[Coral-List] What agency should list corals

Szmant, Alina szmanta at uncw.edu
Thu Apr 4 09:13:07 EDT 2013


I totally get your point, and agree that 'charity starts at home'.  FYI, I had my daughter when I was 42 so at least I lengthened the generation time.  And I am encouraging her to adopt instead of having a child when she comes to that time in her life (she isn't sure she wants to have kids in any case; she teaches middle schoolers).  And I have solar panels on my home, and drive a Pruis, and have become a vegetarian.  But I do sin:  I fly in airplanes, I drink Diet Coke that comes in plastic bottles (but I will walk a mile to recycle that bottle).  We do what we can, and we could all do more.  But too many people don't do anything, and don't even recognize the problem.  That IS the problem.  If the problem were seen for what it is, the collective 'we' would be doing more to resolve it, including dis-incentivizing larger families,  greatly reducing our excess consumption of trivial goods, and stop developing fossil fuel resources (and looking for new ones).

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Dr. Alina M. Szmant
Professor of Marine Biology
Center for Marine Science and Dept of Biology and Marine Biology
University of North Carolina Wilmington
5600 Marvin Moss Ln
Wilmington NC 28409 USA
tel:  910-962-2362  fax: 910-962-2410  cell: 910-200-3913
http://people.uncw.edu/szmanta
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-----Original Message-----
From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Steve Ord
Sent: Wednesday, April 03, 2013 9:31 PM
To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] What agency should list corals




And how would you feel Dr. Szmant if an outside government said that you couldn't have your 24 year old daughter because the world was too overcrowded? Here's the problem: Yes the world is too crowded, and yes food and resources are becoming scarcer because there are more people in the world. Ecosystems are degrading because of human consumption and behaviors at a mass level. But these problems aren't problems unless they start to affect us. And we point the finger and say that this is somebody else's fault as long as it doesn't interfere with our own standard of living. The minute it affects us it's a different story. Would you be willing to give up the ability to procreate because somebody else said the world was too overcrowded? The ability to have children is the most powerful biological driving force in society. To deny one group procreation rights while maintaining your own is the very essence of oppression.

 		 	   		  
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