[Coral-List] 1. scientists watching their life's work disappear (Douglas Fenner)

Tue Oct 31 17:37:47 UTC 2023

Thank you David,

For change that benefits Earth,

Judy Lang
www.agrra.org

> On 31 Oct 2023, at 00:33, David Obura via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
> 
> Thanks Doug for posting this ...
> 
> I only get the digests, so not sure if there’s been some follow up on this in the last day or two that I haven’t seen, so apologies if I’m rehashing/missing something here ...
> 
> There’s an important message here, that isn’t just 6 down, its the headline of the piece and the front cover of the New York Times magazine this week - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/02/magazine/past-issues-sunday-magazine.html. That’s a &%$#&*!! big deal … and its the message that made that photo!! (certainly not the model!!)
> 
> This is a message that I think is critical for coral reefs as I don’t believe any of our tinkering will work without full transformation of the global economy … and the core of the message is that its not ‘everyone’ on the planet that needs to change (ie global population) its the wealthiest 10% (and of course more so for the 1% and the 0.01%).
> 
> I’ve pasted below the text that the writer culled from my interview, and a longer piece on it is at this link - https://davidobura.medium.com/is-10-40-50-the-answer-e35c3e0de89f
> 
> The bigger picture to this is that in the last 2 months I’ve been in the running for 2 of the top global science/policy/conservations positions, and got one - chairing the IPBES platform (www.ipbes.net for those that don’t know it).  I take all of this to mean that the message that my science has led me to is the one that resonates with the emerging global sense of what we need to do - and I (we!) need to stop being polite about it.   We need to stop banging on about ‘global population’ and put responsibility squarely where it lies, the wealth-oriented production/capitalist system, which means the capital owners that run the system that benefits the top of the income pyramid - loosely identifiable as "the top 10%” etc etc.
> 
> In ICRS and ICRI we have consistently shied away from saying this in order not to displease ourselves, our  financiers, and the main supporting countries (all in that top tier) and this has to stop!!
> 
> I know this will resonate with many on the list, so get out your bull-horn, whether it is science, communication, community or private-sector based and blow it loud!!
> 
> For change ...
> 
> David
> 
> 
> David Obura - Coral Reefs
> 
> Obura has been studying coral reefs since 1992. During that time, the world’s oceans have lost perhaps a quarter of their coral.
> In 2000, I got the chance to go to the Phoenix Islands in Kiribati. The good reefs had 80 percent coral cover, really vibrant and colorful and bright. And the fish were incredible. There were highways of fish swimming up and down the reefs, sharks everywhere and dolphins. We thought, OK, these reefs are so far away from everybody, we can help protect them. And then there was a mass bleaching event in the Central Pacific.
> 
> By the time we could go back, a few years later, they had been completely hammered by warming. They were just decimated. The corals were all rubble and broken up by the waves. It was all brown with algae. Fish were still there, but not the same coral-dependent fish. It was so much more bland and drab. Of course, intellectually I knew that nowhere would be safe from heat stress and bleaching and climate change. But this was a place that had been safe so far from everything else. And yet it wasn’t immune. To me, that was a wake-up call.
> 
> I’m working really hard to point fingers at what we need to do. What’s driving the decline of coral reefs is carbon dioxide and fossil fuels and overconsumption. The consumption levels in the top 10 percent are so high and capture so much of the planet’s resources. Energy is not the primary thing; it’s just a facilitator. It facilitates this desire for consumption: for fashion, for burgers, for products. In real physical terms, we need to shift how we consume on the planet, because we have exceeded the limits.
> 
> David Obura PhD, MBS
> https://linktr.ee/davidobura; Twitter @dobura
> 
> Chair, IPBES (Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services)
> Member, Earth Commission
> 
> CORDIO East Africa, #9 Kibaki Flats, Kenyatta Beach, Bamburi Beach, P.O.BOX 10135 Mombasa 80101, Kenya
> Email: dobura at cordioea.net  --  davidobura at gmail.com
> www.cordioea.net
> Mobile: +254-715 067417
> On 29 Oct 2023 at 19:05 +0300, coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov, wrote:
>> 
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2023 10:46:19 -1000
>> From: Douglas Fenner <douglasfennertassi at gmail.com>
>> To: coral list <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
>> Subject: [Coral-List] scientists watching their life's work disappear
>> Message-ID:
>> <CAOEmEkF7PkNGTUcfPbKaTpx4mTv9aJ=8M=87XKVqhs3L6ZmUaA at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>> 
>> About the 6th scientist down (David Obura) works on coral reefs. It's a
>> brief read.
>> 
>> https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/magazine/extinction-species-scientists-climate-change.html
>> 
>> Cheers, Doug
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list