, including Volvo’s recent commitment to launch only electric or hybrid vehicles starting 2019, cities shifting to clean energy and plans for hybrid planes.

“The optimism is very real,” he said.