[Coral-List] List politics free

[Howard Lasker]

I have been a coral-list reader but not an active contributor since its 
inception.  However, the times they are a changing and I'll jump onto 
this thread.  It is my personal belief that the choices are to crawl 
into a hole and hope everything will pass, move to another country, or 
fight the good fight.

I am still contemplating the first two but in the interim will address 
the third.

There is a lot to agonize about, but I hope everyone on this list can 
agree that it is critical that we stand up to the pernicious, and 
seemingly successful, effort to redefine science as an opinion. What one 
does with the knowledge that science generates is very much a political 
discussion but the conclusion that there has been and continues to be 
anthropogenic changes to earth's climate is not an opinion.

I do not have any expectation that we can change the actions of 
individuals who knowingly distort the facts and misrepresent the process 
of scientific inquiry, but we have an obligation to convince everyone 
else that we are not just a different group of evangelists with our own 
agenda.

Teaching everyone that climate change is real and that we are the source 
of the change is essential to any hope for a reasoned debate about what 
we should do about climate change.

Howard Lasker

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Howard R. Lasker
    
    Director, Graduate Program in Evolution, Ecology & Behavior
  
    Professor, Department of Geology

    Editor-in-Chief, Coral Reefs, Journal of the International Society for Reef Studies