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The Ocean is Broken (2013)

theherald.com.au

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Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#31

Post by sliverstorm »

CalRobert wrote: post #4

I sometimes wonder if shopping for groceries is as frustrating for most people. I like Nutella, but when I see Palm Oil as the second ingredient I picture dead orangutans. I like beef, but I sympathize for a fellow mammal and think of the enormous amounts of diverted water and fertilizer runoff that goes in to producing feed. I enjoy fish, but thinking of this makes me sick to my stomach. I enjoy many beverages that…

I can't think of anything at the grocery store that doesn't have some sort of negative implication. Heck, just driving to the grocery store burns fuel and supports the automotive industry. Biking to the grocery store burns food (of which all food has negative implications) and supports the bicycle industry.

You can work yourself into knots over it; there is no way in which you can eat food and not have some negative impact. So, IMO, you either give up the battle entirely, or you can stop killing yourself over it but still make intelligent choices. For example, I eat fish because I believe fish farming could be a better choice for the future than cattle farming, and I eat chicken because the feed-to-meat ratio is better than beef.

As not only animals but meat-eating animals, it's just a fact of life that our/your existence costs something, means some sort of sacrifice for another organisim. You can try to reduce your impact, but you can't not have an impact.

Also, a little bit of my personal philosophy here- one way we could reduce our impact is by doing as little as possible, never moving about and burning more calories than absolutely necessary. Never performing strenuous activity that results in regenerative & anabolic processes, which require extra nutrients. But the way I see it, just existing costs the world "100 externality". If living to the fullest costs "110 externality", I feel like I am doing a disservice if I chose the first option, saving so little "externality" and spending my life miserable. For have I not then utterly wasted the costs I imposed on the world?

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#32

Post by BoppreH »

leobelle wrote: post #20
BoppreH wrote: post #11

There was an "What If"[0] on xkcd about the ocean and ships' weight. The question itself was innocuous, but inside a parenthesis was this sentence: (Marine fish biomass dropped by 80% over the last century, which—taking into consideration the growth rate of the world’s shipping fleet—leads to an odd conclusion: Sometime in the last few years, we reached a point where there are, by weight, more ships in the ocean than…

And yet, are you still eating meat? Fish? What are you doing for your part?

I don't buy fish and don't own a car.

Edit: not that this is the extent of my actions, or even that I agree with this line of questioning.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#33

Post by nightski »

frankzinger wrote: post #26
fromdoon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone already said, we should not worry about our planet, for it is going to be here, long long after we are finished. We should be worried about ourselves. We rely on our planet for our existence and the current state of our planet hangs on a fine balance of its constituent elements. If we were to change the balance, the planet would not die, it would only enter into a new different state. But we would surely d…

"As someone already said, we should not worry about our planet, for it is going to be here, long long after we are finished. We should be worried about ourselves." See, this is something I don't get about most people. Does nobody else feel sympathy for individual animals ? We're inflicting immeasurable amounts of suffering and death and nothing will ever make that less of a tragedy.

While I do indeed feel sympathy, mother nature does not. The animal kingdom is brutal at best. To think we are the only ones inflicting suffering and death is kind of ignoring the larger picture. Nature itself inflicts immeasurable amounts of suffering and death.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#34

Post by aktbc »

CalRobert wrote: post #4

I sometimes wonder if shopping for groceries is as frustrating for most people. I like Nutella, but when I see Palm Oil as the second ingredient I picture dead orangutans. I like beef, but I sympathize for a fellow mammal and think of the enormous amounts of diverted water and fertilizer runoff that goes in to producing feed. I enjoy fish, but thinking of this makes me sick to my stomach. I enjoy many beverages that…

I agree with your sentiment about those Keurig machines. What a vile invention.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#35

Post by BlackDeath3 »

pstuart wrote: post #28
leobelle wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.nutellausa.com/faqs.htm Nutella is "a member of the RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil), Ferrero only uses palm oil which is extracted from controlled plantations in Malaysia." So you can enjoy your Nutella guilt free.

If one also ignores the fact that it's mainly sugar frosting.

Well, that's the primary motivation for the purchase, is it not?

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#36

Post by [deleted] »

leobelle wrote: post #20
BoppreH wrote: post #11

There was an "What If"[0] on xkcd about the ocean and ships' weight. The question itself was innocuous, but inside a parenthesis was this sentence: (Marine fish biomass dropped by 80% over the last century, which—taking into consideration the growth rate of the world’s shipping fleet—leads to an odd conclusion: Sometime in the last few years, we reached a point where there are, by weight, more ships in the ocean than…

And yet, are you still eating meat? Fish? What are you doing for your part?

[deleted]

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#37

Post by chrisgd »

I am really interested in companies like this: www.cleanseas.com.au that are trying to breed fish on their own. They still need to grow them in the ocean. Not sure of the cost to get there, but interesting none the less.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#38

Post by maxerickson »

_broody wrote: post #16
[deleted] wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

That sort of naive techno-utopian response isn't helpful at all in the face of reality. We lack the ability to stop the degradation of our current environment. That doesn't bring high hopes that we could undertake the exponentially more difficult task of building a new and better one in another planet, not before we run out of time.

Is that true?

The Great Lakes are cleaner now than they were in recent history (I guess if you consider zebra muscles, lampreys and the ongoing dangers of Asian carp that is less true). From the standpoint of industrial contamination things are certainly improving.

Licensing programs have succeeded in increasing fish harvests (that is, given cooperation the number of fish in the ocean can be increased alongside increased extraction).

There are all sorts of situations where the problem is that we aren't doing something we know would work.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#39

Post by falcolas »

leobelle wrote: post #20
BoppreH wrote: post #11

There was an "What If"[0] on xkcd about the ocean and ships' weight. The question itself was innocuous, but inside a parenthesis was this sentence: (Marine fish biomass dropped by 80% over the last century, which—taking into consideration the growth rate of the world’s shipping fleet—leads to an odd conclusion: Sometime in the last few years, we reached a point where there are, by weight, more ships in the ocean than…

And yet, are you still eating meat? Fish? What are you doing for your part?

Considering that every single thing we could eat would have an impact on the environment (typically negatively), it's not as simple as abstaining from eating a particular substance.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#40

Post by alexeisadeski3 »

The astounding decline of the ocean's fisheries is an incredibly important issue. But we all know that.

What we all don't know is the solution. What we've got is a classic tragedy of the commons. It's made more difficult due to the international nature of oceanic fisheries - those little guys like to swim around, paying no heed to national boundaries. Plus there's all of that international ocean to police. Who's going to ensure that 3rd world fishermen aren't catching too much tuna, inadvertently killing too many dolphins, etc etc? Is it reasonable to expect the US to police the entirety of the Pacific Ocean's fish stock?

We've seen this play before. And the only practical solution is not something which the leftists here are going to like.

We have to privatize the oceans fisheries. It is imperative. It has to happen now. It has to happen yesterday. Fish stocks are collapsing. Fish stocks have collapsed.

The fisheries have to be delineated by whatever means appropriate (species and/or location, depending upon the migratory/wandering patterns of each fish in question) and auctioned off to the highest bidder. The highest bidder will then have the right to determine how many fish each year/month are harvested, and by whom. The highest bidder can police the fish themselves. If they fail to police the fish, their ownership is revoked and the rights are re-auctioned.

This is simple stuff. It's been done before with other natural resources. We all need to get over our political differences and make it happen.

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