[Coral-List] coral reef conservation, overpopulation, even value of eDNA for measuring c oral cover

[Peter Sale]

Hi coral-listers,
I've been vaguely following the conversation that began with some info on Dendrogyra decline, wandered into reef conservation in general, and then on into our global environmental crisis.  (List-servs can be difficult when it comes to keeping threads clean and untangled - how eDNA got into the mix I do not know.) (There are a couple of useful links at the end of this message - not on eDNA.)

Along the way the hoary problem of rapid human population growth was brought up, and there was a brief flurry of angst as people got accused of ethnic insensitivity and red lines were painted on the battleground - it's all about overpopulation, it's only about overconsumption.

While this discussion may be starting to diverge unduly from a reef-centered discussion, I want to make a plea for two things.  Let us keep our discussions focused on facts rather than politics and let us avoid the far too common either-or dichotomies that seem to prevent people ever holding to a middle ground.  It is undeniable that the average American has a much larger carbon footprint than the average Asian.  It's also undeniable that the average wealthy Asian has a carbon footprint that is quite comparable to that of the average wealthy American.  Average Canadians, Australians, Europeans and Africans fall along the spectrum from high to low carbon footprint.

It is also clear that at the present time, certain lower-income nations have much higher rates of population growth than do most high-income nations, and that many of these same low-income nations are increasing their per capita average incomes quite rapidly.  It is not racist, imperialist, or inappropriate to point out these patterns.  Nor to draw the realistic conclusion that the rapid global population growth, combined as it is with growth in average per capita consumption among many of the countries where growth is most pronounced, poses a huge challenge for the need to cap, and drastically reduce total annual carbon emissions.  It is also neither racist nor inappropriate to observe that, at the present time, the world has yet to bring about any real reduction in emissions.  Instead, the huge growth in production and use of alternative energy has simply dampened the rate of increase in annual global emissions that would have occurred if we'd continued on, business-as-usual, using fossil fuels.  In other words, we are swimming against the tide (of increasing emissions) but not fast enough to begin the overall reductions we need to make.  Coral reefs are caught in the crossfire and not doing very well.

I recently posted some comments on the concept of sustainable development.  I've not been able to decide if sustainable development is a myth or simply a Linus blanket that we carry about with us as a way of being comforted as we fail to grapple with the existential challenges of our time.  In my less optimistic moments, I see the 'cure' for the human experiment in a novel virus pandemic rather than in a flowering of the human capacity for creativity and ethical action.  That is at http://www.petersalebooks.com/?p=3121

If you are seeking sound information on human demography  these links from Ourworldindata.org are useful: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions and https://ourworldindata.org/share-co2-emissions
And if you care about coral reefs, you need to be informed, at least a little, on these issues of growth, consumption and CO2 emissions.  And, no, I do not have solutions that will get us to a future world with lush coral reefs.

Peter Sale
sale at uwindsor.ca
www.petersalebooks.com<http://www.petersalebooks.com>