[Coral-List] Two news stories about coral reefs
Sarah Frias-Torres
sfrias_torres at hotmail.com
Fri Aug 19 14:23:10 EDT 2016
Dear Phil,
I agree with your assessment. We know what to do to save coral reefs and other ecosystems on Earth.
Yet, we, humans, are not doing what must be done.
Coral-Listers can feel devastated when confronted with the hard truth. We get the Cassandra complex, condemned to foresee what is to come, what we must do to avoid it, while nobody listens, nobody cares, or at least not enough people of the 7 billion and counting cares enough to change.
I don't have a magic wand to fix the problem at once. In dark times like this, I remember the African hummingbird story.
There's a great short video, from Dirt! The Movie where Wangari Maathai tells the hummingbird tale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGMW6YWjMxw
So I'll be a hummingbird, and I'll do what I can.
Sarah Frias-Torres, Ph.D.
Twitter: @GrouperDoc
Blog: http://grouperluna.wordpress.com
http://independent.academia.edu/SarahFriasTorres
________________________________
From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov <coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml..noaa.gov> on behalf of Phil Dustan <dustanp at cofc.edu>
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2016 1:49 PM
To: Robert Bourke
Cc: coral list
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Two news stories about coral reefs
Dear Bob,
The elephant in the room is really 7 billion people on the
planet......and no one wants to talk about it as though it would be
upsetting some moral taboo. The rest of it - coal, methane, carbon, sea
level etc is a consequence not real drivers.....The Club of Rome had it
spot on in the 1970's........
NOAA is too politically greedy, large NGO's have become corporate, the
diving industry is making too much money pushing into new territories after
their customers trash the last place, Wreck diving is replacing reef diving
in the Florida Keys 'cause the reefs are dead........Oh, and scientists
keep asking for more money for "research".
Ecology is really a local sport with local actors - just all over the
planet. We don't need more research, more monitoring, or more
technology...We know the basic principles now and how to put them in place.
We need people to change their behaviors, reproduce with longer generation
times, eat a different diet, and to distribute wealth more equitably.
But all that is too much to ask of the human race so we have situation
like the GBR, Florida Keys, Bahamas, Jamaica, Philippines, etc.......all
over the planet. Our reproductive success is really the driver behind it
all.
And the destruction is accelerating as in Bali this past year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxOfLTnPSUo
All the best,
Phil
On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 11:23 PM, Robert Bourke <rbourke at oceanit.com> wrote:
> Doug & All;
> The discussion concerning saving Australia's Great Barrier Reef
> ignores the elephant in the room.
> At the recent coral reef conference we all listened to numerous
> papers placing much of the blame for the decline of the Great Barrier Reef
> upon two key factors 1) sediment turbidity from agriculture and mining
> operations, and 2) global warming.
>
> Nobody mentioned the fact that last year (2015) Australia mined and shipped
> 150,000,000,000 kg
> of coal, primarily to China. China imports about
> 190,000.000.000 kg per year - primarily from Indonesia and
> Australia.
>
> Why does the government allow this to happen? Because coal exports make up
> about 15% of Australia's GDP (~1 Billion $) and there is no comparable
> measure of the value of the GBR against which to balance the economic and
> social welfare from these two sources.
>
> The solution to this is NOT to use questionable economic surveys to
> inflate the economic value of reefs. NOAA has tried this approach and the
> results are not pretty. Rather we should urge our governments to take a
> broader view of the economic AND social value of all activities so that a
> better balance can be achieved.
>
> Methods to conduct a true ecosystem valuation were developed by ecologists
> cumulating (my opinion) with the work of de Groot in 1992 (Functions of
> Nature: Evaluation of Nature in Environmental Planning, Management, and
> Decision-making). Unfortunately (for us biologists) this methodology has
> been conscripted by the economists. The method was further developed and
> used to create the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) which calculated
> the "value" of all the worlds ecosystems. Fortunately many large
> international organization (mostly outside the US) have adopted methods
> that incorporate the quantification of all ecosystem functions and services
> as part of their large project planning and funding activities. Anyone
> interested in the approach to saving reefs should look into the work of the
> World Resources Institute, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, or
> the United Nations Environmental Program. Many good universities now have
> programs that concentrate on this
> topic.
>
> NOAA, USFWS, EPA and USACE would all benefit from adopting a similar
> strategy based upon analyses of ecosystem functions and services.
>
> Perhaps to save the reefs, one must become an economist........ just a bit.
>
> Aloha
>
> Bob Bourke
> Environmental Scientist
> Oceanit, Hawaii
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov [mailto:coral-list-bounces@
> coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Douglas Fenner
> Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2016 10:40 PM
> To: coral list <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Subject: [Coral-List] Two news stories about coral reefs
>
> Five things we can do right now to save the Great Barrier Reef
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.
> theguardian.com_australia-2Dnews_commentisfree_2016_jun_
> 13_five-2Dthings-2Dwe-2Dcan-2Ddo-2Dright-2Dnow-2Dto-2Dsave-2Dthe-2Dgreat-
> 2Dbarrier-2Dreef&d=DQICAg&c=7MSSWy9Bs2yocjNQzurxOQ&r=
> mxnjGj1-K1cYCH-JH1g-7Q&m=b5Z465Sz0hHCaYr9bVMHUELneUBLQ1
> r_rPZA0HfE1ac&s=nyB2rpbJLgFJ_crVA2Au9m9RNipwE8tEOqnfIH2aUdM&e=
>
> The coral die-off crisis is a climate crime, and Exxon fired the gun.
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.
> theguardian.com_environment_2016_aug_17_the-2D&d=DQICAg&c=
> 7MSSWy9Bs2yocjNQzurxOQ&r=mxnjGj1-K1cYCH-JH1g-7Q&m=
> b5Z465Sz0hHCaYr9bVMHUELneUBLQ1r_rPZA0HfE1ac&s=
> w7ZVq8ZeJ7vyDL16zy9sGRoQ9OAazzpH4L82sSZDbP4&e=
> coral-die-off-crisis-is-a-climate-and-exxon-fired-the-gun?CMP=share_btn_tw
>
>
> Cheers, Doug
>
>
> --
> Douglas Fenner
> Contractor for NOAA NMFS, and consultant "have regulator, will travel"
> PO Box 7390
> Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799 USA
>
> phone 1 684 622-7084
>
> Join the International Society for Reef Studies. Membership includes a
> subscription to the journal Coral Reefs, and there are discounts for pdf
> subscriptions and developing countries. Coral Reefs is the only journal
> that is ALL coral reef articles, and it has amazingly LOW prices compared
> to other journals. Check it out! www.fit.edu/isrs/<http://www.fit.edu/isrs/>
>
> "Belief in climate change is optional, participation is not."- Jim Beever..
> "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own
> facts."- Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
>
> Earth's hot streak continues with warmest May since at least 1880.
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.
> yahoo.com_news_climate-2Djust-2Dphoning-2Dnow-2Dmay-
> 2D193634823.html&d=DQICAg&c=7MSSWy9Bs2yocjNQzurxOQ&r=
> mxnjGj1-K1cYCH-JH1g-7Q&m=b5Z465Sz0hHCaYr9bVMHUELneUBLQ1
> r_rPZA0HfE1ac&s=3FCj39T3ks1LG-qQaMD28hdrDRpibCsMFJsYeStfoAA&e=
>
> The political hurdles facing a carbon tax- and how to overcome them.
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.vox.
> com_2016_4_26_11470804_carbon-2Dtax-2Dpolitical-2Dconstraints&d=DQICAg&c=
> 7MSSWy9Bs2yocjNQzurxOQ&r=mxnjGj1-K1cYCH-JH1g-7Q&m=
> b5Z465Sz0hHCaYr9bVMHUELneUBLQ1r_rPZA0HfE1ac&s=hiSBO9d_
> 4iiAY2D4RWd7sQgAgVyZFLrVSK1zIpFL8Ec&e=
>
> Solar can power more than 100 times America's current electricity needs, a
> new report finds
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.
> theclimategroup.org_what-2Dwe-2Ddo_news-2Dand-2Dblogs_solar-
> 2Dcan-2Dpower-2Dmore-2Dthan-2D100-2Dtimes-2Damericas-
> 2Dcurrent-2Delectricity-2Dneeds-2Dnew-2Dreport-2Dfinds&d=DQICAg&c=
> 7MSSWy9Bs2yocjNQzurxOQ&r=mxnjGj1-K1cYCH-JH1g-7Q&m=
> b5Z465Sz0hHCaYr9bVMHUELneUBLQ1r_rPZA0HfE1ac&s=uyjZnXNfJDROfpONDKD-
> Zggaib7tjwz4M3C3kuYetjo&e=
>
> website: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__
> independent.academia.edu_DouglasFenner&d=DQICAg&c=
> 7MSSWy9Bs2yocjNQzurxOQ&r=mxnjGj1-K1cYCH-JH1g-7Q&m=
> b5Z465Sz0hHCaYr9bVMHUELneUBLQ1r_rPZA0HfE1ac&s=
> qRPdQnvWaVCq7GL2c3SWEN6vJsaOXZVJ8AEZ4QNS_JE&e=
>
> blog: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__ocean.
> si.edu_blog_reefs-2Damerican-2Dsamoa-2Dstory-2Dhope&d=DQICAg&c=
> 7MSSWy9Bs2yocjNQzurxOQ&r=mxnjGj1-K1cYCH-JH1g-7Q&m=
> b5Z465Sz0hHCaYr9bVMHUELneUBLQ1r_rPZA0HfE1ac&s=giWesErTz-
> nKigwXTb7Nxvj3bdYa6QLNrz8WWSyaRWU&e=
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--
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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