Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

https://news.ubc.ca/2020/07/21/popular-seafood-species-in-sharp-decline-around-the-world/

by InInteraction • 6 years ago

381 377 6 years ago

news.ubc.ca

pstuart• 6 years ago

The tragedy of the commons writ large.

everybodyknows• 6 years ago

Yes. Author highlights the critical metric:

... 87 populations were found to be in the “very bad” category, with biomass levels at less than 20 per cent of what is needed to maximize sustainable fishery catches

lifeslogit• 6 years ago

The tragedy of the commons is a great launching point for understanding this problem. Managing fish populations is one of the best examples.

For further reading, I suggest folks check out Elinor Ostrom, an economist who spent time developing regulatory solutions for managing fish populations. She was even able to implement a few!

BurningFrog• 6 years ago

I hear Iceland and New Zealand have sustainable ownership based systems.

youareostriches• 6 years ago

The “Tragedy of the Commons” is a straw man fallacy. The commons have historically always been collectively managed by the villagers grazing their animals on it. What you should be complaining about is the tragedy of an unmanaged (or in other words unregulated) commons.

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2008/angus250808.html

That the oceans, a common resource, are not sufficiently regulated, suggests we need better global governance.

dredmorbius• 6 years ago

Reading ToTC itself you'll find that this is specifically what Hardin advocates for: Mutual Coercion Mutually Agreed Upon. Unmanaged commons lead to ruin. The question is how to suitably manage them.

http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_...

rosstex• 6 years ago

Upvoting because I like fish

travisoneill1• 6 years ago

So if the population collapses, the fishermen will go out of business until the population recovers? Or is it not as simple as that?

cloudwalking• 6 years ago

When the population collapses, the species will go extinct.

eloff• 6 years ago

Depends. Both outcomes are possible.

tartuffe78• 6 years ago

I mean the population would presumably dip low enough to where fishing becomes too difficult to be profitable before total extinction.

grugagag• 6 years ago

Even worse, another unpredictable aspect can occur within the whole ecosystem, either another dependent species dies as well or something goes out of whack. It's sad to see so many species disappear in such a short timespan.

ashtonkem• 6 years ago

Usually commercial exploitation becomes unviable before actual extinction occurs, although some species have been hunted to death for sport. You’d typically see this being a bigger problem for highly valued species like tuna where consumers are willing to pay premium prices for the remaining creatures, rather than more commodity species.

The bigger risk extinction wise isn’t that we’ll fish a species to death, it’s that we’ll leave it in such a rough state that any number of random events might finish the species off.

sandworm101• 6 years ago

After a true collapse, the local stocks may never recover. The removal of one species may impact the ecosystem so strongly that that species is not able to return. Or the lack of numbers may make breeding so difficult/slow that it could take decades/centuries to return to a "normal".

Wohlf• 6 years ago

I'm sure there's also food chain considerations with massive knock on effects for the entire ecosystem.

rolobio• 6 years ago

Lets hope its as simple as that. If they go out of business, then I would think the fish would recover. Maybe the next business will want to be more sustainable?

I'm reminded of the jellyfish problem in Japan. Because of over-fishing, the jellyfish polyps aren't being eaten as they used to. So, enormous jellyfish swarms are being caught by these fisherman instead. I had to laugh at the frustration on their faces, cursing all of these jellyfish that they were catching. It was a problem of their own creation!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HP0_7_RRwg

ipnon• 6 years ago

The population 82% of species are "below levels that can produce maximum sustainable yields, due to being caught at rates exceeding what can be regrown." Fishermen are already losing money, and the worst going out of business, because the size of the total catch available to all fishermen is already smaller than in the past.

rcMgD2BwE72F4• 6 years ago

A good overview of over-fishing and why it's urgent to halt it: https://vimeo.com/43888692

yboris• 6 years ago

A stellar video! Thank you for the share.

jeffbee3• 6 years ago

Or the ecosystem arrives at a different, stable operating point.

kjs33• 6 years ago

Which may be very much less desirable from an ecological or economic point of view.

kjs33• 6 years ago

Not as simple, no.

1) There are consequences (economic and social) beyond what goes on our plate to "fishermen will go out of business". In many places, especially in underdeveloped areas, fishing is subsistence and the consequences of fisherman having to find alternative livelihoods can be problematic.[1] But even in the developed world, overfishing can have serious economic impact.[2]

2) There is no automatic guarantee that fish populations will recover, or recover quickly enough. While complete extinction is rare[3], some species have come close (several species of whales and sharks, for example) and can take decades to recover. In addition, destructive fishing techniques like bottom trawling can destroy the environment needed for a recovery. There is also some evidence (not, as I understand, conclusive) that in the absence of native fish, especially if their population is depressed for a long time, could allow less desirable species to displace them.[4]

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319680762_When_Over...

[2] https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/fact-shee...

[3] https://www.pnas.org/content/114/31/E6274

[4] https://www.sciencebuzz.com/jellyfish-apocalypse-problems-ca...

tastyfreeze• 6 years ago

It is as simple as that. But, populations are very slow to recover. This is only one example and is a bit of a special case.

https://www.newsdeeply.com/oceans/articles/2017/10/13/boom-a...

Fishery collapse has happened in other areas as well. Here is an example that didn't follow a disaster.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_north...

In all the cases I have looked at recovery is decades long.

hammock2• 6 years ago

Just like restaurants and bars and their workers during the pandemic

142• 6 years ago

I really wish there was a way to stop all fishing at a commercial level for 10 years. Not that you can’t eat a fish just that if you want that luxury you have to go catch it yourself. I know this will never happen.

toomuchtodo• 6 years ago

There is, but the duration might be longer than 10 years. We grab a bunch of what's endangered, sequence their genomes, construct plans for future repopulation, and be prepared for a future when we're more responsible with these natural resources. The fisheries will exhaust, and demand will shift elsewhere in the short term.

There is no other path to success, as attempting cooperation with those who will fish relentlessly is futile. Preserve what's left today for a future with better humans.

beambot• 6 years ago

Organisms are so much more complex than their genome, in ways we're only now starting to understand:

Human cells make up only 43% of the body's total cell count. The rest are microscopic colonists.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-43674270

wlll• 6 years ago

The problem there is that when the fish become extinct, the entire ecosystem is altered and may never recover.

apazzolini• 6 years ago

future with better humans

Mighty bold of you to assume we're not on the Idiocracy timeline :)

enriquto• 6 years ago

Not that you can’t eat a fish just that if you want that luxury you have to go catch it yourself.

But can't I pay a thousand dollars to a friend to catch the fish for me? I'm afraid of the sea.

142• 6 years ago

Basically no, we would have to decide as a society that your inability to catch your own fish does not outweigh the needs of all of the rest of the people. And this lies the problem in that solution a lot of people would be left without. The person in a wheel chair. The elderly who are not physically able. The person afraid of the sea. And so on. That’s why I also acknowledge it won’t happen. We could highly tax the sale of fish restaurants though and use that for subsidies and fish restoration. We could decide like fossil fuel use that this is important to the future of humanity and even though it would be near impossible we try anyways. Canada and the US could decide to subsidize the fishing industry and ask them to sit idle or offer retraining or something.

blakesterz• 6 years ago

The actual study is here:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027277141...

Fishery biomass trends of exploited fish populations in marine ecoregions, climatic zones and ocean basins

It's a journal called Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science.

quotemstr• 6 years ago

We cultivate all our other food. We don't feed ourselves by walking around the plains of Anatolia and collecting wild wheat. Why should we feed ourselves by dragging hooks through the oceans? The fishing industry is the last vestige of humanity's hunt-and-gather past, and it, too, needs to yield to agriculture. We need better fish farms.

wonderwonder4• 6 years ago

With the way the human population is expanding and the rising income of 3rd world nations we are really going to look at a major increase in both genetically engineering food stock to be larger and more nutritious as well as ramping up lab grown meat. Conservation is clearly not going to work as so many nations ignore it anyway and quite often regulations lack teeth due to the fear of killing an industry. Its difficult to ask 3rd world nations to cut back while first world nations have been reaping benefits for so long.

While I wish organically growing food and conservation was the answer, its unfortunately not. Society just wont change to support it. A science fiction style solution is going to be the only way to feed the world.

coldpie• 6 years ago

Yup. We're already pretty much at capacity in terms of using arable farming land[1]. We need more efficient farming, which means GMOs and advanced farming methods; we don't need less efficient farming like organic and anti-GMO.

[1] https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/how-much-arabl...

jadler999• 6 years ago

Any good studies estimating the carrying capacity of Earth with current ag tech?

morsch• 6 years ago

We could try harder not to lose or waste food that we produce: FAO estimates that each year, approximately one-third of all food produced for human consumption inthe world is lost or wasted.[1] (Note that this is not just about people throwing away food they bought, though it's a big part of it.)

And at first glance it seems obvious that eating less meat, globally, is going to increase available calories/area; the fact that some areas are viable for livestock but not vegetables notwithstanding. About half of the area used for agriculture is used for livestock, if I read [2] correctly.

[1] http://www.fao.org/3/i3347e/i3347e.pdf

[2] http://www.fao.org/3/ar591e/ar591e.pdf

wongarsu2• 6 years ago

Though we could feed many more people with current farming capacity if we ate all the corn we grow ourself instead of feeding it to cows that we eat. Meat production is incredibly inefficient.

If we eventually manage to produce most of our meat demand from lab-grown meat this will likely free up enormous amounts of agriculture capacity.

SmirthsDAC2• 6 years ago

Organic and sustainable methods are more efficient, even without GMOs [1]. It is a myth that GMOs or high-tech is the answer to food production/land scarcity concerns, as simply managing a farm properly can lead to yield increases multiple times over conventional, unsustainable methods (annual tillage, broad spectrum pesticides, etc). This is in part because GMOs that are in wide use are little more than ways to deal with pests or herbicides, which high efficiency sustainable farms deal with much more cost-effectively anyway.

[1] https://www.greenbiz.com/article/how-mini-farms-can-yield-fo...

manishsharan2• 6 years ago

> We need more efficient farming, which means GMOs and advanced farming method

Considering the fact that so much of the farmlands are devoted to producing animal feed -- how about we as a species start eating less meats ? Make meats more expensive all around the world by imposing ... dare I say it .. caps on Carbon emission.

kickout7• 6 years ago

Correct. Farming/ag is fine. Its already scaled and efficient. Now we need to make it sustainable

https://thinkingagriculture.io/what-silicon-valley-doesnt-un...

missedthecue3• 6 years ago

Global warming will free up an enormous amount of arable land (most land is in the northern hemisphere anyway)

ip266• 6 years ago

Is this not exactly what you would expect in a free market? All arable farming land will produce whatever crop brings in the best return; no arable land will be left fallow long term.

But just because we are using all of it doesn't mean we need all of it or else starve. Vast quantities of crops are used to produce biofuel, or feed for livestock, or raw materials for other non-food products.

Isamu• 6 years ago

A science fiction style solution is going to be the only way to feed the world.

I get what you are saying, I just want to clarify: we can feed everybody now, but mostly with vegetables. But yes, shared resources like ocean fish are under too much pressure right now. I feel as though it will take a major worldwide collapse of the fishing industry before there is better enforcement and treaties.

duhuh7• 6 years ago

As a resident of a first world country I stopped eating all seafood about 15 years ago. It seems unethical to support over-fishing if I have plenty of other good food to eat.

blix5• 6 years ago

Once meat is eradicated in the name of agricultural efficiency, non-grain, non-bean vegetables will probably be next on the chopping block.

neckardt3• 6 years ago

Society just wont change to support it.

Maybe this is just me, but I would happily change my diet to be around 50% Soylent or other meal replacement if the cost was cheaper. Currently I eat around 2400 calories a day, with Soylent that costs me $20 a day. I can get Chipotle for ~$15 per day, and between the two Chipotle clearly wins on taste.

From what I can tell meal replacements are often far more environmentally friendly, there might be an environmental win here if the price drops.

novok2• 6 years ago

It also will wreck metabolic havoc since it's processed and often uses PUFAs, non bioavaiable versions of nutrients and and other such things.

You think we have an obesity crisis now? Wait until it's near mandatory to only eat things like cheap-edition soylent.

istorical• 6 years ago

The price for Soylent you quoted is for pre-prepared bottles.

You can get the add-water-only version for much cheaper. In fact, you can get a day's worth of calories for about $10 even with better quality formulation competing products such as Huel 3.0 or Plenny Active. You literally scoop the powder into the provided bottle with the provided scoop they give you, fill it with water, shake it up for 30 seconds, and it's ready to drink.

A bit more of a fair comparison just in case anyone reading this is curious on the development of this space.

the_af• 6 years ago

What about people who enjoy eating? Cheese, meat, vegetables, wine, etc? Let's not forget eating is a pleasurable activity, not only a source of energy and protein.

user5994461• 6 years ago

$20 a day is shocking.

Eat rice, beans, potato, tomato, cereals. That will be an order of magnitude cheaper while tastier.

01100011• 6 years ago

I'd be happy to eat Soylent if I wasn't allergic to it. Unfortunately my mom fed me soymilk as a baby and triggered a life-long reaction to soy protein. Too bad... I love tofu, but it does not love me.

One-size fits all meal approaches need to keep in mind that individuals have different needs and restrictions.

8ytecoder• 6 years ago

Huel is also cheaper

tzs• 6 years ago

Due to COVID, I put most of my food at home in a spreadsheet to track inventory so I could figure out how much I had to buy on each shopping trip to last for a week or two.

At the moment I have 54938 calories of food on hand (not counting tomatoes, lettuce, and onions that I do not track because I only use them as sandwich toppings or for small salads where they contribute negligible calories).

This cost $171.44. That works out to $7.49 for 2400 calories.

Most of this is heat and serve stuff. E.g., there are some mini deep dish pizzas, some frozen breakfast sandwiches (think Sausage McMuffin clones), Hormel "Compleats" entrees, instant rice cups, add water and nuke mashed potatoes, canned soup, and such. Another big group is things for sandwiches: bread, sliced meats, condiments. An assortment of things that don't require any cooking or prep, such as protein bars and potato chips. Finally, ham steaks, liquid egg substitute, and frozen mixed vegetables.

It turns out I'm spending somewhere between 1/2 to 1/3 of what I spent on food pre-COVID. The interesting thing is that it is not a hassle. I always knew I could eat a lot cheaper if I cooked at home, but that also took a lot more time. But for most of what I'm keeping now, cooking is really just putting it in the microwave or in a frying pan for a while. That doesn't really take much time at all.

When COVID is done I will go back to getting take out--but only now and then for variety. I don't think it will ever go back to being my main food source.

I will probably gradually add more things made at home from lower level ingredients, which should bring the cost down some more, and can probably be done without adding much more time.

mFixman• 6 years ago

Why can't you get vegan Chipotle?

golergka• 6 years ago

Why science fiction and not plain old fish farming?

oftenwrong• 6 years ago

And/or an international agreement to reduce fishing, and outlaw the import of fish caught outside the bounds of that agreement.

Similar international agreements have worked relatively well to cut down on things like chemical weapons and anti-personnel mines.

rdtwo8• 6 years ago

Currently fish farming is often just fish recycling. Conversion of lower quality feed fish into higher quality market fish.

blaser-waffle• 6 years ago

Fish farming isn't easy and doesn't scale well. No idea how well artificial meat is going to scale, but we already know the challenges and costs of farm raised fishes. IIRC, the biggest issue was disease and waste concentration.

kingkawn• 6 years ago

Time to start killing industries

eloisius• 6 years ago

While there is a small cushion to "kill" in terms of wealth and conspicuous consumption, before long you're talking about killing people. These industries don't just extract wealth for the 1%. They're also feeding billions of people.

palae2• 6 years ago

A science fiction style solution is going to be the only way to feed the world.

What about plant-based diets? That doesn't seem too SF to me

ianleeclark2• 6 years ago

It doesn't seem that most people are willing to give up meat/certain animal products.

rdtwo8• 6 years ago

They don’t work. You will have gastro intestinal issues on plant only diets. All those vegan you tubers are cheating for a reason.

TN1ck2• 6 years ago

While I wish organically growing food and conservation was the answer, its unfortunately not.

I recently had a lengthy discussion with some friends about their support of a solidary organic farm, where you pay a flat fee per month and get a box of whatever they have in that week. It's really hard for most people to understand that things like these are not sustainable and that it's purely a luxury product. Terms like "organic", "no GMO", "local" sound sustainable as you imagine going back to "the good old days", but it's just impossible to feed the world. Even after I quoted some facts about the needed land usage for organic, it was not really possible to convince them, that it's not sustainable.

If anybody has some good articles / studies about sustainable farming for the future, I would love to read them.

aqme28• 6 years ago

I think there are confused definitions for "sustainable."

There's "sustains the land," which is food that can be grown this way indefinitely, which is what most people mean when they say "sustainable agriculture." To be more specific, "meeting society's present food and textile needs, without compromising the ability for current or future generations to meet their needs."

You're saying sustainable as in "can sustain the future diets of 10 billion people."

They don't map 1:1.

TBH I think you're right. "Sustainable agriculture" isn't scalable to 2050 populations.

fizzled4• 6 years ago

There aren't any articles I can point you to, but I live in Portland, Ore., and between here and Vancouver and Camas, WA, there are a number of collectives that are doing exactly this. They don't publicize, it is word of mouth. They primarily focus on raising chickens and pigs, and butchering them for the members. All members participate somehow. Some members host the animals, others who cannot, contribute for feed and vet bills or participate in the slaughter days since it is a lot of work a few times a year.

They are successful but are not capable of replacing 100% of the grocery needs. And vegetables only appear in the summer and can be subject to infestations or random die offs... although there is significant canning that takes place throughout the summer for the winter months. Growing a diverse amount vegetables to support 25-50 people is surprisingly more complex than raising livestock (unless you just want to eat lots of zucchini and squash ;-).

However, there are many well documented small co-ops in Portland that I can refer you to if you want to ask them questions. These are very small farms, and in many cases people buy their shares of well in advance, and some have even become store-fronts rather than pickups.

Here are examples of places within a 15 minute drive of where I live:

When I used to eat meat I would buy half a cow with some friends friends. You could go visit the cow throughout the year:

https://www.foodbevg.com/US/Scappoose/393417489771/All-Natur...

This place exploded in popularity in the past 7 years. It used to be two guys and you would order chickens months in advance and pick them up a day after the slaughter, now I can just walk into their store and they have a growing staff:

https://www.marionacres.com/order

Similarly:

https://www.kookoolanfarms.com/

This dairy was a kickstarter, and I get milk, cream, and eggs from them year round, its fantastic.

http://schochfamilyfarm.com/

Lastly, Sauvie Island just outside portland has an enormous farm community where half of the year one can purchase all manner of fruits vegetables through multiple farmers market stands.

Again though: it is only for part of the year, year round veggies are damn hard without large industrial apparatus. Unless you like pickled things.

It can be done, but it takes a village. Seriously.

ip266• 6 years ago

The organic movement doesn't have to end with the whole world eating certified organic food to be successful. It can still serve as a standard bearer, leading a charge on a different way to do things- and industrial agriculture can take up some of its best ideas.

munificent• 6 years ago

the human population is expanding and the rising income of 3rd world nations

Fortunately, these two tend to cancel out. As a country gets wealthier, its birthrate tends to decline. Some of the most developed countries have shrinking populations.

ido666673• 6 years ago

Yes, but consumption isn't going down. Even if we stabilise at 11 billion people by 2100, which is much too late and arguably already at overshoot mode, consumption will continue rising and increase resource usage, although the population remains about the same.

Those 11 billion people won't use the minimum amount of resources needed to sustain themselves (which is a very low quality of life), but use double or even triple than that.

r0s• 6 years ago

Supply has never been the problem with feeding the world.

More supply solves nothing.

readarticle2• 6 years ago

The human population isn’t expanding much at all.

In 1950 there were 2.5 billion humans, today there are 7.7 billion, but by the end of the century there will only be ~11 billion.

And at that point, most humans alive will be working age or older (approximately ~3.5 working age adults for every U15).

A lack of human population growth will be one of the defining economic issues this century, with a chance at unfortunately solving the issue of rising incomes at the same time.

kickout7• 6 years ago

That might be true, but the caloric consumption of the population is changing. People are transitioning from staple based diets (rice, wheat, etc.) to more complex diets (non native fruits/vegetables, meat). As poor countries gain wealth they want the food to match.

hn_throwaway_99• 6 years ago

This is one reason I'm such a fan of fake meat companies like Impossible Foods.

I've tried to go on vegetarian diets before, but I just can't do it. I always feel weak and just generally "not right". I don't eat a ton of meat, but I find it really difficult to abstain 100%.

An Impossible Burger, however, completely satisfies my cravings for meat. It's not just that it tastes like meat, but I feel sated after eating an Impossible or Beyond Burger in a way I just don't feel eating a normal veggie burger.

aklemm• 6 years ago

The answer is fewer people. I can't see any reason to encourage a rising population, even while I see one has to be careful about encouraging a decreasing population. Nonetheless, engineering for population growth--even if it works--doesn't lead to the best possible world.

redml• 6 years ago

Or just work towards sustainable population, aka dis-incentivize multiple children, greatly lower immigration, etc etc

But everything the governments do right now incentivizes overpopulation.

ArkVark• 6 years ago

We should cease all food aid, and replace it with education, contraception, and abortion for women for starters.

beached_whale4• 6 years ago

We should be fixing farmed fish. When was the last time people ate wild cow. It's not sustainable for a population to be exploiting wild fish, farm properly and learn to do it quickly. As long as we eat meat, we have to do it in the least intrusive way.

i_am_proteus• 6 years ago

Since cow are definitionally domesticated, nobody has ever eaten a wild cow, but people eat wild mammals on a regular basis.

Game is typically much healthier as a food source than domesticated animals; this includes wild-caught fish vs. farm-raised fish.

MattGaiser2• 6 years ago

but people eat wild mammals on a regular basis.

Not in meaningful quantity. It would bet that the median time since a typical Westerner last had wild mammal could be measured in months if not years.

beached_whale4• 6 years ago

And our ability to manage wild animals is worse than our ability to farm. It's hugely politically negative to reduce the number's allowed, and there is always pressure for more even when counter to the evidence that it is detrimental.

How many species of fish will go extinct before we figure this out. Fish used to be very common(look at the stories of the colonists coming to North America). Also, people are still eating bluefin tuna, it's endangered.

BucketsMcG• 6 years ago

Problem is the farmed fish are fed on wild fish, so it's several times less efficient than just eating whatever you would have fed them.

dharma13• 6 years ago

Some farmed fish (like tilapia) can live on a variety of things, including soy and corn pellets.

Algae, which can be used for many things - human consumption, farmed animal/fish feed and even fuel - can also be farmed sustainably.

I think we urgently need global legislation and enforcement of rules, as well as satellite monitoring to stop overfishing. World leaders need to work together on this.

Marine ecosystems may not come back once collapsed and that would be a huge disaster. I hope there is some kind of self-limiting dynamic here where industrial fishing becomes unprofitable, but we avoid extinctions and total collapse of ecosystems - but I'm not sure that's the case.

beached_whale4• 6 years ago

So we lack the regulations to do it properly. We should fix that too

bosie3• 6 years ago

Can you cite a single type of fish that is currently farmed properly (i.e. sustainably)?

danans3• 6 years ago

US/Canada Farmed Steelhead Trout, Rainbow Trout: http://seafood.edf.org/trout

Arctic Char: http://seafood.edf.org/arctic-char

US Farmed Tilapia: http://seafood.edf.org/tilapia

US Farmed Catfish: http://seafood.edf.org/catfish

Basically, avoid any fish farmed in Asia, as there are no environmental regulations on those.

openasocket• 6 years ago

One of the biggest issues with the fundamental concept of fish farming is that many of the fish we like to eat are carnivores. So to truly sustainably farm salmon, you would have to farm a bunch of bait fish to use to feed the salmon (in practice I believe the bait fish are usually wild caught). And indirectly you would need to be farming a bunch of algae or seaweed or something to feed the bait fish. Compare that to farming cows or chickens, where you just need to farm a bunch corn to feed them (or if you have enough land available you can make them free range). That extra level of indirection makes farming much more inefficient, which is why essentially all of our domestic animals we use for food are herbivores.

Of course this isn't true of all fish, tilapia being the prime example of a commonly eaten herbivorous fish. And shellfish, being filter feeders, are very easy to farm and actually tend to be beneficial for the surrounding ecosystem.

EDIT: interestingly, according to https://ourworldindata.org/seafood-production in terms of tonnage the amount of wild-caught fish has remained relatively steady since 1990 while the amount of farmed fish has steadily increased and is now more than 50% of our source of fish. There's actually some very interesting data in that link

Depurator3• 6 years ago

I'm doing a Ph.D. in salmon farming, it's an exciting field for sure. Just to address some common misconceptions:

* The feed used for norwegian salmon is about 70-80% plant based, so the fish is a net producer of marine protein. The majority is soy, and the industry is trying to transition to sustainable feed ingredients such as insects (see Protix) and micro algae for EPA/DHA (See veramaris)

* The farmed salmon does not contain any contaminents over allowed limits and they do frequent tests (see https://sjomatdata.hi.no/#/seafood/1577)

* The indsutry is beginning to transition from traditional net-pen farming to offshore, land-based and into cell-based and plant-based production, thus also getting production closer to market and spread over areas that may be less susceptible to pollution.

bjoli3• 6 years ago

Are there any viable solutions to the problems with off-shore farming? Last time I checked the ecosystem around you typical Scandinavian salmon farm in the ocean was devestated.

We take extreme care not to flush our own sewers into the sea, yet happily permit salmon farms with the equivalent fertilizing effect of a town of 25000 having all their toilets flush everything out on the shore.

GordonS5• 6 years ago

I've done a lot of reading on salmon farming over the past 6 months, as the tech consultantancy I work for has been investigating approaches within the industry, primarily in Norway. I look forward to reading your thesis :)

The feed conversion rates that Norway is achieving are, frankly, incredible. But the thing that troubles me the most is welfare. Sea lice remain a huge problem, and the mechanical and chemical treatments that are used hurt, damage and kill fish. There are also a shocking number of accidents that can kill millions if fish at a time - for example, chemical treatments gone wrong, or pens not deep enough so millions die from overheating. Then there is the welfare of cleaner fish, with reports of mortality rates over 40%.

Outside of Norway, I've seen some absolutely horrible cage conditions, with the netting completely fouled and the water thick with waste, and damaged, dead and malformed fish everywhere.

While there has been a lot of investment in offshore farming technology, the capex costs are huge, and it will still be some time before we see success at scale. It also comes with it's own risks - I think it was perhaps Havfarm that recently had an incident where the whole platform tipped to the side.

I also find the recent investments into land-based farming are troubling. For all the problems, at least with sea-based farming the fish live in part of their natural environment and have some semblance of space.

IIRC, for land-based farming to even be viable, they need something like 5x more biomass per cubic metre than sea-based farms. Thousands of fish are packed into a tiny area, and literally swim round in circles all day and night, never seeing anything other than the thousands of other fish that surround them, and if they're lucky the occasional glimpse of the side of the raceway.

How do you feel about welfare of farmed salmon, and in particular land-based farms?

Gieskanne5• 6 years ago

We should fix the mental image of having meat/fish every single day.

And the rest of it.

A few month ago we were in a nice restaurant, my wife got a non meat dish and i got a meat dish (i also order non meat dishes it just happend that time)

The waiter told me exactly what meat i had and for my wife he said 'the vegetarian dish'. No its not the vegetarian dish. It has a name and its tasty.

dummydata• 6 years ago

Of the populations analyzed, 82 per cent were found to be below levels that can produce maximum sustainable yields, due to being caught at rates exceeding what can be regrown. Of these, 87 populations were found to be in the “very bad” category, with biomass levels at less than 20 per cent of what is needed to maximize sustainable fishery catches.

It seems to me that we don't have a clear concept of sustainable commercial fishing looks like (with regards to wild capture). Thankfully, it seems Aquaculture is on the rise to offset increasing demand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_industry

s1artibartfast• 6 years ago

How do you draw the conclusion that we dont know what sustainable fishing looks like.

According to the article, we know the optimal sustainable take down to the percent. The failure is in getting any nation to adhere to limits.

TheAdamAndChe2• 6 years ago

I buy canned sardines regularly. I've noticed for the last year that the size of the sardines are increasing, and many that are canned now have eggs. It makes me wonder if pressure is making them age and try to reproduce sooner than before, or if the fishing season is being expanded to meet demand.

I've cut back on buying them as much. I may quit after this.

hammock2• 6 years ago

Could just be that there are more of them, due to less predators (the bigger fish), therefore the average size is bigger/older

rjsw• 6 years ago

Where are you buying them ? Some countries call the younger fish "sardines" and older ones of the same species "pilchards", both have been sold for food for a long time. Maybe this is just a change in how they are labelled.

TheAdamAndChe2• 6 years ago

Central USA. I'm not sure what is legally considered a sardine here, but it's definitely something to look into.

fludlight• 6 years ago

Human induced evolution is happening with wild salmon.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3352430/

pengaru2• 6 years ago

I too eat canned sardines regularly and have for many years, have not noticed any such thing.

There is a seasonality to them though, just like with most natural wild foods.

As far as wild-caught seafood goes Sardines are of least concern.

buovjaga• 6 years ago

The orange roughy story is particularly sad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_roughy

"The orange roughy is notable for its extraordinary lifespan, attaining over 200 years."

"Orange roughy is fished almost exclusively by bottom trawling. This fishing method has been heavily criticized by environmentalists for its destructive nature."

sadmann1• 6 years ago

Between rising consumption, rising populations in net food importing countries and global warming we'll see fireworks soon enough

ThomPete• 6 years ago

Aquafarming or aquaculture is the way we solve that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture

greenhorse• 6 years ago

It's not that hard to be vegetarian or at least cut back a lot on meat folks.

danhak3• 6 years ago

Society will never overcome this tragedy of the commons. Only a few will make personal sacrifice for the common good.

Only a market-driven solution will be viable. We need to find sustainable alternatives that are better than the foods they replace. Just like we need electric cars that are better than internal combustion engines.

kickout7• 6 years ago

Thank you. You get it. Agriculture (animal and plant) need market incentives to change. Not some feel good story.

https://thinkingagriculture.io/a-marketplace-for-carbon-and-...

cryptoz• 6 years ago

We need to find sustainable alternatives that are better than the foods they replace. Just like we need electric cars that are better than internal combustion engines

That's already happening though. Meat eaters still don't seem to care. I'm a recent vegetarian and the food I eat now tastes better, is often more nutritious, and is easier to make.

The better alternatives are here. Oat milk! Wow! Have you tried it? I knocked vegan cheese forever because it sucked. But you know what? They are starting to make some that is better than some 'real' cheese. Indian food. Baked/BBQ tofu is amazing.

I've had veggie burgers in CA and WA that beat a 'regular' burger by a mile. Try Souley Vegan in Oakland for one. Wowza. Better than any meat burger I've ever had.

Not all vegetarian food is sustainable, I know. But it's better. I'm vegetarian for the taste more than anything really. It's not a sacrifice!

I think a lot meat eaters would be absolutely shocked at how delicious and healthy a lot of vegetarian food is now.

Only a few will make personal sacrifice for the common good.

??? I didn't make a 'personal sacrifice' to become vegetarian. It's a literal animal sacrifice every meal the other way around! Vegetarian food isn't a sacrifice. What the world needs is to convert more to veggies is to squash the idea that becoming vegetarian means making a sacrifice.

rcMgD2BwE72F4• 6 years ago

Only a few will make personal sacrifice for the common good.

Are you vegetarian? I chose to, only because I want mankind to live on this planet for a long time. That's not a sacrifice, that's a basic choice. I'm not sacrificing stuff when I chose to behave responsibly (e.g driving safely, not stealing my neighbors, paying taxes, etc). Do you think people only pay taxes because they fear the police? Or they don't kill each others only to avoid going to jail? Of course they are abuses on our systems (like any social situation), but if you think most people behave responsibly only to avoid a kind of punishment, then you have a very dark idea of society or you hang out with bad people (that can change).

all_usernames6• 6 years ago

Umm...

1) Vegetables are better than meat foods in the minds of the hundreds of millions of vegetarians out there.

2) Vegetarians do not consider their diet to be a 'sacrifice'. Quite the opposite. There are many benefits.

Therefore, one could argue, more people need to be educated on the benefits of plant-based diets, and they will choose them.

xenospn2• 6 years ago

Most people would disown their own children before they stop eating meat.

all_usernames6• 6 years ago

This is a remarkable statement.

If everyone would just cut down on meat, even avoid it a few days of the week, it would make an enormous positive impact. Same goes for seafood.

From the perspective of someone who eats meat twice a week or so, it's absurd to hear people say they couldn't do it. Yeah, they could.

Of course, with governments subsidizing the hell out of the meat industry those $0.99 McDonalds specials will keep encouraging everyone to eat it 3x/day...

bassman9000• 6 years ago

You could also not waste too many kW of electricity, which are partly generated by carbon sources. E.g. you could stop using your laptop too frequently, less social media, e.g.

KerrickStaley2• 6 years ago

If you're interested in adjusting your seafood eating habits towards eating more sustainable seafood, the Monterey Bay Aquarium maintains a guide on which seafood (based on species and location/method of catch) is most sustainable, somewhat sustainable, and not sustainable.

My favorite version of the guide is the printable version that you can fold up and put in your wallet: https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-recommendations/consume...

Here's the main site where you can search for a fish by name: https://www.seafoodwatch.org/

This is geared towards the USA but I think the guides are at least somewhat useful in other countries.

ygjb• 6 years ago

https://seafood.ocean.org/ is a good international alternative; for example, Ocean Wise logos can be found on many menus in Vancouver and other Canadian cities.

nanna• 6 years ago

I'd be interested in an EU or UK version of this if anyone can link?

twic2• 6 years ago

This is for the UK:

https://www.mcsuk.org/goodfishguide/search

The app page has links to Android and iOS apps, and a PDF (although the latter is dense and highly coloured, not ideal to print).

This being for the UK, they also have a fish finger guide.

KerrickStaley2• 6 years ago

seafoodwatch.org also has a list to other resources if you live in a country other than the USA: https://www.seafoodwatch.org/resources

strbean3• 6 years ago

I got to see Alton Brown talk about sustainable seafood there! His message was pretty much "Eat calamari, eat it a lot."

kls2• 6 years ago

Which sucks, because it is one of the few seafood's that I actually dislike. I don't like certain oily fish, and I don't like calamari other than that I like pretty much every seafood. I spearfish where I live which I like because I can only take what I am going to eat, I don't injure any other fish like pole and net fishing does and everything I take is of legal size. It allows me to be more selective of what I take. I tend to target, hogfish, mangrove / mutton snapper and lionfish as the reproduce fast and are able to withstand the pressure of fishing. While it is legal during certain times, whee I live, to take grouper, tuna and permit, I tend to avoid taking them as they are more susceptible to fishing pressure.

I have spearfished for over 30 years and it is astonishing how much the fish population has declined even in my lifetime.

dllthomas• 6 years ago

IIRC, to paraphrase the reasoning: "they're overpopulated, their caught in not-too-damaging ways, they're healthy if you don't fry them, and they would totally eat you given the chance."

That was a great time, thanks for coming with us!

RankingMember• 6 years ago

I think the intent is great, but what is the percentage of the population that would utilize such a thing in their daily life? Not trying to be a downer, but I think most people don't have the bandwidth to be carrying around little cards reminding them to buy this/don't buy that, "oh, and is that tuna line-caught or pole-caught?", etc. If eating a certain kind of fish is causing environmental damage, we need regulation as a chokepoint somewhere in the chain, whether it be to stop it from being fished or at least from being sold.

jsilence• 6 years ago

Exactly! And that is probably the reason why the majority of us should cut down hard on animal based food consumption, just to be on the safe side.

ip266• 6 years ago

The cynical take is that this type of thing is favored because industry knows most people won't do this.

It's a painless way for vested interests to defuse the issue, diverting the energies of people who care about it- away from regulation.

Balgair• 6 years ago

This is a great tool!

Not just for checking on the fish you are already eating, but for trying out new seafood. I like to think of it as a very well curated recommendation list.

For instance, Barramundi is a very tasty fish that I discovered via this tool. We eat it regularly now. It also gives you the other names that the fish/seafood is known as, so you can shop around or know what your order is like.

derbOac• 6 years ago

My father-in-law is a commercial fisherman and very active ecological activist, and becomes livid at the Monterey Bay guide. I don't totally understand why but I think basically he believes it grossly oversimplies commercial seafood chains and in the process hurts producers acting sustainably, and in some cases provides cover for problematic markets before it's too late.

In his case I think this is because the seafood he produces isn't on the guides at all. It's not obscure, just not covered, but he's noticed in using the guides, people tend to avoid products they can't verify as "good". In other cases (in his mind) the guide hurts people working in markets to change the means of production to become more sustainable.

His position is that there's basically no substitute for understanding where your food is coming from. I think he sees the core problem is then disconnect between consumers and production, in that the global production chain has become so financially efficient that sources are completely obscured from purchasers.

I'm not sure I agree with him on everything regarding the guide. The global seafood market is insanely complex, and the guide helps navigate it in at least a simplified way. But I think he's right in a sense that real changes are going to require something more substantial in terms of consumer changes and /or real international regulation and enforcement. There's too much fraud and detachment from actual supply. I don't think fishing is unusual in this regard in the food supply but I do think it's different in that a lot (not all) of it involves wild as opposed to farmed resources.

88840-8855• 6 years ago

250 new humans are born every single minute. This is the biggest issue we are facing. This problem must be solve immediately. Once the population stops growing efficiency measures become effective.

rcMgD2BwE72F4• 6 years ago

Most of them will have a reasonable footprint on their environment for their lifetime. The actual issue is with all the people who consume as if there were 5 to 10 habitable planets within reach.

For some reasons, those who complain about population growth tend to consume the most.

nxpnsv• 6 years ago

Perhaps calling them sea food is part of the problem?

arkanciscan• 6 years ago

Time to start eating Jellyfish!

danans3• 6 years ago

Oh Impossible Fish[1], where art thou?

https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/foodservice-retail/whats-...

jungletime• 6 years ago

Pollution is also a big problem. For example, people won't eat Great Lakes fish because they are too polluted.

zackmorris6• 6 years ago

I'm shocked that the article didn't mention this, but the mass die-offs we're seeing are because the world's coral reefs will be dead by 2050:

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/environment-90-per...

https://www.businessinsider.com/great-barrier-reef-could-dis...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2020/02/24/70-90-per...

The effect of this is that 500 million pacific islanders will be forced to flee to Southeast Asia as their primary food source dies, which will lead to widespread political instability and possibly war. Not to mention that since 25% of sea life depends on reefs, their death will have catastrophic ripple effects throughout the ocean.

All due to runaway global warming acidifying the ocean with CO2. This was well-understood and warned about decades ago (I learned about it as a kid in the 1980s).

I sure wish a tech billionaire would do something about this. Their inaction on countless fronts, in fact their complacency in undermining progress on environmental causes in global politics, is one of the thousand reasons I got out of tech.

makerofspoons3• 6 years ago

I have little hope that we will reduce emissions in time or in sufficient quantity to save the coral reefs. My remaining hope is that projects like Project Vesta will help reverse ocean acidification https://projectvesta.org/

numpad0• 6 years ago

Would a hot war in East Asia be enough for the same effect? Hypothetically of course

saddlerustle3• 6 years ago

500 million pacific islanders will be forced to flee to Southeast Asia

How the heck did you come up with this number? The entire population of Oceania excluding Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea is 3 million.

flerchin• 6 years ago

What do you consider Indonesia and the Philippines?

dougmwne• 6 years ago

Indonesia and the Philippines are island nations. Their population is 273 million and 110 million respectively.

natch2• 6 years ago

Can’t speak for the parent of your post, so I don’t know if the numbers add up, but population of Indonesia alone is 270 million. And the country is spread out amongst many islands. That’s just one country of many.

ascar2• 6 years ago

Maybe some references help to clear this up. GP apparently did get his geography mixed up.

The term Pacific Islander [1] seems to not include the Philippines and Indonesia, as these islands are generally considered to be part of South East Asia [2]. One logical connection is that the Philippines and Indonesia are tectonically on the Asian crust [3], while the islands to the east are on the oceanic crust.

Thus the original statement of 500 million people fleeing to southeast asia makes geographically no sense, but I guess the intent of the people of Indonesia, Philippines etc. being cut off of seafood remains clear.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Islander

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asia

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ocean#/media/File:Paci...

xwdv• 6 years ago

He’s accounting for the population growth by 2050.

zackmorris6• 6 years ago

Hey sorry for the mixup, you're right, I should have said from Southeast Asia. I didn't realize that Indonesia and the Philippines were part of it.

I was trying to make the point that the influx of refugees from Pacific island nations will destabilize regions like Korea and Vietnam which have already seen such terrible conflict. India's going to be underwater, so there's going to be a northward migration of something like 500 million people from there and elsewhere.

The endgame is that those countries will likely be communist and a mix of non-christian religions. So the US seems to be positioning itself as pro-Russia and anti-China in a divide-and-conquer strategy. I think that's shortsighted, because the 21st century won't have 20th century politics. I'd rather see our attention turn towards not screwing over the developing countries that provide our goods and services. We could like, trade with them rather than bomb them. Admittedly, I'm probably misreading this, and also don't want to detract from environmental discussion.

vzidex4• 6 years ago

I sure wish a tech billionaire would do something about this.

I've noticed in tech that a common hope that people in tech hold is that "the billionaires", in their infinite wisdom and generosity, will pull magical solutions out of their hats and save us all. Like you mention later, yeah, right.

one of the thousand reasons I got out of tech

Not an option I've considered much, but it's almost tempting.

breakingcups• 6 years ago

I think the only reason tech billionaires stay tech billionaires is because they don't act out of compassion.

sharkmerry• 6 years ago

> that "the billionaires", in their infinite wisdom and generosity, will pull magical solutions out of their hats and save us all. Like you mention later, yeah, right.

I think its more that they have the means. Cant get anything done on a large scale without lots of moolah

hanniabu3• 6 years ago

It's because we can no longer rely on our governments to act responsibly or arrive at a solution. We now have to rely on the world's billionaires and their generosity for help.

ascar2• 6 years ago

All due to runaway global warming acidifying the ocean with CO2.

Doesn't an increase in water temperature release CO2 from the water, because warm water binds less CO2 than warm water? I remember this as one of the many serious effects of accerlating global warming (more CO2 in the atmosphere heats up global temperatures, thereby heats up ocean water, which releases even more CO2).

As CO2 acidifies water shouldn't global warming thus basify the oceans?

Wikipedia about CO2 [1] states that ocean absorbed CO2 from burned fossil fuels. While CO2 from fossil fules is a driver of global warming, the act of global warming itself should actually counteract the acidification of the oceans.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonic_acid#Role_of_carbonic...

strbean3• 6 years ago

I think increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere more than offsets the decreased solubility of CO2 in the ocean due to temperature rises. We are talking about a couple of degrees increase in surface sea temperatures, versus a much more significant increase in CO2 concentration. Also, we have to worry about increased temperatures releasing reservoirs of CO2. So while the direct action of warming might reduce ocean acidity, the causes of that warming, and the side effects, both increase acidity more than the warming reduces it.

spectrum1234• 6 years ago

"I sure wish a tech billionaire would do something about this. Their inaction on countless fronts, in fact their complacency in undermining progress on environmental causes in global politics, is one of the thousand reasons I got out of tech."

- Which industries (and organizations) are you still in at this point?

zackmorris6• 6 years ago

I've come to realize over the course of 20 years pursuing a career in tech, that work itself is the primary impediment standing in the way of ever working on my dreams. Sure, someone can moonlight and try to change the world. But 99 people of out 100 will never even come close. There's nothing more pathetic than a visionary with no access to resources.

Right now I am working with a guy in the solar industry, doing handyman work around his house until we come out of quarantine. It's hard work physically, but I find my mental health has recovered and my motivation and work capacity have never been higher.

I'm basically living the ending of the movie Office Space and searching for spiritual meaning. I donate plasma to make rent, and am looking into apps like Bacon (Uber for hourly jobs) as a way to transition out of obligation-based employment. Work should be a straight-up time-for-money exchange. Taking advantage of our work ethic and patriotism, saddling us to someone else's vision of meaningful work, is one of the great travesties undermining the American Dream. I learned this the hard way moving furniture for 3 years in my early 20s to support my web business because "someone has to do it". No, someone doesn't have to do it. Stand up for yourself and leave if your job stinks. Let the free market adjust wages to what they should be, double or quadruple what they are now. Don't get suckered into indentured servitude.

xoa• 6 years ago

I sure wish a tech billionaire would do something about this.

I sure wish VOTERS would "do something" about this, where "something" = vote for the party/parties that actually champion or at least acknowledge the importance of dealing with AGW/CO2 increasing vs actively denying and supporting continuing the current anti-free market policies destroying so much future beauty and potential. This should have been so straightforward, we want net neutral CO2 ASAP and then net negative as soon as feasible, so all that's needed is to legislate that emitting a ton of CO2 (or equivalent) is priced at the cost of rapid industrial removal of a ton of CO2+margin. We could just make all our energy usage net neutral in a matter of months/years by finally establishing a Free Market there and then let humanity sort out the best way to reduce the cost of that. But instead it's a mixture of full denial or, even more frustrating, so-called "greens" bitching about other people's luxury energy usage and engaging in worthless moralizing bullshit about $Cause_Of_The_Day (like Ebil Big Tech) rather then just working to deal with the problem as efficiently as possible and focusing moral arguments purely on the harm of AGW.

Their inaction on countless fronts, in fact their complacency in undermining progress on environmental causes in global politics, is one of the thousand reasons I got out of tech.

I'd say the inaction on countless fronts of people like you who just shove all responsibility off onto nameless godkings rather then actually internalize that democracy means we're responsible as well has been a far bigger threat. Tech has been relatively green, and far more active at green efforts then most industries. It's ludicrous to see you pinning so much on "tech billionaires" vs, say, oil/coal billionaires.

_emacsomancer_• 6 years ago

Sure, but in many cases the politicians who are statistically able to win office are about as likely to do something meaningful (and not just symbolic) about these issues as the tech billionaires are.

core-questions• 6 years ago

We could just make all our energy usage net neutral in a matter of months/years by finally establishing a Free Market there and then let humanity sort out the best way to reduce the cost of that.

You really think that making business tens or hundreds of times more expensive to take part in will just solve the problem, rather than businesses going under and simply not being able to exist anymore? You don't think any other country will capitalize on this, emit all they want, and sell the products we can't make? You think we'll be able to tariff that enough that it makes up for it?

the cost of rapid industrial removal of a ton of CO2+margin.

It's not like this is actually being done at scale yet. Do we really think gigantic fans and energy-intensive machinery for CO2 capture are going to work? Shouldn't that energy be being used to replace coal / gas / fossil fuel electricity production first and foremost, and battery (/battery-like technologies, like pumping water behind a dam and other potential-energy schemes) rather than burning the energy off?

Doesn't it make more sense to look at ways of improving the reefs, like making artificial reefs with geo-engineering projects, iron fertilization, etc? Don't plants do a better job of capturing carbon? Maybe we should embrace rapidly-growing invasive alpha species like Japanese Knotweed, Kudzu, etc. and just mow it on down and let it regrow? Shouldn't we spend more money on massive-scale tree planting, soil redistribution, and anti-desertification efforts that we actually know how to do at scale, rather than some pie-in-the-sky unproven carbon capture mechanisms that can somehow only be fueled by strangling everyone's productivity to an unreasonable extent?

Synaesthesia• 6 years ago

I agree with you but it’s not just about voting. It’s about activism and putting pressure on the government too.

A4ET8a8uTh0• 6 years ago

Eh, I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, but have you talked to some of the voters? Last pre-covid party I was to I had a conversation with a global warming "skeptic". In an attempt to understand better, I listened more than I talked and it is .. illuminating, scary, annoying and a whole lot of other emotions that are difficult to put into words here.

Point is, voting relies heavily on educated populace. I am not certain we have it now. Maybe we need to reconsider kings ( today's billionaires ) and hope they are not into torture..

twblalock3• 6 years ago

The voters won't be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to solve the problem, once they realize how much it would impact them. They won't be willing to dramatically lower their quality of life to save some Pacific islanders who live thousands of miles away.

One of the biggest problems is that the damage caused by reducing emissions falls disproportionately on the poor voters in developed countries. Look at what caused the yellow jacket protests in France -- a hike in diesel taxes. People are already in a mood to protest economic inequality in a general sense, and fighting climate change will make that inequality worse. It's not going to fly in the current political climate, not even in the EU where people are generally more sympathetic to the climate problem than elsewhere.

The outcome of social unrest caused by unpopular climate policy will be the reversal of that policy. Therefore any attempt to solve climate change that leads to social unrest will be unproductive.

I'm increasingly convinced that geoengineering is the only way to ameliorate the effects of climate change.

zackmorris6• 6 years ago

I sympathize with what you're saying, because I also agree that voters should make informed choices, and never vote for any politician representing the status quo. Unfortunately, the US and rest of the world have to move through a process. Think of it like addiction: we are still in the denial stage. We haven't hit rock bottom yet, but unfortunately when we do, it will be too late. Most species will be extinct and we'll be starving.

That said, I have to disagree with you on where to place blame. The vast majority of us (6 billion at least) are just running the rat race to provide for our families. Let me be explicitly clear about this: a person's responsibility to change the world is at least proportional to the resources available to them.

I just looked, and each part per million of CO2 represents 7.82 gigaton of CO2. So if we conservatively say that the industrial revolution has taken us from 300 ppm to 400 ppm, then that extra 100 ppm represents 782 gigatons of CO2. There are talks of a global $50 carbon tax credit for each ton of CO2 sequestered. So that represents an externality cost on the environment and our health from existing CO2 levels of $39.1 trillion. That's twice the US GDP.

Now, there are pushes to get back to 350 ppm from groups like 350.org. So that would cost something like $20 trillion, roughly the US GDP, or our national debt. In fact, a real argument can be made that the $21 trillion in misplaced funding from the Pentagon audit, the US national debt and CO2 cost to our environment are all connected. We had that money, but the debt was created so that we couldn't put it towards goals like environmentalism. This was all planned, starting before 1980 when Ronald Reagan took office and symbolically got us to start looking backwards by doing things like removing the solar panels from the White House that Jimmy Carter had installed.

Now that we know all this, I don't think that we can settle for anything less than a tech billionaire opening the floodgates on carbon sequestration. We need real solar-powered devices that take excess energy and store it in things like calcium carbonate and graphite. It looks like it currently costs at least $100 to capture 1 ton of CO2 directly from the atmosphere. At 10 cents equivalent for solar power, that's 1000 kwh per ton. That's the amount of electricity a house uses in a month. I'm having trouble finding exact values for these numbers, but these are the orders of magnitude we should be thinking in terms of.

https://cleantechnica.com/2016/01/19/carbon-capture-expensiv...

https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2018/11/27/carbon-dioxide-remo...

These numbers are so staggering, that there's literally nothing we can do on a personal level to change them. We need powerful people to think beyond quarterly profits and start doing something tangible with their money.

Which is what I would do if I had won the internet lottery.

Edit: typos and I stumbled onto this, can someone in-the-know please update us on the state of carbon tax credits in the US: https://qz.com/1203803/donald-trump-signed-a-landmark-bill-t...

Edit 2: Yes I'm calling any tech billionaire who does nothing good with their money a poser.

defnotashton23• 6 years ago

Except it's not so black/white but much more nuanced and gray. Assuming and asserting otherwise is disingenuous and distancing an is part of how trump was elected in the first place.

Climate change and policy around it, due to its economic implications, is complex and hard to do without costing lots of middle class people their life styles.

mping2• 6 years ago

Why a tech billionaire? We as humans just need to eat less animal food, and reduce our emissions as low as possible.

firebaze• 6 years ago

We need to start to understand as humankind that we're a pest to other life on this planet, be it animals, plants, naval lifeforms or anything else, us included (maybe except tardigrades, extremophiles and deep-sea creatures).

We need to reduce our numbers, and sustain that. Or embrace Musk's ideas.

failuser• 6 years ago

I hope he was sarcastic.

typeformer• 6 years ago

Billionaire will not save anyone they are too busy enriching themselves.

njarboe2• 6 years ago

Bill Gates has funded the development of a new nuclear reactor design that is much smaller and safer than current ones and uses the huge current US stockpile of depleted uranium as a fuel source. He was going to build it in China, as the US permitting process is very difficult (impossible?), put that is no longer possible with the current US/China political environment. Environmentalists have been fighting nuclear power since the beginning of the movement and that is what has really caused the continuation of the burning of carbon to fuel the modern world. Due to the environmental groups (and the rest of the media) constant propaganda against nuclear, almost everyone is irrationally fearful of nuclear power plants and therefor building new ones has little chance of getting support, even if the environmental groups see the error of opposing nuclear at this point and change their position.

Many people and groups pushing for changes to combat climate change want to change much more about society than just how much carbon dioxide is emitted. They want to use the fear of climate catastrophe to push other political agendas that the majority of people in the US do not support. If the world had just focused on the fact that rising CO2 would cause ocean acidification, which is a very simple and easy to understand consequence of rising CO2 levels, I think the world could have come together to decide on an acceptable level and make a plan to get to that level. A similar global proposal was done with CFCs when ozone depletion became an issue. Making the issue more scary by saying the world is going to heat up and everyone is going to die, using very complicated climate models, is a lot harder to prove. Many people are not going to be convinced, as we have seen.

jasonwatkinspdx7• 6 years ago

While I support nuclear as part of the mix for clean energy, it's very important to understand that nuclear is NOT failing due to "propaganda" alone. The problem is the cost, in particular the capital cost. You see similar costs globally, even in places where environmental opposition to nuclear is basically a non factor like China.

Given current costs (check the Lazard decks) and likely trends, it's pretty possible that nuclear would lose out to renewables + storage + CO2 capture even with a global carbon tax forcing CO2 neutrality.

I also don't think it helps our cause to cast all opposition to nuclear power as ignorant paranoia. While the impact was thankfully minimal, Fukushima should have never happened in the first place. I personally changed my views on how much we can trust governments to properly regulate this infrastructure as a result.

Basically it's left me hoping that some of the more novel new nuclear concepts work out. I'm definitely cheering for NuScale.

anonuser123456• 6 years ago

I sure wish a tech billionaire would do something about this.

The only way a tech billionaire can stop it is to facilitate the development of low carbon energy sources and industrials.

This is literally part of Tesla's mission. There are huge numbers of investors pushing hard on CCS, battery, solar, wind, grid etc.

Biotech and ag-tech are pushing hard on technology to lower the carbon footprint of faming.

And industrials are looking hard are low carbon steel, aluminum and cement manufacturing (huge co2 footprint here).

The climate change freight train is in motion. Technology is the ONLY WAY OUT.

pengaru2• 6 years ago

All due to runaway global warming acidifying the ocean with CO2

Err, what? My understanding is ocean acidification is a contributing factor, but that the primary cause of coral bleaching is the warming directly, not acidification [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Coral_Bleaching.jpg

madaxe_again• 6 years ago

Warming is the primary cause of coral die offs right now, but acidification will hit a tipping point pretty soon where it becomes nigh on impossible to get calcium ions out of solution. Pretty much anything that lives in the ocean and has a skeleton is in for a rough time - as well as everything that depends on them.

mythrwy2• 6 years ago

"but the mass die-offs we're seeing are because the world's coral reefs will be dead by 2050"

I've argued this point before here but I don't believe that will happen by 2050 at all.

For several reasons, not the least of which is there are fossilized reefs from epochs with much much higher C02 levels (and temperatures) then we will see any time in the near future.

I was in Mexico last year. On the reefs. Diving. They were in good shape with lots of young corals and very little die off. Sunscreen and human activity are a threat.

Not getting into the whole debate on warming (I believe something is happening) but this coral die off claim I do not believe at all. Particularly the 30 years bit.

jasonwatkinspdx7• 6 years ago

I mean, the internet is here if you'd like to learn the actual science. This is a topic we understand and have ample empirical evidence on. I'd start by considering that most species were also quite different during the high CO2 era.

And while I'm glad you had fun in Mexico and what you saw there looked healthy, that doesn't somehow erase the bleaching we see on reefs globally. That the coral is dying, rapidly, is not under contention. It's a clearly known fact.

LockAndLol• 6 years ago

I sure wish a tech billionaire would do something about this

No need to single out one group of people. We vote for shitty politicians, we give money to shitty corporations, we form tribes of "us vs them", we put more children on this world condemning (putting a human on the planet is worst thing you can do to it in terms of pollution), we don't do our part "because corporations are the biggest polluters" and think that absolves us of any evil. We are inactive. We'd rather shift the blame than do anything. We are complacent. We are all complicit. We are all to blame.

If the world is full of non-evil people, then why aren't they keeping the evil people in check?

drc37• 6 years ago

Interesting article that just came out yesterday from Yale University that is right in line with this article how China's commericial fishing fleet is doing a lot of this damage.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-chinas-expanding-fishing-...

blobbers• 6 years ago

When I consider the implications for the children of this world, these thoughts make me deeply sad.

Not in a way I feel I can directly action. Not in a way that many children don't have bigger problems than saving the whales. Just sad.

I hope people share this feeling.

swhitf• 6 years ago

All the time.

growlist• 6 years ago

When are people going to start acknowledging the elephant in the room: there are too many humans for us all to live western lifestyles, and unless we want our descendants to live vastly poorer lives we need to give serious attention to population control now.

all_usernames6• 6 years ago

Because there are alternatives to population control, like increasing the sustainability of food and energy sources. After all, the planet now supports twice as many people as it did a few decades ago, and that's basically down to agricultural yield improvements.

Making less humans seems to be morally taboo, no one wants to go there.

2ion• 6 years ago

Making less humans seems to be morally taboo, no one wants to go there.

The train will eventually have arrived at that station while people continue to pretend it didn't.

irthomasthomas• 6 years ago

Everyone please stop blaming coral bleaching on climate change. Nitrogen run-off from farming is the main cause. We need to reduce nitrogen enrichment in farming, which will lead to lower yields and lower profits (or, more likely, higher prices). But blaming climate change here is an egregious example of green washing which will prevent or delay resolving the real issue. Stop it. Please.

"Anthropogenic nutrient enrichment is often associated with coral reef decline. Consequently, there is a large consent that increased nutrient influxes in reef waters have negative longterm consequences for corals" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187734351...

"Increased loadings of nitrogen (N) from fertilizers, top soil, sewage, and atmospheric deposition are important drivers of eutrophication in coastal waters globally. Monitoring seawater and macroalgae can reveal long-term changes in N and phosphorus (P) availability and N:P stoichiometry that are critical to understanding the global crisis of coral reef decline" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-019-3538-9

Johnjonjoan• 6 years ago

I'm not sure we can make this conclusion. Certainly the effect you're mentioning does extreme damage but it is localised. Acidification is nowhere near as localised, therefore whilst it doesn't affect individual areas as strongly it is much more widespread. When looking at the accumulative effects the question of which one is worse is up for debate and non trivial to answer.

JoshTko• 6 years ago

Your sources don't seem to exclude warmer waters as a contributor to bleaching. From your first source "...recent scientific results show that increased nutrient levels can reduce the heat stress tolerance of corals..." So it seems that runoff + heat both contribute to coral bleaching.

tuatoru• 6 years ago

Stop it. Please.

No. Nitrogen pollution has local effects and is an enormous problem in some important fish spawning grounds, but it cannot explain what happened to the Great Barrier Reef in 2018 and again in 2019.

The effects of temperature on corals are getting to be quite well understood now. Globally, marine heat waves are a major problem, alongside pollution and direct reef destruction.

Likewise, ocean acidification is happening as part of "climate change" (carbon pollution) and is another stress for corals.

I agree with your point about N runoff. We need to stop growing maize for biofuels and animal feed and implement megascale riparian planting programmes to limit the damage done by floods. For starters.

These things are not either-or. Overfishing and destructive fishing practices, "development", various kinds of pollution and oxygen depletion ... we're doing it all, and it all affects reefs.

kls2• 6 years ago

I have tried to explain this here, but they don't want to hear it, if it does not put climate change as the #1 reason. My daughter is in coral research, N:P is the poison, heat increases it's potency, without the N:P the heat alone does not bleach the coral. We see coral bleaching in all areas where agricultural sits above the wetlands and the runoff runs into the wetlands and then over the reefs. It's funny how Australia's wetlands and Florida's everglades are so similar, and sitting right above both of them is large sugar farms using tons of fertilizer pumping tons of N:P into the wetlands and then out and over the reef.

29athrowaway• 6 years ago

One symptom of overfishing is seeing a lot of fish below reproductive age.

If you see this, you are seeing fish that could not reproduce. This is not sustainable.

Once I bought canned fish and saw 3 small fish instead of one regular fish inside.

ace_of_spades• 6 years ago

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I would encourage anyone interested in doing good to mostly abstain from animal products altogether. This must not necessarily be carried to extreme veganism but if you have the choice to not use animal products it’s in almost all circumstances better to take it. Plant based products are generally better for our health, our future, and the animals.

2OEH8eoCRo0• 6 years ago

I like Michael Pollan's mantra: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

pacifika• 6 years ago

“Seafood species” is an offending description of the purpose of these animals by the “click bait generator” I mean editor.

AtomicOrbital• 6 years ago

Ian Urbina, investigative reporter, has written a book and published articles describing a fleet of 800 industrial fish boats from china who are illegally poaching catch from North Korea waters ... fallout is a devastating drop in squid partly due to these chinese boats catching squid as they migrate to their spawning grounds ( caught before they breed ) which is extremely short sighted and illegal ... also hundreds of ghost fishing boats from North Korea washing up on Japanese shores with dead crew ... I suggest you read up on Ian Urbina's work

Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

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