One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#81

Post by mockingbirdy » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 10:32 AM UTC

ckastner wrote: post #65

antocv wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but isn't that how Nature works? Nature has encountered countless extinctions before us (where's the Megalodon now?) and at least 5 mass extinctions, so why should this dynamic cease now? This mass extinction caused by humans is an order of magnitude faster and affects far more varity of species and plants.

Even if that were true (and I'd challenge the variety of species and plants, see [1]): what, objectively , is the problem with that? Furthermore, even if the pace and breadth of current extinction were that dramatic, isn't the argument against that a purely emotional one? I sincerely doubt that most humans can even name a hundred species; would they really miss a few million if a few million others remained? Just to…

> what, objectively, is the problem with that?

Nothing. But you can say that about asteroids that kill the planet as well.

That's basically nihilism. Many people want to live and enjoy nature, that's why. We just got conflicting interests of short-term thinking that resembles nihilism (Nothing matters - let's live life to the fullest) and long-term thinking / delayed gratification (I want my kids / all the animals / the next generation to have a nice life as well).

edit: for the semantics of "natural" - humans can be seen as a part of nature. It's just intellectual gymnastics if one defines us as natural or not. Some say humans aren't natural and have good reasons for it, some say they are and have good reasons for that. This discussion really isn't that meaningful. Many peole say we have responsibility because we have consciousness, but even that could be argued. It all depends on what you believe.

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#82

Post by baxtr » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 10:36 AM UTC

jaggederest wrote: post #14

mncharity wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that change blindness, I wonder if an interesting component of teaching history could be to emphasize 'things you would find jaw-droppingly different if you were dropped back in time'? Precise arrangements for where/when to meet ("at 10:10, on the corner of mumble and mumble") - because no cell phones. Boston Python, having an unusually large turnout... so someone needed to pull up an extra chair to the confere…

My current point of concern is that I can go out and sit all evening without a mosquito bite. That was unheard of even 30 years ago when I was a kid. You'd be lucky if you didn't have one for every minute you spent outside. I think the insects are dying, and it's frightening. Second item would be watching the bison migrate on the plains. Literally horizon to horizon, a hundred thousand individuals or more in a group.…

This is all really bad and we're not on a good path here as a species...

But one thing to remember is that nature works locally. I think there is a chance to protect the environment through isolated "islands" - with no human contact whatsoever - where flora and fauna have the chance to come back.

Interestingly, Chernobyl is quite a good example for that: https://nordic.businessinsider.com/wildlife-near-nuclear-rea...

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#83

Post by mac01021 » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 10:38 AM UTC

rollulus wrote: post #23

If news like this upsets you, there's an easy solution: just stop eating fish.

You also have to stop all the other people who aren't upset from eating fish.

So... not so easy.

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#84

Post by sametmax » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 10:39 AM UTC

dajohnson89 wrote: post #5

One of the more depressing things to read, is how back in the early days of America, one could just reach into the river/sea and grab a fish. E.g. lobsters were once so plentiful that native americans used them as fertilizer[0]. And there's photographic evidence of overfishing too. [1] is a nice NPR piece about how the largest catch of the year at a particular spot in Florida has been dwindling. [0] - http://www.gma.…

Equally terrible is the same comparison about bugs, but it's easier to make people flip because it happened in our lifetime (recent and so fast!):

When I was young, I was driving a small bike. Having mosquitoes or flies clouds was a common occurrence on the road and the best motivator to wear a helmet for a youngster not bothered by security.

Nowadays, I'm still driving a bike, although a bigger one. But I encounter a bug cloud maybe once a year.

Our garden is also quite silent, and I have to go to the country side to hear the bugs again.

Given the massive role of fishes and bugs in our ecosystem, this is more than alarming.

We already have a hard time making people aware of one single issue, such as global warming. But the reality of the scale of our fuck up is so beyond that, as we have a bleak role in:

- global warming

- killing most animals, including fished and bugs

- then selectively breading the remaining life to serve our interest only, annihilating biodiversity and its balance

- destruction of huge biomes by either exploiting it or polluting it

- consuming resources at a rate that make even the most abundant of them seem scarce

- polluting air and water to such a scale it's becoming a health issue

Scientists are alarmed by one topic, saying we should do something before it's too late.

However, take all those topics together and the big picture seems an impossible battle to win, which ironically we fight against ourself, that is leading us to the worst possible ending

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#85

Post by sametmax » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 10:46 AM UTC

singularity2001 wrote: post #55

jaggederest wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My current point of concern is that I can go out and sit all evening without a mosquito bite. That was unheard of even 30 years ago when I was a kid. You'd be lucky if you didn't have one for every minute you spent outside. I think the insects are dying, and it's frightening. Second item would be watching the bison migrate on the plains. Literally horizon to horizon, a hundred thousand individuals or more in a group.…

IMO The lack of mosquitos is the single positive aspect of a crippled nature. Allegedly a Pharao had a slave covered in honey to get some peace from those beasts. New Zealand is paradise except that on some beaches you just can't stop unless you want to get drained.

For your human comfort yes. But mosquitoes are part of the food chain, and also help mixing blood from very different species. This, in turn, allow micro-organisms that should never meet to interact with each others, giving a new path to biodiversity.

As annoying as it is, it's a useful critter.

You see, the way you react is the very cause of our current troubles: we only see the living systems as a way to please us, and only on the short term. When they don't please us, we start hating them, and find a way to bend them to our will.

Now we destroyed most of the systems, or at least their balance, and we are painfully discovering that it may dooms us all.

So let's try to adopt a different point of view before we face even more terrible consequences of our gluttonous actions.

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#86

Post by oblio » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 10:53 AM UTC

ckastner wrote: post #65

antocv wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but isn't that how Nature works? Nature has encountered countless extinctions before us (where's the Megalodon now?) and at least 5 mass extinctions, so why should this dynamic cease now? This mass extinction caused by humans is an order of magnitude faster and affects far more varity of species and plants.

Even if that were true (and I'd challenge the variety of species and plants, see [1]): what, objectively , is the problem with that? Furthermore, even if the pace and breadth of current extinction were that dramatic, isn't the argument against that a purely emotional one? I sincerely doubt that most humans can even name a hundred species; would they really miss a few million if a few million others remained? Just to…

Side effects. We don't know what the effect of all these species disappearing will be.

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#87

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 10:59 AM UTC

aaron695 wrote: post #16

dajohnson89 wrote: post #5

One of the more depressing things to read, is how back in the early days of America, one could just reach into the river/sea and grab a fish. E.g. lobsters were once so plentiful that native americans used them as fertilizer[0]. And there's photographic evidence of overfishing too. [1] is a nice NPR piece about how the largest catch of the year at a particular spot in Florida has been dwindling. [0] - http://www.gma.…

> E.g. lobsters were once so plentiful that native americans used them as fertilizer[0] I call total BS. Taking edible food, carting it and then plowing it into fields for edible food in 6 months time. Sounds like fantasy. Fish Fertilizer: A Native North American Practice? http://science.sciencemag.org/content/188/4183/26 DOI: 10.1126/science.188.4183.26

[deleted]

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#88

Post by sametmax » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 11:00 AM UTC

ckastner wrote: post #45

jaggederest wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My current point of concern is that I can go out and sit all evening without a mosquito bite. That was unheard of even 30 years ago when I was a kid. You'd be lucky if you didn't have one for every minute you spent outside. I think the insects are dying, and it's frightening. Second item would be watching the bison migrate on the plains. Literally horizon to horizon, a hundred thousand individuals or more in a group.…

I never understood why such changes -- dramatic as they may be -- were seen as a cause of concern, except in cases where the changes affected our food supply. Humans may be responsible for the decimation or outright extinction of entire species, but isn't that how Nature works? Nature has encountered countless extinctions before us (where's the Megalodon now?) and at least 5 mass extinctions, so why should this dynam…

Because we depend on biodiversity to survive. It's what allows animals to not be wiped out by only one super parasite. It's what allow plants to bread so that they get robust and nutritious. It's what allow all our bodies to not be vulnerable to only one disease and all die.

It also supports the balance of all the ecosystems: forests, seas, rivers... Which we also depend on to survive.

It's what makes us live on a beautiful, comfortable planet instead of survive in a terraformed rock we have to fight against while rushing to the next scientific way to palliate yet a new deficiency.

In our planet system, everything is connected.

Let's take a very naive but simple to understand example, the tomatoe.

Planting so much, and always the same kind of tomatoes makes the land nutritionally poor and the plant susceptible to parasites. We compensate this unnatural state by addition artificial nutrition and pesticides to the plant.

The result ?

Most tomatoes are tasteless garbage that looks more like a plastic ball than a fruit. Their nutritional content has been divided by 10 during the last 80 years, so that you need to eat much more to remotely get the same minerals and vitamins. When you eat them, you also absorb a small amount of all the products we put on them, with consequences we still don't know about.

That's just for a simple tomato. Bring together all the food, the water, the air, the temperature, etc. together, and that's how much we are disturbing.

It's not just emotional. We are seated on branch we are sawing.

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#89

Post by sametmax » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 11:01 AM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #82

jaggederest wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My current point of concern is that I can go out and sit all evening without a mosquito bite. That was unheard of even 30 years ago when I was a kid. You'd be lucky if you didn't have one for every minute you spent outside. I think the insects are dying, and it's frightening. Second item would be watching the bison migrate on the plains. Literally horizon to horizon, a hundred thousand individuals or more in a group.…

This is all really bad and we're not on a good path here as a species... But one thing to remember is that nature works locally. I think there is a chance to protect the environment through isolated "islands" - with no human contact whatsoever - where flora and fauna have the chance to come back. Interestingly, Chernobyl is quite a good example for that: https://nordic.businessinsider.com/wildlife-near-nuclear-rea...

But I'm not worried about nature at all, although the massacre disturb my sense of aesthetic and empathy.

It's sad we destroy it. I wish we would not.

But it will survive, thrive even.

The problem is that our current actions will kill us.

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#90

Post by sametmax » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 11:05 AM UTC

jaggederest wrote: post #41

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the insects are dying, and it's frightening At least in New York, we put tremendous resources towards keeping harmful mosquito populations down. A better canary insect might be the bee.

Wasps, beetles, grasshoppers, caddis flies, crane flies, are all substantially reduced in number. Just gone, by comparison.

People bitch about wasps, but there are almost none now a days. I used to see plenty.

The only species that thrive are the opportunist ones that tied their fate to the humans: cockroaches, fruit flies, dogs, cattle, chicken, etc.

Those don't pollinate plants, they don't eat plant parasites , they pollute the water and air, and because we feed them with so much crap, even the land instead of fertilizing it.