[Coral-List] CO2 and the inconvenient truth
Thomas Goreau
goreau at bestweb.net
Sat Nov 4 19:10:39 EST 2006
Dear Paul,
We are certainly not objecting to reducing the standard list of
stresses to reduce on reefs that we have all been talking about ad-
nauseum for half a century with no real impact, we are only pointing
out that these have no real bearing on the causes and effects of
coral bleaching, and it is disingenuous to claim so.
Because coral reefs are affected by so many stresses simultaneously,
all must be abated at the same time, it is not a matter of choosing
those that are cheap or politically fashionable to address. Only
serious reductions in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations can
remove bleaching stresses. just as only serious reductions in
nutrient loading can stop eutrophication.
The fact that if we don't solve global warming all our other efforts
will be for naught does not mean that all these other steps should
not be done anyway, after all pollution will sicken many other life
forms even after corals are gone, and terrestrial sedimentation must
be stopped because we are losing our best soils even if there are no
more corals to smother.
Coral reef countries need to get serious about protecting their real
long term interests by insisting that the UN Framework on Climate
Change, which calls for protecting the Earth's most climatically
sensitive ecosystems, explicitly list coral reefs in that category,
and include a trigger mechanism to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to
levels needed to save them. Otherwise the treaty is just a death
sentence for coral reefs. But at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro
all the island nations were induced to go along by (largely
unrealized) promises of support from the rich countries. rather than
stand up for protecting their own reefs, islands, and people from
global warming and sea level rise. While we must do all the other
right things, we must pressure our island governments to protect our
own natural resources in the international negotiations on grounds
that even though our islands are a trivial cause of global
atmospheric pollution, we are the first victims.
With regard to your last comment below:
They would never invite me to ITMEMS. I was sent to the first ITMEMS
meeting in 1998 from the climate change negotiations in Buenos Aires
by IUCN explicitly to show our global temperature database records.
This was during the height of the coral mortality. The ITMEMS
organizers would absolutely NOT permit to me to speak at the
meeting. They finally grudgingly arranged a secret closed meeting on
the other side of town for me to show the data to only around 10 hand
picked invited people, almost all Australians, but would not let any
of the managers see the data. Wilkinson then declared that bleaching
was not that bad, that no one knew why it was happening, but that
nobody should worry because it was only affecting a few places and
there was so much healthy resilient reef out there. The Minister of
Science and Technology, Robert Hill, shortly after declared in
Parliament in Canberra that there was absolutely no evidence to link
bleaching to global warming. Afterwards all of the people at IUCN who
arranged for me to attend ITMEMS lost their jobs for doing so.
Please take a look at the lovely corals we are growing in Sint
Maarten when you next go there. The best thing we can do is to grow
corals much faster and much more resistant to environmental stress,
which only our method does. I hope we can do so throughout the
Netherlands Antilles as we are doing in Sint Maarten.
Best wishes,
Tom
Thomas J. Goreau, PhD
President
Global Coral Reef Alliance
37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge MA 02139
617-864-4226
goreau at bestweb.net
http://www.globalcoral.org
> Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2006 09:54:44 -0400
> From: Paul Hoetjes <phoetjes at cura.net>
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] CO2 and the inconvenient truth
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Message-ID: <4549F8A4.1050300 at cura.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
>
>
> Dear Tom, James,
> I think you need to also consider this publication (a guide
> to help
> local managers respond to the fact of bleaching, and yes,
> probably
> also handy to find funding) from the viewpoint of the non-
> wealthy
> nations. In Curacao (Dutch Caribbean) at least, but I suspect
> in most
> small island developing states, it is very hard to
> convince the
> decision makers of the need to protect the reefs and the way NOT
> to go
> about it is to stress the effects of global warming to them,
> which is
> locally considered a hopeless problem, and about which they
> are in
> flagrant denial. The fact is that the easy way out for
> governments of
> such islands is to say, "what's the use of allowing
> conservation of
> coral reefs to hamstring our economic development if the coral
> reefs
> are going to be gone anyway due to climate change, against which
> we as
> a small nation are powerless." It gives them an excuse to
> not curb
> nutrient and chemical pollution, erosion, uncontrolled
> coastal
> development, and overfishing of the reefs. This is an attitude
> we have
> to fight on a daily basis in our islands, basically at the
> expense of
> being able to also advocate local CO2 reduction
> The report you are reviling, finally provides us with
> ammunition to
> counter this situation. It basically says that of course
> climate
> change will destroy the reefs if it doesn't stop, but if the
> world
> does manage to stabilize temperatures at some higher
> but not
> catastrophic level (which is probably the best we can hope for
> since
> realistically speaking it is already too late for anything
> else), and
> you still want to have at least some reefs left, you had better
> start
> attending to your local problems while the big guys get
> their act
> together.
> This report finally allows us to beat the decision makers
> over the
> head with (it is pretty heavy)the need to locally reduce
> greenhouse
> gas emissions, AND to safeguard the reefs by costly/
> unpopular but
> sustainable solutions for waste water, solid waste, and
> coastal
> development problems, by providing a framework which
> acknowledges that
> bleaching is with us to stay (until the wealthy nations - but
> let's
> not forget Russia, India, and China either) do something about
> it, but
> then goes on to say that it makes the need to continue
> addressing all
> the other threats to our coral reefs even more essential
> because they
> work synergistically with bleaching and will kill off the
> reefs even
> faster. It may be restating all the things you and I already
> know, but
> it nicely integrates bleaching with all the other threats in
> a way
> that can be more easily understood by decision makers.
> I assume that this is why all the hundreds of managers from all
> around
> the world gathered at the ITMEMS meeting (by the way, they
> were not
> 'paid' by the Australian and US governments; travel and lodging
> costs
> of a number were covered, not only by those governments, but
> also by
> UNEP, and ICRI, allowing managers who would otherwise not
> have the
> means to do so, a unique opportunity to network and exchange
> knowledge
> with their peers) welcomed the publication and did not
> raise any
> criticism such as you do. It's a shame you could not be at this
> forum
> uniting protected area managers from around the world to
> present your
> views there in order to generate some healthy discussion.
> Best,
> Paul Hoetjes
>
More information about the Coral-List
mailing list