[Coral-List] Combating the Climate Crisis

Thu Mar 12 19:03:52 UTC 2020

I'm perceiving a perception that "we" all can't  come together as one coral
reef community of scientists, managers, policy makers, and
conservationists  NOW and in recent  past years,  due to the $ cost. And
now  some people have inertia against joining due to the harm to the
environment from the consequences of getting there.  And somehow I feel a
certain % of us doesn't get that, and probably won't eve just becasue they
are who they are.  And now with the uncertainty of air travel as a mode of
transportation, and the immediate health risk  to the population as a
whole  which WHO scientists now classify as a pandemic, travelling to
distant conference is a bonafide behavior detrimental to society.

I also have the perception that ICRS has no desire to implement  now
standard modern contrivances as tele-conferencing.  Its their conference,
their decisions to make but I would think anybody of reason intelligence
would be wondering wtf, how can they ignore the ability to reach out to
thousands more in this urgent time of need when the battle for the
environmental future for the planet may have already have been lost. I
would have to conclude, they are just choosing to keep it small and
specific to their select scientific interest which is their prerogative.

Due the funding sources coming from, governments, government being keenly
influenced by business interests, an ostrich head in the sand behavior by
such economic influencers with issues related to the survival of coral
biomes, ICRS, maybe decided smaller is better. I assume less government
funding means less coral scientist , right? Human nature it what it is, if
you have the power there are ways to eliminate having to listen to what you
don't want to hear. I don't have the knowledge to understand the trade-offs
there, but can see that its reasonable that maybe its a correct decision
for that small group.

Any  economic scientist can share with you the benefits of competition.

I'm hoping only to highlight some issues. I sense people waiting  for
something to happen that ought to as is just seems like common sense an
inevitable, so no reason to put time/effort into an alternative. But, sort
of feel like something else is at play, and highlighting, hey this has't
and just isn't going to happen, time for someone to take on some
responsibilty to make some alternative happen. Time is of the essense, too
much at stake.

Now that streaming/tele-conferencing is taken for granted.

>So instead of coming together as one coral reef community of scientists,
managers, policy makers, and conservationists we should compete with each
other’s interests - sounds counter intuitive and counterproductive to me.

I'm saying at this time its apropos to redefine "coming together".   ICRS
appears to be unwilling to make that change. Thus excluding and causeing
the self-exclusion of many.

I ideas espoused and conversed probably the same.

The competion I see is which hotels/airlines get the $ of the coral
scientists.  Someones getting fees to run the organizations involved to.
And for a small set of people at the top of the organisations, who gets to
feel like they are in a postion of power, which I don't care about.

Although, a regional strategy possibly aids in developemnt of some local
leadership.

Maybe competition hurts the ICRS the first year and hurts it good. They
change or don't. Their role they want to play clarified for all.  The
competition, once it exists, can decide how to proceed. Once they have a
viable alternative established. Tradeoffs of what roles are going forward,
is effort expended to make it all happen worth the expense of $ and time,
get made, life goes on.

On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 9:26 AM William Precht <william.precht at gmail.com>
wrote:

> So instead of coming together as one coral reef community of scientists,
> managers, policy makers, and conservationists we should compete with each
> other’s interests - sounds counter intuitive and counterproductive to me.
>
> BP
>
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 11:58 AM Matt Nolan via Coral-List <
> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>
>> Here is a potential solution.
>>
>> Set up a competing conference that covers the exact same topics at the
>> exact same time as the ICRS conference.
>>
>> Map out the potential attendees.
>>
>> Determine a set of regional locations where one set of the conference
>> topics will be streamed from and made available by video conferencing.
>>
>> Organize the locations so one just has several consecutive marathon days
>> of
>> sessions.
>>
>> if you have two consecutive 6 or 8 hours sessions in one day. Two days in
>> a
>> row. Three days at most.
>>
>> You have deincentivised anyone making a long trip for one maybe two night
>> overnight stay at some distant location.
>>
>> Do some analytics to make sure you didn't increase # number of shorter
>> flights as you may have more attendees.
>>
>> Really compete on price the first year.   Start with some lower fixed cost
>> per attendee to start.  Assume a fixed amount of dollars to be taken from
>> off-site attendees.  Offer rebates to off-site attendees if when then
>> fixed
>> dollar amount desired is achieved  rebate/kickback = surplus / # off-site
>> subscriptions.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 11, 2020 at 10:16 AM Chelsie Counsell via Coral-List <
>> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>>
>> > It is crazy that we've been talking about increasing remote access to
>> coral
>> > reef research meetings for at least 20 years - kudos to Mark Spalding
>> for
>> > making this part of the conversation then and reminding us all now. A
>> small
>> > team of us has been working to set up globally interconnected local
>> > meetings
>> > for Coral Reef Week this July. Check out our website, coralreefweek.org
>> to
>> > find a meeting near you or to get in touch with us about organizing a
>> > meeting in your location.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Also, can we please stop fighting about what path is the best for
>> combating
>> > the climate crisis? Because we didn't take action decades ago when
>> climate
>> > scientists were presenting the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions to
>> > congress, we are now in an alarming position of needing unprecedented
>> > societal change. For the future of this planet and everything on it, we
>> > need to do everything we can, as much as we can.
>> >
>> >
>> > I agree with Luis that we should vote and do all we can to encourage
>> > regulatory change. We should also eat vegan diets, bike to work /
>> carpool /
>> > use public transit, and work to not be the continuous consumers of
>> > manufactured products that the capitalistic market encourages us to be.
>> We
>> > should also fly less. The 3% of emissions number is a really ridiculous
>> way
>> > to justify our addiction to air travel since a very small proportion of
>> the
>> > global population ever gets on a plane, with an even smaller proportion
>> > responsible for multiple long distance flights each year. The 3%
>> disregards
>> > the transportation used to get to / from the airport and the massive
>> > infrastructure of airports. It does not include the water vapor
>> emissions
>> > or the altitude at which the engine pollutants are directly placed into
>> the
>> > atmosphere. Air traffic currently accounts for three times more
>> emissions
>> > than the total emissions of a country like France, and it is projected
>> to
>> > double by 2030. Minute per minute, air travel is the fastest way for an
>> > individual to contribute massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. For
>> > many of our personal carbon emission footprints, flying makes up a much
>> > larger percentage than 3% and should not be ignored as an option to cut
>> our
>> > personal contributions to the climate crisis. Learn more at
>> > https://noflyclimatesci.org/ - check out their Resources page for lots
>> of
>> > great sources.
>> >
>> > ~ ~ ><> ~ ~ ~ ><> ~ ~
>> > Chelsie Counsell, Ph.D.
>> > Quantitative Community Ecologist
>> > Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology
>> > chelsiew12 at gmail.com
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Coral-List mailing list
>> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
>> > https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>> >
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
> --
> William F. Precht
>
>  “You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice
> you have”
>
> Bob Marley
>
>
>