[Coral-List] New leaves and new years, reducing our impact "The Three Horses of Sustainability—Population, Affluence and Technology"

[David Obura]

Dear listers,

Welcoming the new year and thinking about turning over new leaves and
making a difference, this is a topic I think our community needs to, and is
to some extent, address head on.

These are links to a PrePrint article "The Three Horses of
Sustainability—Population, Affluence and Technology", at the PrePrints
journal - https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/201812.0176/v1 - and on
CORDIO's website - http://cordioea.net/ipat-sustainability/.

Back in 2004(I think it was) the ICRS plenary decided to NOT include a
mention of population in the Closing Statement of the conference ... "not
our business" ... from the predominance of natural scientists in the room.
So it's been a bug-bear of mine.

Those reading this list are likely in the 'High' or 'Very High' categories
- whether by the country we are from, or the socio-economic bracket we're
in relative to our co-nationals ... can we put in place the 20-30%
reduction in our personal footprints by 2030, across EVERYTHING we do? If
we can't/don't, there's no reason to expect anyone else to, or for coral
reefs to survive.

Hopefully people will see this not as doom/gloomy, but an indication of how
eminently feasible 'doing the right thing' is ...

Of course, given this is a preprint, comments are very welcome and needed,
for development of future versions!!

Happy new year!!

David Obura

CORDIO East Africa

#9 Kibaki Flats, Kenyatta Beach, Bamburi Beach

P.O.BOX 10135 Mombasa 80101, Kenya

www.cordioea.net ; Email: dobura at cordioea.net; davidobura at gmail.com

Mobile: +254-715 067417; skype dobura; Twitter @dobura