as a kid growing up in Canada one of my
dreams was always to move to Florida I
thought that would be the coolest thing
in the world so as an adult I’ve
actually managed to do that but in the
way along the way I also learned that
apparently a lot of other people have
that same idea and apparently about
1,000 people moved to Florida every day
we now have almost 22 million residents
and we are the third largest state in
the country it’s double the population
we had in 1980 as 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 16 million of us live in coastal
counties that are 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 citizens coastal
doesn’t just mean the outline of the
state if you think of when a
meteorologist is giving the tract of an
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 and offshore as far as the
terrestrial environment influences and
this equates to about a hundred miles
inland would include our random think of
our afternoon sea breeze collision
thunderstorms that’s of marine origin so
if all of Florida is coastal and all
Floridians are coastal citizens we
should all be concerned about coastal
issues because in some way or another
we’re contributing to those problems in
the summer of 2016 there was a major
toxic algal bloom in South Florida there
was a lot of political debate there was
finger-pointing numerous headlines
people were concerned about their health
tourism was decimated people’s lives
were turned upside down
we’re scared now as a biologist I might
describe this a little differently so
bear with me from him while I try and
illustrate a point because a biologist
might define this whole scenario
somewhat differently than you saw in the
media now as 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 a phylum of bacteria which has
a 3.5 billion year old fossil record
these microorganisms are also known to
produce a variety of toxins including
neurotoxins and hepatotoxic the
ingestion or inhalation of even small
quantities of this can result in
asthmatic reactions allergic reactions
intestinal distress it can result in
larger volumes in neurological problems
or complete a patek failure if the
balloon goes on for very long it can
result in massive fish die-offs further
damaging the ecosystem and exacerbating
the social and economic impacts on that
community enough biology professors
speak we get back to English for a while
the point is that it’s very important
for us to speak clearly and correctly
but it’s also important to be understood
everything I just told you is
biologically correct but it may not have
been understandable or maybe not even
relevant academics tend to use a lot of
jargon if we’re gonna deal with coastal
issues we have to speak understandably
so 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 invasive animals we
we hear about emerging disease issues
like Zika 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
and compromised infrastructure these
floods aren’t even related to true
storms these happen on the high tide
simply as a result of land subsidence
sea level rise and perhaps a removal of
natural barriers not so long ago
Florida’s coastline looked quite
different than it does today and it
could look different again in the future
so how are we going to 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 that don’t
strain our ability to implement them
that engage stakeholders and ultimately
result in safe coastal systems some
would suggest technology will find the
solutions that may well be true but it’s
not going to be the whole solution this
is going to require a team approach
interdisciplinary teams are pretty
common in the business world but sadly
they’re they’re actually quite rare in
academia universities are a tremendous
source of intellectual power
historically faculty and students are
organized into departments academic
silos this silo mentality really doesn’t
encourage cross discipline interactions
it’s not going to be very effective so
we need to tear down the silos and have
people of different disciplines working
in close proximity to one another
interdisciplinary also needs to mean
more than just stem we can’t solve these
problems with just biologists and
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 and 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 it’s 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 X action you can try
define the term health most people here
would probably use a definition like the
World Health Organization does where
it’s a state of complete physical mental
and social well-being and not merely a
lack of disease
or of infirmity so this means it could
be mental health or physical health it
could also be social health now a
sociologist may say that social health
is the ability to form lasting
interpersonal relationships an economist
could walk in the room and say well you
know a healthy economy is one with
growth high employment stable prices I’m
a biologist I’m going to look at a
population and say look at basically use
these kinds of definitions to apply to
individual animals or perhaps a
population or I might extend it further
and look at an ecosystem and see how
different species are interacting so
which is it ultimately it’s got to be
all those things because they all
interrelate let me show you a little
story I’m going to scale this down from
a whole state issue or coastal issue
globally down to a smaller scale before
I came to UCF that was a professor at
Texas A&M University and it was also the
volunteer director of the marine mammal
stranding Network these volunteer
networks are found in every coastal
state and their role 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
300 dolphins a year most of them dead
but not all some of them are alive and
in the process of doing this what I
suddenly realized if I didn’t think
about it at the time as much is that
this is an incredibly interdisciplinary
faction you’re dealing with lots of
people of varying disciplines and
backgrounds from the engaged citizens on
the beach who report the stranding and
may give initial first aid they help in
transport through the initial treatment
and assessment of the animal through the
long term rehabilitation process and
hopefully eventually the release of the
animal back to the wild you have people
who are laypeople who have never even
seen a dolphin – University faculty and
students federal and state agencies
veterinarians food suppliers news media
celebrities you have everybody involved
in these things and the key thing is all
of them have a common goal that’s very
clear to rescue the animal but it’s very
quick to you very quickly realize that
also need a common language because a
misunderstanding can literally be the
difference between life or death get a
scale it back up very few of the issues
that we face in terms of coastal systems
are going to have simple solutions sadly
we are more than likely going to see
repeats of the devastating events of
this number of 2016 or something similar
to it
people are still going to push for the
simple fix but ultimately if we’re going
to move forward 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
anthropologists sociologists economists
planners policy people we need to fully
engage all the users all the
stakeholders communities government and
industry we need to recognize the
linkage between the economic security of
coastal communities and the ecological
security of coastal ecosystems we have
to rethink the whole coastal region and
think of it as an integrated social
economic and ecological system only then
can we really start to assess policy
development and planning an
environmental stewardship I’ve put
together that team I’ve got a team at
UCF of faculty covering all those
disciplines and more in fact from 12
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 50 years will be radically
different than we do today no question
technology’s going to play a role but in
the end it’s going to boil down to teams
of interdisciplinary focused people
dealing with issues and speaking a
common language thank you
you
dreams was always to move to Florida I
thought that would be the coolest thing
in the world so as an adult I’ve
actually managed to do that but in the
way along the way I also learned that
apparently a lot of other people have
that same idea and apparently about
1,000 people moved to Florida every day
we now have almost 22 million residents
and we are the third largest state in
the country it’s double the population
we had in 1980 as 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 16 million of us live in coastal
counties that are 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 citizens coastal
doesn’t just mean the outline of the
state if you think of when a
meteorologist is giving the tract of an
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 and offshore as far as the
terrestrial environment influences and
this equates to about a hundred miles
inland would include our random think of
our afternoon sea breeze collision
thunderstorms that’s of marine origin so
if all of Florida is coastal and all
Floridians are coastal citizens we
should all be concerned about coastal
issues because in some way or another
we’re contributing to those problems in
the summer of 2016 there was a major
toxic algal bloom in South Florida there
was a lot of political debate there was
finger-pointing numerous headlines
people were concerned about their health
tourism was decimated people’s lives
were turned upside down
we’re scared now as a biologist I might
describe this a little differently so
bear with me from him while I try and
illustrate a point because a biologist
might define this whole scenario
somewhat differently than you saw in the
media now as 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 a phylum of bacteria which has
a 3.5 billion year old fossil record
these microorganisms are also known to
produce a variety of toxins including
neurotoxins and hepatotoxic the
ingestion or inhalation of even small
quantities of this can result in
asthmatic reactions allergic reactions
intestinal distress it can result in
larger volumes in neurological problems
or complete a patek failure if the
balloon goes on for very long it can
result in massive fish die-offs further
damaging the ecosystem and exacerbating
the social and economic impacts on that
community enough biology professors
speak we get back to English for a while
the point is that it’s very important
for us to speak clearly and correctly
but it’s also important to be understood
everything I just told you is
biologically correct but it may not have
been understandable or maybe not even
relevant academics tend to use a lot of
jargon if we’re gonna deal with coastal
issues we have to speak understandably
so 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 invasive animals we
we hear about emerging disease issues
like Zika 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
and compromised infrastructure these
floods aren’t even related to true
storms these happen on the high tide
simply as a result of land subsidence
sea level rise and perhaps a removal of
natural barriers not so long ago
Florida’s coastline looked quite
different than it does today and it
could look different again in the future
so how are we going to 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 that don’t
strain our ability to implement them
that engage stakeholders and ultimately
result in safe coastal systems some
would suggest technology will find the
solutions that may well be true but it’s
not going to be the whole solution this
is going to require a team approach
interdisciplinary teams are pretty
common in the business world but sadly
they’re they’re actually quite rare in
academia universities are a tremendous
source of intellectual power
historically faculty and students are
organized into departments academic
silos this silo mentality really doesn’t
encourage cross discipline interactions
it’s not going to be very effective so
we need to tear down the silos and have
people of different disciplines working
in close proximity to one another
interdisciplinary also needs to mean
more than just stem we can’t solve these
problems with just biologists and
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 and 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 it’s 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 X action you can try
define the term health most people here
would probably use a definition like the
World Health Organization does where
it’s a state of complete physical mental
and social well-being and not merely a
lack of disease
or of infirmity so this means it could
be mental health or physical health it
could also be social health now a
sociologist may say that social health
is the ability to form lasting
interpersonal relationships an economist
could walk in the room and say well you
know a healthy economy is one with
growth high employment stable prices I’m
a biologist I’m going to look at a
population and say look at basically use
these kinds of definitions to apply to
individual animals or perhaps a
population or I might extend it further
and look at an ecosystem and see how
different species are interacting so
which is it ultimately it’s got to be
all those things because they all
interrelate let me show you a little
story I’m going to scale this down from
a whole state issue or coastal issue
globally down to a smaller scale before
I came to UCF that was a professor at
Texas A&M University and it was also the
volunteer director of the marine mammal
stranding Network these volunteer
networks are found in every coastal
state and their role 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
300 dolphins a year most of them dead
but not all some of them are alive and
in the process of doing this what I
suddenly realized if I didn’t think
about it at the time as much is that
this is an incredibly interdisciplinary
faction you’re dealing with lots of
people of varying disciplines and
backgrounds from the engaged citizens on
the beach who report the stranding and
may give initial first aid they help in
transport through the initial treatment
and assessment of the animal through the
long term rehabilitation process and
hopefully eventually the release of the
animal back to the wild you have people
who are laypeople who have never even
seen a dolphin – University faculty and
students federal and state agencies
veterinarians food suppliers news media
celebrities you have everybody involved
in these things and the key thing is all
of them have a common goal that’s very
clear to rescue the animal but it’s very
quick to you very quickly realize that
also need a common language because a
misunderstanding can literally be the
difference between life or death get a
scale it back up very few of the issues
that we face in terms of coastal systems
are going to have simple solutions sadly
we are more than likely going to see
repeats of the devastating events of
this number of 2016 or something similar
to it
people are still going to push for the
simple fix but ultimately if we’re going
to move forward 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
anthropologists sociologists economists
planners policy people we need to fully
engage all the users all the
stakeholders communities government and
industry we need to recognize the
linkage between the economic security of
coastal communities and the ecological
security of coastal ecosystems we have
to rethink the whole coastal region and
think of it as an integrated social
economic and ecological system only then
can we really start to assess policy
development and planning an
environmental stewardship I’ve put
together that team I’ve got a team at
UCF of faculty covering all those
disciplines and more in fact from 12
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 50 years will be radically
different than we do today no question
technology’s going to play a role but in
the end it’s going to boil down to teams
of interdisciplinary focused people
dealing with issues and speaking a
common language thank you
you
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