[Coral-List] Why we are failing to repair coral reefs

Greg Challenger GChallenger at polarisappliedsciences.com
Tue Oct 21 19:55:39 EDT 2014


Did you just say we have to get rid of half the world's people?  Which of the quotes in your email does that idea capture?  Perhaps this one.....
	
	"The time is always right to do what is right"  Martin Luther King

I know you weren't serious but it is one possible solution to making the environment more healthy, just not one in which at least half of us can agree..

As the great ecologist George Carlin said......"Save the Earth?  The Earth will be fine....we are screwed".    


Greg Challenger

-----Original Message-----
From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Szmant, Alina
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2014 3:19 PM
To: Peter Sale; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Why we are failing to repair coral reefs

Hello Peter:

I read your essay in Reef Encounters.  All I will add is that if all we (whoever we is) are focused on is saving coral reefs, we are doomed to failure...  Coral reefs are just one of many ecosystems on Planet Earth that are in distress and being wiped out systematically due to the human cancer:  forests (rain and temperate, and all other kinds), wetlands, tundra, coastal plains, estuaries, and on and on.  We can't hope to save one without saving them all, and to do that in the long term, we have to somehow reduce human numbers to half of those inhabiting Earth today.  It may be too late already, but the longer we wait to even recognize the root of the problem and get moving to do something about it, the less likely that this will happen in time to save the organisms and ecosystems we know and value.

Alina


"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." Eleanor Roosevelt

"The time is always right to do what is right"  Martin Luther King

*************************************************************************
Dr. Alina M. Szmant
Professor of Marine Biology
AAUS Scientific Diving Lifetime Achievement Awardee Center for Marine Science 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
*******************************************************

-----Original Message-----
From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Peter Sale
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2014 1:03 PM
To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: [Coral-List] Why we are failing to repair coral reefs

Hi,
I recently penned a comment on why we are, for the most part, failing in our efforts to repair and sustain coral reefs, despite the efforts of many dedicated and hard-working people.  It appeared in Reef Encounter, the on-line news journal of ISRS, and many readers of this list will have seen it already.  Thinking it might be worth wider dissemination, I've now put it up on my blog, with some pretty pictures attached.  You can access the blog at www.petersalebooks.com/?p=1708  and you can see the original in Reef Encounter which can be downloaded from the ISRS website at http://coralreefs.org/  Reef Encounter has lots of interesting content (perhaps even more interesting than my comment)!

If you are a member of ISRS, you could also think of nominating someone to the ISRS Council, and if you are not a member, think about joining this international coral reef science community.

Peter Sale
 

sale at uwindsor.ca                 @PeterSale3
www.uwindsor.ca/sale           www.petersalebooks.com
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