[Coral-List] The Irony of the Pope's science - is it's selectivity.

[David M. Lawrence]

Several decades ago I was part of a coalition that took on the federal 
government to force it to honor its agreement to preserve a substantial 
amount of bottomland hardwood forest in Louisiana.

If the component groups had insisted on ideological purity among all the 
other members of the coalition, we never would have succeeded in 
standing up to President Reagan and his OMB director, David Stockman, 
and the land -- one of the largest remnant tracts in the Mississippi 
River Valley -- would have been lost.

L O S T.

The main guy behind the coalition, Skipper Dickson, didn't care what 
party was listed on your voter registration card, however. He cared 
about whether you wanted join us in saving that forest. Ducks Unlimited 
joined us.  The Sierra Club joined us.  A hell of a lot of National 
Rifle Association members joined us.  Some Unitarian Universalists 
joined us.  Working together, we convinced 30,000 folks from around the 
country to send letters to their congressmen asking them to support our 
effort.

We won.  That successful effort led to more successful efforts 
protecting more endangered bottomland habitat in other parts of Louisiana.

All that land, from the Tensas National Wildlife Refuge to the other 
lands subsequently protected, would have been cut over -- all that 
habitat and a lot of the resident species lost -- if we had been a been 
a bunch of whiny partisans insisting that we can only work with folks 
who agreed 100 percent with us on everything.

Sure, human population is a problem -- a big problem with respect to 
resource use, habitat destruction, etc.  What Pope Francis did was to 
make the environment a priority among the world's Roman Catholics, and 
that will in time get the attention of others in the Christian community.

And when more of the faithful, Roman Catholic or otherwise, begin to 
consider their impact on the environment, progress on other fronts of 
importance to the environmental community should follow.

So instead of criticizing Pope Francis for not being on board with 
respect to population, we should be praising him and others like him for 
being willing to share the part of the journey he can, given the 
historical and political constraints of his position, take with us.

Dave

On 6/25/2015 10:22 AM, Durwood M. Dugger wrote:
> While I would agree that it is ironic that the Pope is seemingly embracing science - I think the irony is his selectivity in the science he embraces. He still leads a major religion that doesn’t support birth control and or a woman’s right to control her reproductive destiny. This is hypocrisy at its worst - lecturing the world on climate change and environmental degradation (Did he forget to mention critical resource depletion conflicts - also known as war?) all the while enabling, encouraging - if not demanding unlimited population growth. Over population is the primary cause of all anthropogenic climate change, environmental degradation and resource conflicts. Perhaps neither climate science nor the world of political (includes religion) manipulation are as simple as many of you seem to think.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Durwood M. Dugger, Pres.
> ddugger at biocepts.com <mailto:ddugger at biocepts.com>
> BCI, Inc. <http://www.biocepts.com/BCI/Home.html>
> On Jun 24, 2015, at 12:00 PM, coral-list-request at coral.aoml.noaa.gov <mailto:coral-list-request at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: Spratly Island update (Ulf Erlingsson)
>    2. Ecology of Caribbean Reef Fishes in Puerto Rico, USA
>       (Mithriel MacKay)
>    3. Re: Confirmation bias (Douglas Fenner)
>    4. climate Change "deniers" (David Evans)
>    5. CNN broadcast coral reef restoration (Sarah Frias-Torres)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 10:39:05 -0400
> From: Ulf Erlingsson <ceo at lindorm.com>
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Spratly Island update
> To: coral list <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Message-ID: <2F67D62E-F214-4C73-B700-8F4D3F88523D at lindorm.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset=us-ascii
>
> I have to make an amendment to my statement. Since the islands in question are actually in Philippine waters, it would be wrong to ask the Chinese for permission to come in and monitor it. The request should be to the Philippine government, and since they don't have the military to back it up with, a separate request should go to the White House to provide military escort for the mission should the Philippine government request it.
>
> On 2015-06 -23, at 8:12 , Ulf Erlingsson wrote:
>
>> On 2015-06 -22, at 17:02 , Douglas Fenner wrote:
>>
>>> Here we are, we're all
>>> doing our level best to save reefs against huge odds, and these people are
>>> deliberately destroying reefs and saying that the damage is "localised,
>>> temporary, controllable and restorable".  If so, let international
>>> scientists come in and take data and verify what you say.  There is no way
>>> they would allow that.
>> I love the idea! It could be made as a public petition that people can sign online.
>>
>> Ulf Erlingsson, Ph.D.
>> President and CEO
>> Lindorm, Inc.
>> 10699 NW 123 St Rd
>> Medley, FL 33178
>>
>> http://lindorm.com
>> ceo at lindorm.com
>> +1-305 888 0762 office
>> +1-305 308 6334 mobile
>> BB PIN 2BEC98FE
>>
>>
>>
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 13:14:23 -0500
> From: Mithriel MacKay <mithriel.mackay at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Coral-List] Ecology of Caribbean Reef Fishes in Puerto Rico,
> 	USA
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAMzFUZ_Az9qfNQ24JsWE=Cyoren9f=qZsOoKyY1q0=g4gtP0nw at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> The Marine and Coastal Ecology Research Center has summer field intensive
> programs posted.
>
> The Ecology of Caribbean Reef Fishes and several other one week programs
> are offered at the field station in Puerto Rico USA. Prices are being
> subsidized by the coastal center to keep them low for interested university
> students and graduates.
>
> No experience required!
>
> For details and a list of other programs being offered this summer in the
> Caribbean, please visit the website (www.Marine-Eco.org) and Education Hub (
> www.Marine-Eco.org/mcerc-moodle). You can see our photo Gallery at
> www.Marine-Eco.Jindo.com
>
> Questions not covered on the links above? Wrire to Dr. MacKay at mcerc.
> mail at gmail.com.
>
> See you in the Caribbean!
>

-- 
------------------------------------------------------
  David M. Lawrence        | Home:  (804) 559-9786
  6467 Hanna Drive         | Cell:  (804) 305-5234
  Mechanicsville, VA 23111 | Email: dave at fuzzo.com
  USA                      | http:  http://fuzzo.com
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