[Coral-List] 7 Billion Question RE: What agency should list corals

Fri Apr 5 10:05:34 EDT 2013

Excellent ideas!

Q

Quenton Dokken, Ph.D.
President/CEO
Gulf of Mexico Foundation, Inc.

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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 Jim Hendee
Sent: Friday, April 5, 2013 8:39 AM
To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] 7 Billion Question RE: What agency should list
corals

I like Sarah's refreshing enthusiasm, and with proper deference to the
originators of the "Arab Spring" phrase, the next three years of
successful efforts she's proposed might come to be known as the "Coral
Spring." We could use one of those.   Sounds like a nice rallying point.
  There are quite a number of coral-related Facebook pages. Who shall
champion them all in a single effort and make the plight known?   Coral
Nation stand up!

There's a movie being made in 2014 (has nothing to do with corals) in
which some of the proceeds will be earmarked for a coral conservation
effort.  I'll see what I can do to earmark those funds for this coral
spring or coral nation or whatever somebody decides to call this effort
on Facebook...if it comes to pass.  Perhaps other big money industries
will get behind this, too! 

On 4/4/13 1:33 PM, Sarah Frias-Torres wrote:
> I've been following some of the interesting exchanges in Coral-List and I
can't hold my horses (or seahorses) any longer.
> Here are three quick comments and the 7 billion question:
> 1) We think "people" and the "environment" as two separate entities. The
paradigm shift will arrive when we identify ourselves with the environment.
When we accept we are all one and the same, and if we kill the oceans, we
kill ourselves. Such awakening has not yet arrived. 
> 2) Oppression is taking away women's rights to control their own
reproductive output. Roughly 70 % of women in the world are denied full
education and forced in some way or another to become baby-making machines.
That's a result of religion, society, poverty or a combination of all. When
women have access to education beyond elementary school and can control
their own reproductive rights, their choice is quality over quantity,
delaying over a decade or more the age of having their first child, choosing
to have replacement rate numbers or no children at all.
> 3) Since beyond Paleolithic times, we've obtained energy burning
something. That's almost our entire evolutionary history, assuming
Australopithecus afarensis didn't know how to make fire.  Using non-burning
green sources of energy is very new, but a behavior we must instantly
acquire to avoid total disaster.
> Finally, James Lovelock recently said that the maximum carrying capacity
of our planet was reached before the Industrial Revolution. Any increase in
human population beyond that point was due to burning fossil fuels (coal,
oil, gas) or using fossil fuel derivatives that increased food production
(artificial fertilizers, etc). The world population before the Industrial
Revolution was 1 billion. We are now 7 billion and growing.
> Too many people, using too many resources, and apparently not caring
enough.
> So here's the 7 billion question: Can we mobilize enough people to make a
paradigm shift within the next 3 years?
> Well, Facebook has roughly 1 billion users. If it was a country, it will
be the third most populated country in the world, just behind China and
India. It will be interesting that the 1 billion Facebookers, the same
population size before the Industrial Revolution, got their ducks in a row
and mobilized the rest of the world into action. 
> Just a thought. Any takers? ... and if someone knows Mark Zuckerberg,
please forward my message to him.
>
> Sarah Frias-Torres, Ph.D. 
> Twitter: @GrouperDocBlog:
http://grouperluna.wordpress.comhttp://independent.academia.edu/SarahFriasTo
rres
>
>
>> From: szmanta at uncw.edu
>> To: johnbell32 at outlook.com; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
>> Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 09:13:07 -0400
>> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] What agency should list corals
>>
>> 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).
>>
>> *************************************************************************
>> 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
>> *******************************************************
>>
>>
>> -----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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>>
>>
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