2014-2015 -- 56% of Big Island Coral Died

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

The problem, imo, is over population

glindakine,
There were quite a number of Twilight Zone episodes that addressed this problem and might give you some additional ideas:

Extermination Day - school students take a mandatory exam, if they don't pass, well, it's in the title of the episode

Obsolete Man - Citizens are brought before a panel to determine if they have an occupation deemed necessary for society. The episode has a librarian try to explain what it is he does, and really, what for?

Retirement? - I don't remember the exact title, but upon reaching a certain age, citizens are invited to step into the chamber, please. Sir, are you hard of hearing? Step into the chamber! Please!

“Facts fall from the poetic observer as ripe seeds.” -Henry Thoreau

[TomK]

Thank you, Eric, for keeping this factual and not getting into the personal side of things. The biggest challenge is climate change, not telling people to get back under a rock, predicting the population of the planet or the minutia of sunscreen lotions. Over-fishing does not help, but fixing and to learn how to deal with what's happening is crucial for our future, not petty insults.

Trouble is, you just know that isn't going to happen...

[gogould]

The present Federal administration is dealing with this problem.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/sc...erves.html

[Eric1600]

gogould's article is about overfishing in general and not specific to coral reefs

Terry Kerby has been piloting deep-sea submarines for four decades, but nothing prepared him for the devastation he observed recently on several underwater mountains called seamounts in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

“It was a biological desert,” he said. Where normally fish and crabs dart about forests of coral and sponges, “all we could can see was a parking lot full of nets and lines, with no life at all.”

...

According to a memo obtained by The Washington Post in September, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has recommended that the designations of the Pacific Remote Islands and the Rose Atoll be amended “to allow commercial fishing.” (A similar recommendation was made for another marine monument, the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, off the coast of New England.)

The memo did not mention the largest marine reserve: Papah#257;naumoku#257;kea, a string of mostly uninhabited atolls and reefs that have been largely undisturbed since World War II. At about 583,000 square miles, it is the largest protected area on the planet. (Industry officials in Hawaii are pressing for commercial fishing to be allowed there, too.)

[glinda]

"but fixing and to learn how to deal with what's happening"

Good point. And how, pray tell, would you suggest going about that?

You suggest climate change is the issue, but don't go the extra step to acknowledge that overpopulation is at the root of the changes. That if we were just lower in number the effects of our waste products on the environment would be minimized.

I do agree that regardless of our numbers it would is wise to figure out a system that does not include using the environment as a dump. But at this point regardless of that just our numbers, just the fact that there are so many people alive and in need of the essentials to sustain their lives, is more than enough stress on the eco-system to cause its collapse.

At this point any fishing, any at all, is over fishing. It may look otherwise, but with our reefs as the nurseries for the larger oceans as a whole, one cannot say because the reefs have an abundance of fish we should harvest them. It is when the ocean as a whole is healthy that we would be able to again discuss its management. Until then any extraction of fish is contributing to its demise. But of course there are those, the fishing industry specifically, that would say that's untenable.

And still, this is a symptom of a larger problem, both in the sea and on land. There are too many mouths to feed. Too many people to house, keep warm, transport, etc., etc., etc. So how, pray tell, does this problem get solved without lessening the demand for the planet's resources?

[PaulW]

glindakine, have you ever been on a plane and looked out the window? Overpopulation is not the problem, it's the poor use of resources.
We might even be able to get away with that when we get past peak population.

There are a number of possible fixes for global warming, all of them thanks to science. When it gets urgent enough, I'm sure they'll be applied.
But in the meantime people just hope it'll go away, or propose ridiculous solutions like imposing a police state to regulate births.

[PaulW]

Although I do agree the world would be a much better place with less people.

ETA - oops, getting too far away from Hawaii in this discussion, my apologies. I really really doubt though that sunscreen makes any measurable difference to our reefs.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

So how, pray tell, does this problem get solved

glindakine,
It's not just a matter of coming up with a solution to a problem, for instance, suggesting:

Reducing consumption will lower CO2 production
Reducing the population will help solve climate change

will not achieve results.
You have to get people to go along with it.

It's difficult to get humans to buy more efficient cars, to turn off lights if they're not in a room, or only buy food they will eat and not throw out half a garbage can of leftovers. To suggest a couple should only have one child would help solve overpopulation if you could get people to go along with it. Yes, China enforced the restriction for a time, but how many other nations have a totalitarian government like they have?

How many pregnant teenagers attend our area high schools without even wanting to increase the earth's population? People cannot be forced into not having children, they don't even seem to know how to stop having them. You can't get them to go along with a few suggestions in the Paris Climate Talks without a wailing and gnashing of teeth.

“Facts fall from the poetic observer as ripe seeds.” -Henry Thoreau

[Kapoho Joe]

The Earth is sick and humanity is the virus. The host has developed a fever that will get higher and higher until the parasite dies.

[leilanidude]

Meanwhile, some countries are trying to get their population to increase... Russia among them...