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The Ocean is Broken (2013)

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Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#131

Post by greeneggs »

tolmasky wrote: post #82
leobelle wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"What are you doing for your part" is equivalent to nothing, UNLESS you are perhaps paradoxically working in finance to become rich enough to have enough money and/or influence to someday have a real effect on these problems. Or maybe actively researching sustainable technologies, or part of a pro-environmental lobbyist group or something. Don't kid yourself: if you want to stand on a high horse understand that your…

I can't agree. Knowing the problem and how it is going to affect our children and grandchildren, it is immoral to do things that make the problem worse. Producing one pound of beef emits ~15 pounds of CO2, while one pound of chicken creates ~1 pound of CO2 [1]. Knowing this and having the choice between the two, I think it is immoral to eat beef.

To me, your argument is about the same as saying that it is okay to steal from Walmart. After all, what difference will it make to their bottom line? Essentially none. Does that make stealing (in small amounts) morally okay? (Maybe you see this as a completely different question, but from a Kantian ethics perspective, they're the same.)

[1] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2009-...

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#132

Post by leobelle »

anigbrowl wrote: post #101
ASpring wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fair point. Meat contributes far more of a negative impact on the environment than plants though. Consider the fact that it takes 8 lbs of grain to produce 1 lb of beef[1]. That's absurdly wasteful in the quantities of beef that most American's eat weekly. [1]: http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?articl...

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.

I do not eat meat and I do not have to eat more food than I did when I did eat meat. You've made a statement of fact, but it's at best highly ambiguous, but probably just outright false. You're confusing a bunch of nutritional concepts and coming to a non-sequitur conclusion.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#133

Post by sliverstorm »

dredmorbius wrote: post #129
sliverstorm wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking about the anguish of simply having an impact , as I judged that to be what my parent was really thinking about. Of killing an animal for food, or even a plant. Of cutting down a tree to build a house, or trapping and killing a rat in that house. Of lumbering forests, because it's not right, not fair to the forest and its inhabitants ( not because it's unsustainable) It doesn't matter if it's sustainable…

I was talking about the anguish of simply having an impact ... What does sustainability matter to the cow you just ate? You've made a number of posts emphasizing that you're not addressing sustainability. In which case: I don't think you're focusing on a particularly relevant part of the discussion. I see the construction of "having an impact" as a largely irrelevant distraction. Death is part of the cycle of life. W…

I don't think you're focusing on a particularly relevant part of the discussion.

No, you're just trying to have a different discussion than I was. I've learned about and talked about sustainability ad nauseam. I studied some of our impacts on the ocean in college, even. But not every discussion even tangentially related to sustainability need be converted into a discussion about sustainability. Especially when, to my eyes, the comment I was replying to wasn't contemplating sustainability! I realize you would have jumped in to my parent with, "sustainability is all that matters, forget about this sympathizing with mammals crap", but while I agree sustainability is VERY important, not everyone agrees it is really the only thing that matters.

Death is part of the cycle of life. We know that.

Yes, but is it senseless to consider the rhetorical question, "why must this creature die for me"? I see it like many other fundamental philosophical questions, like questions about free will. There may not be a clear or good answer, and chances are nothing will change, but it is interesting and even humbling to think about.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#134

Post by leobelle »

tolmasky wrote: post #82
leobelle wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"What are you doing for your part" is equivalent to nothing, UNLESS you are perhaps paradoxically working in finance to become rich enough to have enough money and/or influence to someday have a real effect on these problems. Or maybe actively researching sustainable technologies, or part of a pro-environmental lobbyist group or something. Don't kid yourself: if you want to stand on a high horse understand that your…

I don't kid myself, you're kidding yourself if you do not think that individual behaviors cause considerable impact on a vast scale in aggregate. The "high-horse" line is just a personal attack that doesn't have any merit in the argument, and really I shouldn't have bothered to respond to you because of it.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#135

Post by dredmorbius »

sliverstorm wrote: post #133
dredmorbius wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking about the anguish of simply having an impact ... What does sustainability matter to the cow you just ate? You've made a number of posts emphasizing that you're not addressing sustainability. In which case: I don't think you're focusing on a particularly relevant part of the discussion. I see the construction of "having an impact" as a largely irrelevant distraction. Death is part of the cycle of life. W…

I don't think you're focusing on a particularly relevant part of the discussion. No, you're just trying to have a different discussion than I was. I've learned about and talked about sustainability ad nauseam. I studied some of our impacts on the ocean in college, even. But not every discussion even tangentially related to sustainability need be converted into a discussion about sustainability. Especially when, to my…

I'm not arguing that we're having different discussion, though the person who seems to be trying to control the direction is you.

"Interesting to think about" and "productive" are distinct. I'm focused more on the latter.

You ultimately can't control what other people are going to do, say, or think. You're the one here expressing frustration with the discussion (and others interpretations of what you're saying). You can engage or not. I try to express myself clearly and cogently, and, if it's clear that there's not going to be some meeting of minds (which can be great, useful, and productive where it occurs), at least try to gain an understanding of where the other person's coming from. Though often that too fails.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#136

Post by jpatokal »

sleepyhead wrote: post #121
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.

No palm oil is sustainable. I have lived in Malaysia and can tell you that most the five hour drive from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore is spent looking at palm oil plantations. Malaysia is in fact with Indonesia by far the worst offender when it comes to deforestation. Also both countries are highly corrupt. Land grabbing is the norm and politicians and businessmen gain from the losses of the people in villages and the a…

Depends on what you mean by "sustainable". I agree that Johor has already been turned into one giant palm oil plantation, but as far as I know the current plantations can keep operating pretty much indefinitely, and peninsular Malaysia is not stripmining its national parks and remaining virgin jungle the way Indonesia is. (The Borneo side is a bit of a different story.)

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#137

Post by amalag »

snarfy wrote: post #126
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…

The problem is too many people, not the stuff the people consume.

Too many people living like they do now.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#138

Post by juziozd »

adamwong246 wrote: post #95
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…

The answer to the question of what to eat: Soylent.

Soylent contains fish oil. not good... Source: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/drink-soylent-and-youll-nev...

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#139

Post by spikels »

moultano wrote: post #70
spikels wrote: post #60

If the ocean is really broken and all the fish are gone, how come the amount of fish caught has not declined dramatically? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_fish_production This story is anecdotal. Actual data would be better.

This is the fallacy that led to the collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery. Regulators assumed that cod catches would start to drop long before the number of cod dropped to unsustainable numbers. This didn't happen. The number of cod caught remained stable until it collapsed. What they didn't account for in their models is that cod are schooling fish, so the local density of them remains constant even as the…

Not sure which fallacy you refer to. I'm just trying to understand what is actually known about this issue and what is just anecdote like the OP.

I know about the collapse of the cod catch in 1992[1] as well as declining catch of some species of tuna in some areas[2]. On the other hand some fisheries have come back after they supposedly collapsed, such as the BC sockeye salmon[3]. And since the overall catch is roughly flat any losses must have been made up by increases in other species. Right?

So I guess we are talking about a prediction for future global collapse. Is there good academic research on this? What is the specific forecast? What data do they use in their forecast?

The best academic article I could find is this[4] from UCSB and seems to say we generally don't have enough information to make forecasts.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_North...

[2] http://web.archive.org/web/20100327022746/http://www.iss-fou...

[3] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/bc-sock...

[4] http://www.pnas.org/content/110/40/15859

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#140

Post by anigbrowl »

leobelle wrote: post #132
anigbrowl wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I do not eat meat and I do not have to eat more food than I did when I did eat meat. You've made a statement of fact, but it's at best highly ambiguous, but probably just outright false. You're confusing a bunch of nutritional concepts and coming to a non-sequitur conclusion.

That's not what I meant at all - there are plenty of other non-meat sources of protein, from cheese to nuts, depending on how vegan you are. Once again, what I'm taking issue with is the notion that because 8 units of grain are needed to provide 1 unit of beef, the units are nutritionally identical. Making weight for weight comparisons as above is what's a non-sequitur.
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