[Coral-List] climate change worse than we thought

Lieb, Zoe zlieb at ngs.org
Tue Feb 9 14:25:07 UTC 2021


With a little digging there is ample evidence to discredit the population
argument. It is not the number of humans on the planet, but the
disproportionate consumption of a small number of humans that is driving us
towards global crisis. The argument that we would be better off with a few
billion fewer of us is philosophically flawed and doesn't account for the
fact that a very small percent of us deliver the vast majority of
environmental destruction, and that wealth disparity is what directly
drives the aspects of poverty that lead to unsustainable resource use.
Let's consider who we are talking about when we say that there are too many
people on the planet. Countries that have access to healthcare, education,
and resources see rapid drops in population growth, but those are the very
same societies that exploit resources unsustainably, commodify less
fortunate regions, and dictate the global economy that is driving the
climate crisis. So I suggest we move ourselves away from these simplistic
and self-defeating arguments that the issue is the number of people, not
the distribution of power among those people.


Zoë E. Lieb
Project Coordinator, Allen Coral Atlas
Storytelling
pronouns: she/her

[image: Nat Geo Logo Yellow_Black.png] <http://www.nationalgeographic.org/>
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t. 201 486 1995


On Tue, Feb 9, 2021 at 9:15 AM Douglas Fenner via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> I completely sympathize with the view.  But there is no ethical way to
> reduce population quickly enough to make a difference fast enough to be
> helpful.  Are we going to decide to kill a few billion people to reduce the
> population quickly?  Hopefully not.  I await someone explaining how we can
> reduce human population ethically (let alone even stop population growth)
> fast enough to be helpful.  We need carbon neutral by 2030 according to
> this study, that's 10 years, what do we want the population to be, 4
> billion, 2 billion?  How many people have to die in 10 years to do that?
>
> On Mon, Feb 8, 2021 at 11:41 AM Alina Szmant <alina at cisme-instruments.com>
> wrote:
>
> > What is distressing to me is that efforts to control and reduce the size
> > of the human population is totally ignored as an essential part of any
> > solution.  Trying to cut fossil fuel emissions and replace global energy
> > needs with renewables in the face of increasing deforestation and other
> > terrestrial impacts (and overfishing) that will be needed to support
> still
> > increasing numbers of humans for Earth with food and water if nothing
> else
> > is impossible! We can't do it now with almost 8 billion people,  how is
> > that going to work for 10 billion people? No hope....
> >
> >
> >
> > Dr. Alina M. Szmant,  CEO
> > CISME Instruments LLC
> >
> >
> >
> > -------- Original message --------
> > From: Douglas Fenner <douglasfennertassi at gmail.com>
> > Date: 2/8/21 3:51 PM (GMT-05:00)
> > To: Alina Szmant <alina at cisme-instruments.com>
> > Cc: coral list <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> > Subject: Re: climate change worse than we thought
> >
> > The surprise for me was that if and when coal use declines as we move to
> > renewables, that reduces air pollution, a large part of which are
> aerosols
> > such as SO2, which actually cool the earth.  So reducing coal if it isn't
> > replaced by natural gas reduces both CO2 emissions and SO2, CO2 heats and
> > SO2 cools (we've known that for a long time), and that means the aerosol
> > reduction cancels out much or all of the CO2 reduction in terms of
> reducing
> > the greenhouse gas effect.  And that's if we don't just switch from coal
> to
> > natural gas, in which CO2 is reduced much less (and there are lots of
> > methane leaks, which is a much more powerful greenhouse gas, but doesn't
> > last as long in the atmosphere, but which has been argued to essentially
> > negate any advantage of natural gas in terms or reducing global warming.
> > Could be avoided if the leaks were fixed, but they aren't being fixed.).
> > Sulfur dioxide is a strong pollutant otherwise, causes acid rain and is
> > nasty to health, etc, and coal burning releases other pollutants, such as
> > lots of mercury which is calculated to kill about 20,000 people a year in
> > the US alone, and is the source of mercury in tuna (adults should not eat
> > more than one can a week, children less).
> >      The situation is far worse than we have been thinking, and that
> > includes for coral reefs.  This is not the first or only piece to argue
> > that the IPCC has been too conservative in it's estimates.  I believe it
> is
> > a fact that each new IPCC report basically has said the situation is
> worse
> > than they thought in the previous report.  And we are currently at
> > "business as usual" with no sustained reduction in greenhouse gas
> > emissions.  We haven't begun to make a dent in what matters!!
> >      And that is going to devastate coral reef ecosystems (the dead
> > geological structures will remain for much longer than human lifetimes).
> > Algae will not substitute for coral.
> >      No??.    Cheers, Doug
> >
> > On Mon, Feb 8, 2021 at 7:23 AM Alina Szmant <alina at cisme-instruments.com
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> >> How many people on Coral List read the article in the 3rd link Doug
> >> shared, and what is your hope for the future of coral reefs and Earth
> >> organisms in general (including human societies) after digesting the
> >> information presented?
> >>
> >> https://www.climaterealitycheck.net/flipbook
> >>
> >>
> >> Dr. Alina M. Szmant,  CEO
> >> CISME Instruments LLC
> >>
> >>
> >> -------- Original message --------
> >> From: Douglas Fenner via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> >> Date: 2/7/21 4:48 PM (GMT-05:00)
> >> To: coral list <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> >> Subject: [Coral-List] ocean slicks host larvae; climate change worse
> than
> >> we thought
> >>
> >>
> >> Climate reality check 2020
> >>
> >> It is much worse than we thought, a huge threat to coral reefs and
> >> humanity
> >>
> >> https://www.climaterealitycheck.net/flipbook
> >>
> >> Cheers, Doug
> >>
> >> --
> >> Douglas Fenner
> >> Lynker Technologies, LLC, Contractor
> >> NOAA Fisheries Service
> >> Pacific Islands Regional Office
> >> Honolulu
> >> and:
> >> Coral Reef Consulting
> >> PO Box 997390
> >> Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799-6298  USA
> >>
> >> Social cost of carbon emissions much higher than previous estimates
> >>
> >>
> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/trump-downplayed-costs-carbon-pollution-s-about-change
> >>
> >> A German initiative seeks to curb global emissions of a climate
> >> super-pollutant
> >>
> >>
> https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30122020/chemical-plant-nitrous-oxide-climate-warming-emissions/
> >>
> >> The toxic effects of air pollution are so bad that moving from fossil
> >> fuels
> >> to clean energy would pay for itself in health-care savings and
> >> productivity gains
> >> <
> >>
> https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=c9f70ba54f&e=190a62d266
> >> >
> >> —
> >> even if climate change didn’t exist.  In the US alone, decarbonization
> >> would save 1.4 MILLION lives in the US alone.  And save $700 Billion a
> >> year.
> >>
> >>
> https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/8/12/21361498/climate-change-air-pollution-us-india-china-deaths
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> >> https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >>
> >
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