[Coral-List] Whats really killing the corals
Douglas Fenner
douglasfennertassi at gmail.com
Sun Jul 2 03:52:28 EDT 2017
I'm happy to discuss the population problem. Population is only half
the problem, as Erhlich et al themselves have pointed out. The other half
is consumption. The two multiply to produce impact. If population is near
zero, consumption per person can be through the roof and total impact will
remain very small. If per-person consumption is near zero, population can
be very large and impact will be minimal. There is, however, a minimal
amount of consumption necessary for a human to survive. But the point is,
it isn't just population. Population is a popular talking point in
developed countries which currently have low population growth rates, but
often high population densities due to earlier rapid population growth,
they've long ago gone through their rapid population growth period (and
many exported much of that population). Developing countries are the ones
with rapid population growth now. People in developed countries don't want
to talk about consumption. On the bright side, in developed economies
there is strong citizen pressure to minimize pollution that sickens and
kills citizens, and many developed countries have reduced their pollution
from the high levels during the industrial revolution. But it is a
continuous fight.
I do agree population is a problem, and support funding voluntary
family planning, especially where population will be growing rapidly. That
will reduce future human misery and environmental impact, no doubt. I'm
all for it. But it won't save corals, it is way too slow.
All of this is largely irrelevant, because developed countries are not
about to give up their consumption and prosperity, and developing countries
can't possibly get their population growth rate slowed soon enough (not to
mention their population reduced, which to go down must have death rates
higher than birth rates, you can have zero birth rates and the population
will only slowly decrease) to save coral reefs. If you look at how long it
takes to reduce human populations by slowing human population growth, there
is no way to do it fast enough to save reefs. So yes, it is one of the two
ultimate drivers of environmental problems, but you can't solve the
problems of polluted rivers in major cities by reducing their populations.
Short of killing vast numbers of people or forcing them to move against
their will. You can solve them quickly by pollution control and
environmental cleanup, which has been done in many places.
The world's population growth is projected to slow to a stop, but
that will be in the next century, long after most corals are dead. And
population won't decrease until long after it stops growing. We have to
deal with the reality of what is feasible and can be done ethically, and
what can't. Killing masses of people is not an ethical or viable
solution. Check how long it takes to stop rapid population growth let
alone reduce it, and how feasible it is to drastically reduce birth rates,
and you'll see that it takes a long time to stop that train. Unless you use
genocide. I challenge anybody to run the numbers and explain how few
children people will have to have, how they are going to get people to have
that few children, and how long it will take with that birth rate to stop
population growth, and how long to get population down to the level you
think will let corals live. How long do we have, a couple decades, three,
five before it is too late for corals?? Not going to happen, not possible,
(China has had the world's most stringent population control program, the
"one child family" and decades later their population is still growing,
though slower than it would have otherwise. It will be quite a while yet
before it stops growing and even later before it might (might) start going
down.) Population reduction will take an order of magnitude too long to
save corals.
We have little time, and we had better use it wisely to change the
things we can feasibly change, to save corals and the ecosystem.
Cheers, Doug
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On Sun, Jul 2, 2017 at 5:33 AM, John Ogden <jogden at usf.edu> wrote:
> Hello Magnus, You are right. But the problem of ignoring the root
> cause of most environmental problems has been around for a long time. I
> was a graduate student in the 60s with Paul R. Ehrlich, who wrote "The
> Population Bomb" in 1968 and has since written 40 books and hundreds of
> articles and given countless lectures focusing on population,
> disproportionate resource use, poverty, war, pestilence, etc. People get
> "apocalypse fatigue" and the seduction of technological-engineering
> solutions (providing as you suggest opportunities for the privileged)
> trumps (sorry) the population problem. People seem to recognize
> population as a root cause but just don't want to discuss it.
>
> OK, let's think bigly then... Cheers, John
>
> On 7/1/2017 12:01 PM, Magnus L Johnson wrote:
> > I'm not sure focussed regional action will ever make a difference
> (except to keep privileged white folks in jobs in nice places). Saving
> coral reefs (and other important habitats) requires a global change and an
> improvement in education, redistribution of wealth and general improvement
> in GDP accompanied by improved environmental appreciation/awareness. We
> academics and environmentalists need to get out of our silos and think
> "bigly".
> >
> > As GDP increases birth rate falls
> >
> > http://radicaloptimism.org/wiki/Human_Society
> >
> > As education increases, particularly of women, birth rate falls
> >
> > http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2011/highlights13
> >
> > cheers, Magnus
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Phil Dustan [mailto:dustanp at cofc.edu]
> > Sent: 01 July 2017 01:06
> > To: John Ogden <jogden at usf.edu>
> > Cc: Eugene Shinn <eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu>; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa..
> .gov
> > Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Whats really killing the corals
> >
> > Dear Listers,
> > Has anyone thought about a poster that speaks to the fact that
> science, monitoring, conservation, and management have failed to stop the
> ecological collapse of the Florida Keys reefs as economic development and
> "progress"
> > have dominated the region? Maybe the new slogan should be, "Imagine the
> Keys without corals"?
> > Phil
> >
> > On Sat, Jul 1, 2017 at 8:03 AM, Phillip Dustan <phil.dustan at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Dear Liters,
> >> Has anyone thought about a poster that speaks to the fact that
> >> science,monitoring, conservation, and management have failed to stop
> >> the ecological collapse of the Florida Keys reefs as economic
> >> development and "progress" have dominated?
> >> Phil
> >>
> >> On Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 10:51 PM, John Ogden <jogden at usf.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Or perhaps to put a finer point out there, it is the continuing,
> >>> accelerating and relentless growth of the global human population.
> >>>
> >>> On 6/29/2017 2:16 PM, Eugene Shinn wrote:
> >>>> With the Coral Reef Task Force meeting a little more than a month
> >>>> away I pulled out an article I wrote for Sea Frontiers Magazine 28
> >>>> years ago. I was stunned. I think many of you will agree it could
> >>>> have been written yesterday. That’s how far we have come. I thank
> >>>> the late Gilbert Voss for challenging me to write the piece in
> >>>> 1989. Gene
> >>>>
> >>>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.mari
> >>> ne.usf.edu_documents_What-2Dis-2DReally-2DKilling-2DCorals.
> >>> pdf&d=DwIGaQ&c=7MSSWy9Bs2yocjNQzurxOQ&r=mxnjGj1-K1cYCH-JH1g-
> >>> 7Q&m=UqzkE6Flm1f3Eqvw6j3zJCCIUpWo8B5KQfYsbu-xFuA&s=pOgaOVWDB
> >>> 9Fh0uc_0kiq66VyLOEq6HCvV1m6mu7QbTY&e=
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> John C. Ogden
> >>> USF Professor Emeritus, Integrative Biology
> >>> 190 18th Avenue North
> >>> St. Petersburg, FL 33704 USA
> >>> Cell: 727-641-4673 <(727)%20641-4673>
> >>> Email: jogden at usf.edu
> >>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.res
> >>> earchgate.net_profile_John-5FOgden3&d=DwIGaQ&c=7MSSWy9Bs2yoc
> >>> jNQzurxOQ&r=mxnjGj1-K1cYCH-JH1g-7Q&m=UqzkE6Flm1f3Eqvw6j3z
> >>> JCCIUpWo8B5KQfYsbu-xFuA&s=Z_pDuA-0lBPVBR14W4sF4jYYCi9n0qS9Yw6V0Ajdn9M
> >>> &e= https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__biology.
> >>> usf.edu_ib_faculty_jogden_&d=DwIGaQ&c=7MSSWy9Bs2yocjNQzurxOQ
> >>> &r=mxnjGj1-K1cYCH-JH1g-7Q&m=UqzkE6Flm1f3Eqvw6j3zJCCIUpWo8B5K
> >>> QfYsbu-xFuA&s=oeekMFT79MHpRPnZu759D5fSDwQDmZI_lE3sUdtPKn8&e=
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Coral-List mailing list
> >>> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> >>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__coral.ao
> >>> ml.noaa.gov_mailman_listinfo_coral-2Dlist&d=DwIGaQ&c=7MSSWy
> >>> 9Bs2yocjNQzurxOQ&r=mxnjGj1-K1cYCH-JH1g-7Q&m=UqzkE6Flm1f3E
> >>> qvw6j3zJCCIUpWo8B5KQfYsbu-xFuA&s=KVd00r2J-FS9KbWQKRumCgY
> >>> Fq19U4BjVw0kfNB5Jh4w&e=
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Phillip Dustan PhD
> >> Charleston SC 29424
> >> 843-953-8086 <(843)%20953-8086> <(843)%20953-8086> office
> >> 843-224-3321 <(843)%20224-3321> <(843)%20224-3321> (mobile)
> >>
> >> "When we try to pick out anything by itself we find that it is bound
> >> fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken, to
> >> everything in the universe. "
> >> * John Muir 1869*
> >>
> >> *Bali Coral Bleaching 2016 video*
> >>
> >> *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxOfLTnPSUo
> >> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxOfLTnPSUo>*
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Phillip Dustan
> > Department of Biology
> > College of Charleston
> > Charleston SC 20401
> > Charleston SC
> > 843 953 8086 (voice)
> > 843-224-3321 (m)
> >
> > "When we try to pick out anything by itself we find that it is bound
> fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken, to everything in
> the universe."
> > * John Muir 1869*
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
> >
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>
>
> --
> John C. Ogden
> USF Professor Emeritus, Integrative Biology
> 190 18th Avenue North
> St. Petersburg, FL 33704 USA
> Cell: 727-641-4673
> Email: jogden at usf.edu
> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John_Ogden3
> http://biology.usf.edu/ib/faculty/jogden/
>
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>
--
Douglas Fenner
Contractor for NOAA NMFS Protected Species, and consultant
PO Box 7390
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799 USA
phone 1 684 622-7084 <(684)%20622-7084>
New online open-access field guide to 300 coral species in Chagos, Indian
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