Sep 10, 2023·edited Sep 18, 2023Liked by Melanie Newfield
Thanks as always for another informative article. I've only seen coral reefs in Hawaii. Last time I was there, I could already see the effects of bleaching in places.
I share your concern about flying. We sandwiched our Finnish vacation between Brenda's race and a family visit to England. Remember that "personal carbon footprint" is a term invented by BP's advertising agency to make us feel responsible for their problem. We're doing the best we can with the choices we have available.
Have a great time in Kenya. I'm looking forward to your posts from there.
Thank you so much John. I'm trying to make as much use as possible of my travel as well. I also got a direct flight from Auckland to Doha, which lowers the emissions compared to the usual route from NZ which lands in Australia on the way. It's a small improvement, but it's something.
I'm hoping I won't have to do a trip next year at least. My visit to Rotorua convinced me I need to do more travelling around New Zealand.
Sep 10, 2023·edited Sep 10, 2023Liked by Melanie Newfield
I am so conflicted about this.
I'm totally convinced that flying less is one of the major things that I can do to try to reduce my impact. But I have a 9-year-old daughter who absolutely loves marine environments, and snorkelling is one of life's greatest pleasures for her. She's convinced she wants to be a marine biologist when she grows up. So I have a classic tragedy of the commons situation - I can fly with her to places where the snorkelling is good while there are still some left, and make the situation worse. Or, we can do the right thing, stay at home, and realistically everyone else will continue to travel and all I will really achieve is that she doesn't have the experiences she loves so much, and which contribute to her love of the natural world. It's awful.
So far, I'm trying to stick to a compromise where I travel the shortest distances for the best result. These are usually short side trips from our main travel visiting family in other parts of the world, which is easier to justify in my mind than pure tourism. And try to offset as credibly as possible.
Sadly, based on our recent experiences, soon it will be getting to the point where the snorkelling itself is just too depressing anyway. Our last side trip was to Bali, where there was absolutely no colour in the coral at all, the whole environment was terribly degraded. There were endless hordes of people, and lots of plastic floating in the water. We still saw a lot of colourful fish, but I can imagine a point in the near future where my daughter will only see corals with David Attenborough narrating what they used to be like.
I get it, it's hard, because I continue to travel for work (although I'm hoping I won't so much in future). I also have family in Australia who I haven't seen for some time.
I have worked on ways to reduce domestic flights, and have so far substututed 6 Auckland/ Wellington plane trips in the last year with the overnight bus.
One of my friends went snorkelling in Fiji recently and saw some really healthy coral, which is exciting. But she was probably somewhere quite remote.
Yes, we also went to Fiji, and the coral was in a much healthier state there. We loved our stay at the Barefoot Manta resort, they have a marine biologist on staff giving talks every day, and they have conservation programmes including coral farming (https://www.barefootmantafiji.com/marine-conservation-fiji). We're not associated with them, but it was really inspiring to see them trying to improve the state of things. We'd like to go back there with our daughter and volunteer with them at some point.
Enjoy your trip to Kenya. I love the reefs and the coral. I hope this is not too negative or preachy. I prefer realistic. Thanks for making me think.
I think, perhaps, the coral is just a shiny object for us humans and only a small subset of us know they even exist and do destination trips to look at them. In that way they are similar to the loss of the bald eagle here in the States back in the Rachel Carson Silent Spring days. If Ben Franklin had gotten his way out national bird would have been the turkey. My point is I think the coral is probably just an early indicator of challenges. We moved away from DDT because we didn't want to kill the eagles on the back of our 25 cent pieces. If it had only been the robins, I doubt we would have sprung into action.
The problem is the ocean is the largest of bathtubs. I would imagine it is too late to "reverse" a VERY SLOW but steady increase in water temperatures. This is, at its root, an entropy problem. I posit that the UNDERSTANDING OF ENTROPY is the most fundamental of things yet I believe it is the most consistently ignored concept in "education". Energy is conserved and the 70% waste heat of all of our actions just ends up in the ocean. Kinda like dropping real hot rocks into a pot of water. Inexorably increase in the temperature of the bathtub.
Perhaps the loss of coral is just the first of many early prices we will pay. I don't think we are built to block this out. Even if people became convinced that cheap beef is part of the problem, we are wired for selfishness and can't resist. How can my eating a smashburger really matter -- it is so good! I imagine that only when something like an ocean current shifts and the circulation of temperature irreparably shifts will we have a call to action. In my mind I cannot conceive of a world where people will not continue these consumption habits. It is not hard to explain the issues at hand. I love my A/C. People react negatively when I say, every time you use A/C you heat up the rest of the world. Entropy is the one rule we seem to ignore and get flustered talking about. BTW the rest of the world heating up is mostly ocean.
I think you're right in thinking that corals aren't going to convince most people that there's a problem. I'm working on an article about seaweed, and I'm sure that won't tip the balance for people either, but I work on the principle that knowledge does help, somehow.
DDT is an interesting one. I think that if we carefully followed what Rachel Carson suggested, DDT might not have been banned at all, but used sparingly in the most important situations. The way I read her work, she was advocating for what we now call integrated pest management. Careful pest monitoring, biocontrol where possible, targetted pesticide use. I agree that harming an iconic species made a difference, but the big part of why people were prepared to give up DDT was the fact it was no longer killing the insects.
It's been years since I've dived a coral reef, but I remember it as magical. I'm very worried about the future of the reefs. Perhaps you've already read this article about a conservationist trying to convince various governments to protect 30% of their reefs. He describes the recovery of damaged reefs over time and believes 30% is a positive tipping point. Sadly, we're currently at 8% protected worldwide right now, but it's better than the 1% it used to be...
Thanks as always for another informative article. I've only seen coral reefs in Hawaii. Last time I was there, I could already see the effects of bleaching in places.
I share your concern about flying. We sandwiched our Finnish vacation between Brenda's race and a family visit to England. Remember that "personal carbon footprint" is a term invented by BP's advertising agency to make us feel responsible for their problem. We're doing the best we can with the choices we have available.
Have a great time in Kenya. I'm looking forward to your posts from there.
Thank you so much John. I'm trying to make as much use as possible of my travel as well. I also got a direct flight from Auckland to Doha, which lowers the emissions compared to the usual route from NZ which lands in Australia on the way. It's a small improvement, but it's something.
I'm hoping I won't have to do a trip next year at least. My visit to Rotorua convinced me I need to do more travelling around New Zealand.
I am so conflicted about this.
I'm totally convinced that flying less is one of the major things that I can do to try to reduce my impact. But I have a 9-year-old daughter who absolutely loves marine environments, and snorkelling is one of life's greatest pleasures for her. She's convinced she wants to be a marine biologist when she grows up. So I have a classic tragedy of the commons situation - I can fly with her to places where the snorkelling is good while there are still some left, and make the situation worse. Or, we can do the right thing, stay at home, and realistically everyone else will continue to travel and all I will really achieve is that she doesn't have the experiences she loves so much, and which contribute to her love of the natural world. It's awful.
So far, I'm trying to stick to a compromise where I travel the shortest distances for the best result. These are usually short side trips from our main travel visiting family in other parts of the world, which is easier to justify in my mind than pure tourism. And try to offset as credibly as possible.
Sadly, based on our recent experiences, soon it will be getting to the point where the snorkelling itself is just too depressing anyway. Our last side trip was to Bali, where there was absolutely no colour in the coral at all, the whole environment was terribly degraded. There were endless hordes of people, and lots of plastic floating in the water. We still saw a lot of colourful fish, but I can imagine a point in the near future where my daughter will only see corals with David Attenborough narrating what they used to be like.
I get it, it's hard, because I continue to travel for work (although I'm hoping I won't so much in future). I also have family in Australia who I haven't seen for some time.
I have worked on ways to reduce domestic flights, and have so far substututed 6 Auckland/ Wellington plane trips in the last year with the overnight bus.
One of my friends went snorkelling in Fiji recently and saw some really healthy coral, which is exciting. But she was probably somewhere quite remote.
Yes, we also went to Fiji, and the coral was in a much healthier state there. We loved our stay at the Barefoot Manta resort, they have a marine biologist on staff giving talks every day, and they have conservation programmes including coral farming (https://www.barefootmantafiji.com/marine-conservation-fiji). We're not associated with them, but it was really inspiring to see them trying to improve the state of things. We'd like to go back there with our daughter and volunteer with them at some point.
Enjoy your trip to Kenya. I love the reefs and the coral. I hope this is not too negative or preachy. I prefer realistic. Thanks for making me think.
I think, perhaps, the coral is just a shiny object for us humans and only a small subset of us know they even exist and do destination trips to look at them. In that way they are similar to the loss of the bald eagle here in the States back in the Rachel Carson Silent Spring days. If Ben Franklin had gotten his way out national bird would have been the turkey. My point is I think the coral is probably just an early indicator of challenges. We moved away from DDT because we didn't want to kill the eagles on the back of our 25 cent pieces. If it had only been the robins, I doubt we would have sprung into action.
The problem is the ocean is the largest of bathtubs. I would imagine it is too late to "reverse" a VERY SLOW but steady increase in water temperatures. This is, at its root, an entropy problem. I posit that the UNDERSTANDING OF ENTROPY is the most fundamental of things yet I believe it is the most consistently ignored concept in "education". Energy is conserved and the 70% waste heat of all of our actions just ends up in the ocean. Kinda like dropping real hot rocks into a pot of water. Inexorably increase in the temperature of the bathtub.
Perhaps the loss of coral is just the first of many early prices we will pay. I don't think we are built to block this out. Even if people became convinced that cheap beef is part of the problem, we are wired for selfishness and can't resist. How can my eating a smashburger really matter -- it is so good! I imagine that only when something like an ocean current shifts and the circulation of temperature irreparably shifts will we have a call to action. In my mind I cannot conceive of a world where people will not continue these consumption habits. It is not hard to explain the issues at hand. I love my A/C. People react negatively when I say, every time you use A/C you heat up the rest of the world. Entropy is the one rule we seem to ignore and get flustered talking about. BTW the rest of the world heating up is mostly ocean.
I think you're right in thinking that corals aren't going to convince most people that there's a problem. I'm working on an article about seaweed, and I'm sure that won't tip the balance for people either, but I work on the principle that knowledge does help, somehow.
DDT is an interesting one. I think that if we carefully followed what Rachel Carson suggested, DDT might not have been banned at all, but used sparingly in the most important situations. The way I read her work, she was advocating for what we now call integrated pest management. Careful pest monitoring, biocontrol where possible, targetted pesticide use. I agree that harming an iconic species made a difference, but the big part of why people were prepared to give up DDT was the fact it was no longer killing the insects.
It's been years since I've dived a coral reef, but I remember it as magical. I'm very worried about the future of the reefs. Perhaps you've already read this article about a conservationist trying to convince various governments to protect 30% of their reefs. He describes the recovery of damaged reefs over time and believes 30% is a positive tipping point. Sadly, we're currently at 8% protected worldwide right now, but it's better than the 1% it used to be...
https://time.com/6307205/enric-sala-ocean-conservation/
That's something at least. I'm only just starting my journey to understand what is going on in our oceans but there are some sad stories there.