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TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-08-30
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGdHQX_LeI0
as a kid growing up in Canada one of my dreams was almost to move to Florida I thought to be the coolest thing in the world so as an adult of actually manage to do that but in the window on the way I also learned through apparently a lot of other people have that same idea and apparently about one thousand people move to Florida everyday we
now have almost twenty two million residents and we are the third largest state in the country double the population we had in nineteen eighty if you can see from this we tend to have a predilection to living in certain parts of the state most Floridians would consider themselves to be coastal residents and in fact sixteen million of us live in coastal counties that only a few
feet above sea level now having said that given where we are I would also argue that folks who live in the interior of the state are also coastal soon if coastal doesn't just mean the outline of the state if you think of what a meteorologist is giving the track of incoming hurricane that line in no way covers the area of impact of that storm coastal includes
everything as far inland as the marine environment influences an offshore the sparse the terrestrial environment influence this equates to about a hundred miles inland would include our land think of our afternoon sea breeze collision thunderstorms that's of marine origin so if all of Florida is coastal and all Floridians for coastal citizens we should all be concerned about post wishes because in some way or another were
contributing to those problems in the summer of twenty sixteen there was a major toxic algal bloom in South Florida there was a lot of political debate there's finger pointing numerous headlines people are concerned about their health tourism was decimated people's lives were turned upside or scare now as a biologist I might describe a little differently so bear with me from home while trying to history to
point because I biologist might find this whole scenario somewhat differently than you saw in the media that was a biologist I would say that South Florida had a massive bloom of microscopic cyanobacteria also known as blue green algae which is actually a member of the phylum of bacteria which has a three point five billion year old fossil record these microorganisms are also known to produce a
variety of talks including neurotoxins and a pedal talks ingestion or inhalation of even small quantities of this can result in asthmatic reactions allergic reactions intestinal distress it can result in larger volumes and neurological problems were complete affect the paddock failure if the balloon goes on for very long can result in massive fish die offs further damaging ecosystem and exacerbating the social and economic impacts on the
community fair enough biology professor speak we get back to English for awhile the point is that it's very important for us to speak clearly and correctly it's also important be understood everything I just told you was biologically correct but it may not even understand the board maybe not even relevant the academics tend to use a lot of jargon if we're gonna deal with coastal issues we
have to speak understandably it's one of the sorts of issues were dealing with we hear about new and emerging threats to our environment and our way of life every day we hear about coastal storm surge coastal erosion we hear about toxic algal blooms which are different from cyanobacteria blooms we hear about invasive does the invasive animals we we hear about emerging disease issues like Zeca and
on and on and on South Florida routinely experiences nuisance flooding every afternoon this disrupts people's lives through road closures through overwhelm storm drains compromised infrastructure the splits or anything related to true storms these happen on the high tide simply as a result of land subsidence sea level rise perhaps removal of natural barriers not so long ago Florida's coastline looked quite different than it does for the
we could look different again in the future so how do you deal with these threats some people would suggest that even these complex problems have relatively simple solutions unfortunately I doubt if that's going to be true our challenge is going to be to be able to develop approaches the don't strain our ability to implement them the engage stakeholders and ultimately result it's safe coastal system some
of so just technology will find the solutions that may well be true but it's not going to be the whole solution it's going to require a team approach interdisciplinary teams are pretty common in the business world sadly there are actually quite rare in academia universities are a tremendous source of intellectual power store Klay faculty and students are organized into departments academic silence the Solomon Talib he
really doesn't encourage cross disciplinary action but to be very effective so we need to tear down the silos and have people of different disciplines working in close proximity to one of the interdisciplinary also needs to mean more than just stem we can't solve these problems with just biologists chemists and engineers we need to include the social sciences as well that's been lacking in the past so
how do we move forward first this may seem like a pretty simple one we have to have people working in a common work environment bumping into a colleague as you walk across campus is not adequate second we have to share a common language I said earlier academics tend to use jargon the unfortunate thing is sometimes a word has a different meaning in different disciplines so here's
our there's a little act action contrived define the term health most people here would probably use a definition like the World Health Organization where it's a state of complete physical mental and social well being and not merely a lack of disease or of infirmity so that means it could be mental health or physical health could also be social health no sociologist they say that social health
is the ability to form lasting interpersonal relationships economist could walk in the room say well you know a healthy economy is one with growth high employment stable prices I'm a biologist I'm gonna look at population safe look at basically use these kinds of of definitions to apply to individual animals or perhaps a population or might extend it further and look at an ecosystem and see how
different species are incorrect so it's just ultimately it's going to be all those because we all inter relate we sure you'll instrument scale list down from a whole state issue coastal wish you globally down to a smaller scale before I came to UCF I was a professor at Texas AM university and was also the volunteer director of them remember stranding network please volunteer networks are found
in every coastal state and the rule is to try and assess the cause of death in an animal that comes ashore dead or to aid in the care of an animal that comes ashore alive the Texas network is one of the busiest in the country they can respond to over three hundred dolphins here most of them dead but not all some of them were alive and
in the process of doing this when I suddenly realized what I didn't think about it at the time as much is that this is an incredibly interdisciplinary faction you're you're dealing with lots of people of varying disciplines and backgrounds from the engage citizens on the beach who report the stranding it may give initial first aid they help in transport through the initial treatment an assessment of
the animal through the long term rehabilitation process and hopefully eventually the release of the animal back to the wealth you have people who are lay people who have never even seen a dolphin to university faculty and students federal and state agencies veterinarians food suppliers news media celebrities you have everybody involved in this thing and the key thing is all of them have a common goal it's
very clear to rescue the animals it's very quick to be very quickly realize that they also need a common language because a misunderstanding could literally be the difference between life or death can a skillet back up very few of the issues that we face in terms of coastal systems are gonna have simple solution sadly we are more than likely going to see repeats of the devastating
events of the summer of twenty sixteen or something similar to it people still gonna push the simple fix but ultimately for him before work we need to fully integrate science and societal needs we need to break down the silos we need to have biologists chemists and engineers working side by side with him through college sociologist economists planners policy people we need to fully engage all the
users of the stakeholders communities government and industry we need to recognize the linkage between the economic security coastal communities and the ecological security of coastal ecosystems we have to rethink the whole coastal region and think of a cousin integrated social economic and ecological system only then can we really start to assess policy development planning and environmental stewardship I've put together that team I got a team
at UCF the faculty covering all those disciplines and more in fact from twelve different departments in seven colleges and we're tackling the issues of coastal sustainability the health of coastal ecosystems and ultimately the survival of coastal communities how we deal with this in fifty years will be radically different than we do to the quest technology is going to play a role but in the end it's
