[Coral-List] Reassessing Coral Reefs

[Judith Lang]

Hi again Steve,
Acting alone, coral scientists can't resolve the issue of our excessive human consumption of fossil fuels. If you and your allies can convince the dive industry to take climate change seriously, that would be splendid because every bit helps; so I echo Peter Sale's comment that, "People might even listen to dive industry spokespeople who argue for action to save coral reefs. Go for it."  

For those interested in mitigation,
We can also add our voices to groups that are trying to reach a wider audience. For that reason, I'll share my experiences with one of them, and perhaps others can do the same with additional examples.

Noting that, "Politicians don't create political will, they respond to it," the Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL) is a grassroots advocacy organization. CCL is focused on generating the political will to pass legislation for revenue-neutral carbon taxes (which is also called a "carbon fee and dividend"). Members lobby politicians, plus their staffers, and engage with the public via letters or op-eds in newspapers and in person at community events. It is growing rapidly, both in North America and internationally, from 42 chapters in 2011 to 257 today. Countries with CCL chapters currently include some with reefs, some with overseas territories containing reefs, and some with foreign aid projects in tropical countries that have reefs (see https://citizensclimatelobby.org/about-ccl/#Chapters). 

In the US, this approach for starting the process of reducing carbon emissions has been endorsed by some prominent scientists, corporations and Republicans. It's also mentioned with increasing frequency in the US national media, but doesn't yet have a sufficiently large ground swell of public support that the US Congress feels any need to respond–so there's still plenty of work to be done.

Judy