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Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

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Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#91

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.

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.

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.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#92
post #29

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 difficu…

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...

>> 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.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#93
post #2

The tragedy of the commons writ large.

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.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#94

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.

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.

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

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#95
post #71
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

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

You have a point here, yup. Some vegetables are luxury food, and less efficient than cattle. Replacing nature with monocultures is a problem. If we stop eating cattle for that, there is not moral room to keep eating chocolate, for example. Or coffee

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#96
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

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

Maybe if they had to pay for the externalities.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#98

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 difficu…

> 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.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#100
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.

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