Phillip Dustan via Coral-List
4:59 PM May 27, 2021
to Steve, coral-list@coral.aoml.noaa.gov

Ecological Infrastructure is at the heart of this issue.
Translating that to scientists is hard, to politicians more so, and nearly
impossible to the average westerner.
Native people understand it intuitively.
Reefs are sensitive because they are biological entities at the edge of
their evolutionary success.
By this I mean they are superbly adapted to their environmental limits, but
not to conditions they have not experienced the wrath of Natural Selection.
Now humans are increasing the “evolutionary goalposts” faster than
evolution allows for adaptation – or maybe not.
But it is clear we are witnessing (monitoring) a global selection
experiment with humans providing the selection pressures.
I see it much like the evolution of drug resistance bacteria; which
species/ecosystems/etc will survive humanity?
If only Humanity would embrace a Lovelockian perspective and realize we
can’t make it without the rest of the Biosphere as a support mechanism.

I would start by teaching that life is a process, not a thing.
Ecosystems represent the emergent properties of processes and are not
things to plunder.
They cannot be “restored” unless the selection pressures that “guide” these
processes are restored first, not as an afterthought.
You cannot build a bridge without a foundation. The same goes for a house,
road, financial system, an army, or a nation.
The foundations of ecosystems are physical and biological, just like the
foundations for a nation are physical and social.
Humans will (maybe and hopefully) accept these ideas and integrate into
nature.

Biogeochemistry and the evolved conservative properties of natural systems
are what I would want people to appreciate.
Westerners might be able to understand this in terms of garbage picking:
Someone puts their old microwave on the curb for the trashman because they
got a new one for their birthday.
THe next bloke that comes along sees the old one and thinks. “Oh, a
microwave! I always wanted one but…”
He takes it home where it lasts for many years.
The moral is that someone’s junk is another’s treasure.
It happened with oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and the list goes on and on
throughout the food web driving the biological arms race.

Reefs evolved in the sea where there was lots of energy and almost no
nutrients, so selection favored the efficient capture and retention of
nutrients.
A few hundred million years of evolution in a benign, stable, and
predictable place and it is no wonder that nitrogen from sewage and runoff
is like crack cocaine to zooxanthellae……….
And all those fish we catch for food are equivalent to airplane mechanics
that keep our fancy jet planes flying.
It’s no mystery why fishing them off the reef leads to an ecological
crash…….
The list goes on as long as we care to make it.
So how do we become more aware?
Maybe try doing one thing each day to help the Biosphere heal.
Maybe vote with your dollars.
Remember, the ocean begins at your front door….

Phil