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How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

e360.yale.edu

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Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#171

Post by nemo44x »

Maximus9000 wrote: post #162
nemo44x wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people in society like meat so it makes sense we subsidize it. This is progressive. Otherwise only the wealthy could eat meat. The wealthy actually pay more to eat meat as they pay the majority of the taxes that go into these subsidies so nearly everyone can afford meat in the market. Once again, this is progressive. Just like roads. Most people in society want to be able to freely travel where they want and whe…

> Most people in society like meat so it makes sense we subsidize it. This is progressive. So, we should subsidize things that people like? Should we subsidize sugar? Most Americans are eating far more meat than doctors recommend.

It's a representative democracy. People vote for representatives that then propose bills and spending policy and vote on them. Elect officials or run for office yourself if you think your ideas are better and more attractive.

Who should be the authority for what society finds value in, which policies are invoked, how taxes are distributed and spent if not the representatives of the people? Clerics? Doctors? Lawyers? Scientists? Sociologists? Bartenders?

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#172

Post by Danieru »

kwanbix wrote: post #78
BurningFrog wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was Chinese government policy for decades. It caused immense human suffering. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/120114/under... Personally, I think people are an asset, not a burden, and the greatest things in the world! That's right, I mean you , dear reader. Straighten that back!

Something doesn't ads up. If we are 50 couples, and we all have 2 kids, when the original parents die we are still 100 people. If 50 couples have 1 kid, wen the original parents die, you have half of the population. If they did that for some many years, how come they kept growing?

Humans live for 60+ years. The damage appears in the population age distribution decades before it appears in the total.

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#173

Post by nemo44x »

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #158
nemo44x wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people in society like meat so it makes sense we subsidize it. This is progressive. Otherwise only the wealthy could eat meat. The wealthy actually pay more to eat meat as they pay the majority of the taxes that go into these subsidies so nearly everyone can afford meat in the market. Once again, this is progressive. Just like roads. Most people in society want to be able to freely travel where they want and whe…

This is all well and good until the negative externalities overcome the benefits. We are past that point.

If true then hopefully people agree to mandate that we value these negative externalities more than subsidized farming. Anything is possible if people can persuade others it's worth doing and that the trade offs are worthwhile.

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#174

Post by ardy42 »

SaintGhurka wrote: post #98
oblio wrote: post #2

We badly need some sort of industrial fish farming at a large scale. Oceanic fishing at this point is basically like hunting gathering at an industrial scale: we just catch whatever we can and who cares if it grows back, not our problem, "nature" will take care of it. The same way we seed, till, etc., we should be doing the same thing with oceans and "hunting" aka fishing should only be allowed as a hobby. In a somew…

"industrial fish farming at a large scale" They're doing that. Bring up an areal view of china's coast, zoom in on most any protected bay and you can see they have some kind of aquatic farming going on at a pretty impressive scale. https://www.google.com/maps/@23.8785992,117.6354366,322m/dat... https://www.google.com/maps/@23.6576045,117.4483416,171m/dat... https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=d1e87c14-b29f-4173-a4f5-cbd56…

>> We badly need some sort of industrial fish farming at a large scale.

> They're doing that.

IIRC, most farmed fish are fed with fish meal, which is basically less-desirable wild-caught fish, so fish farming does not take the pressure off the oceans as much as you'd think.

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

> The production and large-scale use of fishmeal are controversial. The lucrative market for fishmeal as a feed encourages corporate fisheries not to limit their yields of by-catch (from which fish meal is made), and thus leads to depletion of ecosystems, environmental damage, and the collapse of local fisheries.

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

> Farming carnivorous fish, such as salmon, does not always reduce pressure on wild fisheries. Carnivorous farmed fish are usually fed fishmeal and fish oil extracted from wild forage fish.

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#175

Post by knolax »

sradman wrote: post #165
knolax wrote: post #124

Disappointed in the article. When I saw the Yale domain I thought it would be a research paper or at least something written by an expert on the subject. It appears this is written by a journalist[0] and as typical of things written hy journalists, leaves out crucial details/sources which leaves you with more questions. > the country’s commercial fishermen often serve as de-facto paramilitary personnel whose activiti…

From the linked Ian Urbina Wikipedia page: > As a journalist, his investigations typically focus on worker safety and the environment... As you point out, Urbina has an undeniable preference for international law, regulation, and treaties pertaining to oceans and fisheries. These sentiments seem to align with the values promoted by the Yale School of the Environment [1]. The article links to an investigative report U…

> As you point out, Urbina has an undeniable preference for international law, regulation, and treaties pertaining to oceans and fisheries.

He might have an expert level knowledge on the topic, but he is using all the standard tricks journalists use to paint a narrative. Bringing up statistics without context and without defining the thing it's measuring, using technical terminology without explaining what it means, alluding to certain things without elaborating, and citing sources(if at all) in a way such that you have to spend a lot of time hunting down an actual document supporting his claims.

> The article links to an investigative report Urbina did for NBC [2] which describes the evidence.

evidence of what? I'm not denying that Chinese boats are fishing in North Korea. It still seems weird that in a situation where Chinese boats are fishing in North Korea's waters, the fixation is on sanctions. I can understand this being bad if North Korea doesn't want Chinese boats fishing in their waters but both articles seem to imply that there is implicit approval, in which case who cares? Sanctions are antithetical to free trade and human welfare.

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#176

Post by libertine »

hungryhobo wrote: post #151
libertine wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why would you need to announce a plan to reduce your fleet to below 3,000 if it’s only “officially“ at 2,700? Is this a case of inconsistent propaganda? That's the thing about lies. At first glance is the perfect solution, you simply lie and the problem goes away. The tricky part is when the lies start you add up and you need to keep track of it, and/or when the lie is easily observable. I think this is a bit of bot…

You are basing your entire observation on an inaccurate translation.

Eh, my observation is about a recurring behavior from China.

Could it be an inaccurate translation? Yes.

Is China abusing their fishing fleets and actively try to dismiss that? Yes.

Is China actively implicated in lies and deception, and are observed doing it? Yes.

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#177

Post by spdionis »

La1n wrote: post #147
searchableguy wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably not sustainable. If everyone start consuming at the same rate as an average person from a developed country, world would run out of resources in no time.

Doesn't that indicate that overconsumption, not overpopulation, is the problem.

Not if the rest of the world aspires to first world standards of living.

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#178

Post by wk0 »

oblio wrote: post #2

We badly need some sort of industrial fish farming at a large scale. Oceanic fishing at this point is basically like hunting gathering at an industrial scale: we just catch whatever we can and who cares if it grows back, not our problem, "nature" will take care of it. The same way we seed, till, etc., we should be doing the same thing with oceans and "hunting" aka fishing should only be allowed as a hobby. In a somew…

Maybe something like this[0] will become more common. Seems to have had some success in increasing the Salmon population (via plankton boom) but was obviously quite controversial.

[0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fertilizing-ocean...

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#179

Post by ardy42 »

bhupy wrote: post #99
oblio wrote: post #2

We badly need some sort of industrial fish farming at a large scale. Oceanic fishing at this point is basically like hunting gathering at an industrial scale: we just catch whatever we can and who cares if it grows back, not our problem, "nature" will take care of it. The same way we seed, till, etc., we should be doing the same thing with oceans and "hunting" aka fishing should only be allowed as a hobby. In a somew…

It's a good example of the Tragedy of the Commons. We mostly solved that problem on land, and even ended up with industrial farming by allowing people to own pieces of land to run their own farming operations. Would be nice to be able to replace off-shore oil rigs with off-shore fishing farms that sell the produce directly to retail markets. Might even be able to run aquatic "farm to table" restaurants!

> It's a good example of the Tragedy of the Commons. We mostly solved that problem on land, and even ended up with industrial farming by allowing people to own pieces of land to run their own farming operations.

That's a myth. This "problem" wasn't much of a problem, historically, since real-world communities would spontaneously develop regulatory practices to prevent over-exploitation of the commons:

> Political scientist Elinor Ostrom, who was awarded 2009's Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for her work on the issue, and others revisited Hardin's work in 1999.[45] They found the tragedy of the commons not as prevalent or as difficult to solve as Hardin maintained, since locals have often come up with solutions to the commons problem themselves.[46] For example, it was found that a commons in the Swiss Alps has been run by a collective of farmers there to their mutual and individual benefit since 1517, in spite of the farmers also having access to their own farmland. In general, it is in the interest of the users of a commons to keep them functioning and so complex social schemes are often invented by the users for maintaining them at optimum efficiency.[47][48] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Non-gov...)

Privatization is one solution, but it seems to often be falsely portrayed as the only solution. The wiki article has a decent list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Solutio...

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#180

Post by philipkglass »

ephemeralism wrote: post #155
zwaps wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China asserts its power to the detriment of neighboring countries in almost every aspect of life. Their disregard for others and for the environment is staggering and on a staggering scale. There are very few countries who can even come close to that - probably only the US qualifies. Even then, China has twice the CO2 emissions than the US, more than three times the emissions of the entire EU, and more than a magnitu…

Are you in all honesty trying to argue that it would be fair and just if a Chinese person was only allowed to emit one tenth of that of a German person?

That would not be fair and just. As of 2018 China emits 8 tons of CO2 per capita while Germany emits 9.1:

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

I expect the per-capita gap to shrink further in the next few years. China's much higher absolute emissions are largely a function of its much larger population.

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