[Coral-List] ICRS2020 and remote meetings

[Franziska Elmer]

Hi coral list,

Just a few weeks ago, Greta Thunberg arrived in New York by sail boat rather than by plane. A single person deciding not to fly, according to many voices here on corallist, an action that makes no difference at all as the plane she didn’t take flew anyways. However, this was an action that made a huge difference: inspiring millions that rapid and unpreceded chances can be made and that the head person asking for them is not afraid to lead by example. Yes, as individuals, we are not as famous as Greta and if I was to sail to Bremen rather than fly, it would not make worldwide news. It would however influence the students I am teaching right now, my colleagues, my friends and my family. If all of ICRS decided to do more to lower their carbon footprint whether it is to fly less, eat less meat, not drive a car, we would influence millions of people together, just by influencing the people around us. Furthermore, we can’t sign a document that screams “governments please act our planet is on fire” while at the same time holding a lit lighter under it, the governments wont take us seriously. If however we can show them that we came up with out of the box and innovative solutions to make rapid and unpreceded changes to how our scientific work is carried out without it having serious negative impacts on the work itself, then they might listen to us.

One of the reasons why I offered to organize a remote meeting in the Caribbean is because like Chelsie, I have been to ICRS before and have been to smaller regional conferences. The later have been a lot more fruitful to me to make connections with people I have not known before the meeting leading to close collaborations and friendships. ICRS was fun and I got to see a lot of friends I have not seen for years but networking was hard because the crowd is so large. Attending a regional meeting but being able to listen to the plenary speakers invited for the global meeting will bring together the best of both worlds and may be the way forward to foster even better networking between coral scientists.

We are at a time of crisis and time is running out. ICRS2024 is not the meeting to show the world how unpreceded changes look like. We need RAPID unpreceded changes, therefore for ICRS2020 and any other work we do next year. Many of us do a lot to lower our footprints, lets collect this information! Let us show the world what we have done since the October 2018 IPCC report to lower our own footprints. Lets highlight the most innovative and out of the box solutions we have come up with. Let’s brainstorm and implement ways we can lower our impact even more! And then ask our leaders to please act, because our efforts can only serve as inspiration, the crisis is to big to be solved by a few thousands coral scientists making changes to their personal carbon budget.

Let’s be an inspiration and cry for help that cannot be ignored!

Franziska Elmer

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