[Coral-List] ESA Listing for 82 corals
Peter Sale
sale at uwindsor.ca
Thu Feb 18 15:45:40 EST 2010
Fellow coral listers,
I prefer to silently read the posts by others, but every now and then, I
am forced to comment. Recent posts on the topic of listing of more corals
under the US Endangered Species Act by Gene Shinn, John Ogden and others
show the diversity of opinion out there, even among the scientifically
informed. Rather than comment on whether listing is a useful action to
take, let me take a different tack. (I remain curious concerning the
penchant within the US for listing organisms that live largely or entirely
outside US jurisdiction ? such as the red kangaroo ? but now is not the
time and place for that discussion.) There is such a thing as fiddling
while Rome burns. We are generally quite good at that, and I fear we are
going to go on fiddling until the opportunity to actually take action will
have passed us by. Corals, and many other species, are at risk of
extinction because too many of us insist on demanding too much from an
environment that cannot provide for these wants. I happen to think we
need these other species more than we realize, and that it is in our own
self-interest to change our attitudes and behavior now. We do not need
the US to list corals as endangered to know that management of most reef
areas around the world is woefully inadequate, nor to know what steps need
to be taken to improve that management ? reduce overfishing, cut
pollution, eliminate inappropriate coastal development, and, yes, cut CO2
emissions and reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations in order to
stabilize/restore ocean surface waters pH. In short, we need to start
managing our impacts on reefs, instead of continuing to pretend to manage
them. That means making actual, on-the-ground changes, not discussing
changes, legislating changes, or bemoaning the lack of changes. We could
also start thinking seriously about the carrying capacity of this planet
for Homo sapiens, rather than complacently noting that our population is
trending towards 9.2 billion by mid century. What can one scientist do?
We each can start by doing our best to articulate the problem as clearly
as possible in every forum open to us ? we have a very big problem and
most people are quite unaware of how big it is. When did you last
buttonhole a politician, get an article into a newspaper, talk to a school
group, post on a web-site, get yourself onto TV to talk about environment,
or, especially, work to improve environmental management where you live?
When did you last talk quietly to your family or neighbors about this
issue? When did you set an example? Spaceship Earth is not being managed
sustainably, and its coral canaries are screaming as loudly as they can.
Peter Sale
Peter F. Sale
Assistant Director
United Nations University
Institute for Water, Environment and Health
and
University Professor Emeritus
University of Windsor
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