The Ocean is Broken (2013)

That's true, but on the other hand you get a much bigger nutritional boost out of eating the beef - it's rich in protein and other things that we need to live, which can't simply be replaced with more carbs. I'm not a big consumer of beef and I agree with your general point, but it's not the 1:1 equivalence which would mean 7/8ths of the beef someone consumes is a waste.

do you know of any online resources where i can read more about this yacht talk? i scuba dive quite a bit, and as a human, this is relevant to my interests.

Noting that parent was referring to net primary productivity (on which, Jeffrey Dukes, "Burning Buried Sunshine", is very strongly recommended: http://globalecology.stanford.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange...), the sustainability of various renewable energy technologies is an open question.

But here's the dilemma as I see it:

• Modern technological civilization is predicated on abundant cheap (high EROEI) energy sources. Technology follows from, rather than leads to, energy availability, and hence isn't an answer.

• For reasons of both depletion (peak oil / gas / coal) and pollution (greenhouse gasses, AGW, mercury and other emissions), continued use of fossil fuels isn't viable. We've already heat peak conventional liquids (oil), and global total peak oil production is likely within 5-15 years. Gas follows shortly after, coal likely by the late 21st / mid 22nd century assuming demand doesn't collapse entirely (which would generally indicate a collapse of civilization).

• If you want to continue a technological civilization of some sort, then you've got to find alternative high-grade forms of energy. Likely a mix of electrical generation (highly fungible) and limited liquid or solid fuels production (for transport and storage needs). Capacities to produce both are fairly constrained.

• The alternative is ... a non-technological level of civilization. Likely a collapse in both technological levels and population (from famine, disease, war, the usual). Which means that the future of humanity will be relying on solar power -- collected and stored by plants. And be living in a drastically depleted environment in which many ores and mineral resources, as well as water, topsoil, and ecosystems have been hugely depleted. "Rebooting" civilization would be at best very, very difficult.

• I like a technological civilization, don't get me wrong. But I don't see it as sustainable. And there's nothing in the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, or geology which say the Universe owes us our standard of living.

Answering your question about solar PV: the economics look difficult, and numerous people who are convinced of peak oil and climate change suggest that they may well not work, see Ted Trainer, John Michael Greer, Charles A.S. Hall, and Gail Tverberg among them:

"Renewable Energy: No Solution For Consumer Society" http://www.countercurrents.org/trainer240411.htm

But that doesn't exactly leave us with good alternatives, and my feeling is that PV or other high-grade solar technologies (solar thermal, Stirling or related engines) are worth pursuing with our remaining fossil fuel reserve (we really should have been pursuing these decades ago).

What's your alternative?

Enjoy your day.

Diabetes in a modern technological society with socialized healthcare (and all modern healthcare systems are to some extent socialized) does impose negative externalities.

As do many other diseases. TDR-TB is one of my, um, favorites in this regard: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1wc86m/the_nast...

I'm fairly left and I'm not opposed to privatization at all. But...

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.

Nice in theory, but in practice the highest bidder often ends up as such a strong political lobby that it prevails on government to do the policing, fights tooth-and-nail against quotas, and rights are almost never revoked. Coming from Ireland I remember fishing lobbyists being only slightly less powerful and vocal than the farming lobby and I see no reason to think that privatization will change this - it's been the same in every other coastal region I've ever lived.

As for revocation, consider the case of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company. In 1972 the US Department of the Interior bought the land the oyster farm is on and agreed a 40 year lease for the oyster farm, after which the plan was to shut everything down and let it revert to nature. Another company bought the farm in 2004, knowing full well the terms of the lease. When the lease ran out on schedule in 2012 they ran around seeking extensions via Congress and then suing the government. After having their case rejected, they're now preparing to appeal the matter to the Supreme Court. See http://www.marinij.com/ci_24909002/court-denies-drakes-bay-o...

Now, this is the opposite of your privatization scenario on its face as the government bought the land with the intent of creating a nature reserve, but it is a good example of a private actor voluntarily entering into a straightforward contractual arrangement with the government, much like the purchase of a fisheries license. 40 years is a pretty long lease period - well over a generation, more than enough time to plan for the economic dislocation of the lease expiration. But the leaseholder is fighting this like the injustice of the century, claiming that he had an expectation for lease renewal, the government is screwing him etc. Now I have no opinion about the oyster fishery itself (which I believe is well-run), nor do I think the department of the interior is necessarily great to do business with - for all I know they could have given the business owner a completely mistaken impression about the prospects of lease renewal. But the fact remains that the contractual arrangement was spelled out very clearly a long time ago, and losing your lease on a commercial property is the sort of thing that happens in business.

If a clear-cut case like this can end up dragging through the Supreme Court, I have little hope of more ambiguous and hard-to-score cases involving offshore fisheries being any better. Privatization alone is not the answer, although it is certainly a valid part of the answer. It won't work without onerous regulatory power as well.