[Coral-List] Seasoned perspectives

[Raymond Clarke]

Hi Denny,

I've been lurking here but not writing for years.  I've made your argument
many times when asked about the future of the Earth.  Yes, all is well in
geological time.  However, and I know you know this, we ecologists think in
decades, long-term maybe centuries.  Those concerned with the well-being of
our species must think short term too.  What state will the Earth be in
when my grand-kids are adults?  They will not know reefs that you and I did
in the seventies.  I hope they don't live in an environmentally disrupted
world of political turmoil.

Intellectually I'm okay with our species going extinct and the Earth having
another wonderful evolutionary explosion without us.  Emotionally, my
evolved mind worries about my gene line.  It's survival depends on the
grandchildren making babies.  I know that's why I love them but it is what
it is.

Happy Holidays,

Ray Clarke
Professor Emeritus
Sarah Lawrence College

On Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 4:51 PM Dennis Hubbard via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> Hi Steve. All good and thoughtful questions. Being a scientist does nothing
> to make me immune to all the emotions of sport divers watching their
> favorite dive sites in "decline". However, as a geologist, I have the
> advantage of seeing this as part of the larger evolutionary process; we are
> just one more natural perturbation that the rest of nature has to deal with
> or disappear.
>
> Reefs of varying types have come and gone over millennia. If we think of
> ourselves as just one more geologic-scale threat, it's hard to imagine our
> impact being anything akin to the asteroid impact at the end of the
> Cretaceous. Our impacts are unique and probably faster than most past
> geological phenomena. And, it is likely that reefs will not return to their
> former glory until we are gone. But - we will be gone and something will
> return to take the place of scleractineans - and us as an ecological
> factor. Early reefs were something akin to pond slime but they put the
> oxygen into the atmosphere that eventually allowed *Homo stupidus* to
> evolve - in the words of Samuel Clemens, "no good deed shall go
> unpunished". Initially we had rugose corals and other smallish morphologies
> that were likewise replaced by forms that were replaced themselves... all
> without our "help". The loss of myriad species due the the K-T impact
> cleared the way for scleractineans - was that "good" or "bad"? In all of
> this, we are a blip that will disappear. If there is any justice, it is
> that our demise will be of our own doing and thinking of ourselves as
> anything other than a species competing with others leads to all the angst
> that is our just price for what we do.
>
> Best for the holidays,
>
> Denny
>
> On Thu, Dec 19, 2019 at 1:18 PM Steve Mussman <sealab at earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Dennis,
> >
> > Do you suppose science allows for some level of emotional involvement?
> > The term “ecogrief” comes to mind.  I’m suffering from it and I imagine
> so
> > are multitudes of others. Scientists can try to shield themselves against
> > any intrusion on their objectivity, but they can’t be totally immune. I
> > would think those with more well-developed baselines would have greater
> > susceptibility.  I know that witnessing changes firsthand over many
> decades
> > now has had a profound impact on my perspective. That and the time
> > restraints that come with aging leads me to believe that seasoned
> > researchers might be inclined to harbor somewhat of a greater sense of
> > urgency.
> >
> > Steve
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Sent from EarthLink Mobile mail
> >
> >
> > On 12/18/19, 6:30 PM, Dennis Hubbard <dennis.hubbard at oberlin.edu> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Hi Steve:
> >
> >
> > I'm sure you are familiar with this but, just in case, papers by Jackson,
> > Paulay and others have eloquently addressed the facts that a) reef
> decline
> > has taken different pathways since before Columbus and b) different
> > generations have different perspectives of decline (both magnitude and
> > causes) because they  have different baselines than those on either side
> of
> > them chronologically (the often discussed "shifting baseline syndrome").
> > More recently, this has been complicated by advocacy groups arguing for
> the
> > primacy of their "fix" - no tourism, vegetarianism, exclusion zones vs
> > better advertising that stepping on corals is bad for them; we've had
> > plenty of examples on the listserve. In the "old days", we had the luxury
> > of a slowly advancing problem (in fact, most of us probably thought reefs
> > were "fine" when we started out careers decades ago. I can't prove it,
> but
> > I strongly suspect that the "pristene" reefs I worked on in the 70s were
> a
> > lot more negatively impacted than I or my colleagues knew. Just go back
> and
> > look at the proceedings from Bob Ginsburg's volume based on "reef status"
> > studies by the major reef workers at that time. I have vivid memories of
> > everyone bemoaning the declining numbers in their long-term surveys. I
> > asked the simple question, "How many people in this room, when choosing
> the
> > place they would study for the rest of their career, say "I'm going to
> look
> > at the crummiest most degraded reef I can find?" The end result then (as
> I
> > suspect is still the case today to some degree) is that those long-term
> > sites may have has no place to go but down.
> >
> >
> > Just think about how our approach to "reef study" has changed over the
> > careers of we "geezer scientists". The first two ISRS meetings were
> > dominated by advancing our scientific understanding of ecological
> processes
> > on modern reefs. Then, as we started to see things changing, we invented
> > monitoring and session after session in meeting after meeting were
> > dedicated to advocating the best way to create data on quantify  the
> > changing state of reefs (most of these focused on counting corals) -
> point
> > counts versus quadrats versus chain transects... and on.... and on).
> > Increasingly, we have shifted from broadly describing reefs to measuring
> > specific communities, to monitoring how they have changed and now
> > "management". We argued over "no take" zones versus "management schemes"
> > and have now broadened the discussiion to argue for specific management
> > scenarios as we realize that by the time we figure out how to quantify
> how
> > bad things really are, there will be no reefs left to manage.
> >
> >
> > So, to answer your question ("do you suppose that there is some
> measurable
> > difference in attitude and approach between the more “seasoned” veterans
> of
> > coral reef wars and those just entering the fray?"), "just look at the
> > liastserve over the past 3-4 years". To fittingly quote "Firesign
> Theater"
> > (for the younger crowd, that's the early Holocene version of Saturday
> Night
> > Live", "we're all bozos on this bus.
> >
> >
> > Denny
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> >
> > Coral-List mailing list
> >
> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> >
> > https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Dennis Hubbard
> >
> > Chair, Dept of Geology-Oberlin College Oberlin OH 44074
> >
> > (440) 775-8346
> >
> >
> >  "When you get on the wrong train.... every stop is the wrong stop"
> >
> >  Benjamin Stein: "Ludes, A Ballad of the Drug and the Dream"
> >
>
>
> --
> Dennis Hubbard
> Chair, Dept of Geology-Oberlin College Oberlin OH 44074
> (440) 775-8346
>
> * "When you get on the wrong train.... every stop is the wrong stop"*
>  Benjamin Stein: "*Ludes, A Ballad of the Drug and the Dream*"
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