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Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

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Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#291

Post by thaumasiotes »

biztos wrote: post #173
thaumasiotes wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where I grew up in NW Ohio, there is practically no irrigation. It rains enough there’s no need. Freshwater use is passive, in other words. Out west, farms have to actively pump water to irrigate since there’s not enough rain. Interestingly, the natural state of much of California was a swamp. We put in a lot of effort converting the swamp to desert. If we reestablished the swamps, California would be a much less p…

Isn’t the rice mostly grown in Northern California, which is definitely not a desert and AFAIK was not a swamp?

Is there some reason that would continue to be true if Southern California[1] was replaced with swamps?

[1] You're using "Northern California" and "Southern California" differently from everyone else; in normal use, Northern California is the Bay Area, not the north of the state.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#292

Post by colechristensen »

s_dev wrote: post #213
colechristensen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fishing can be done sustainably, and is in some fisheries.

Unless it's some guy with a fishing rod or anchovies -- no industrial fishing is not sustainable. Even salmon farms are fed with 20x the mass of smaller wild fish from the ocean. I love eating fish but this is a fact we all have to face.

>Even salmon farms are fed with 20x the mass of smaller wild fish from the ocean.

The feed ratio for farmed salmon isn't 20, it's 1.2.

12 pounds of feed for 10 pounds of salmon.

The ratio is about 6 for beef, 4 for pork, 1.6 for poultry.

People who don't know things or make up statistics to support their environmental doom narrative do harm to the causes they are trying to help. Anyone skeptical of you can easily find your numbers are false, and very very false at that. Why would anybody believe any of the rest of what you have to say when clearly it's demonstrable that you don't know what you're talking about on an easily countered point.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#293

Post by colechristensen »

PeterisP wrote: post #204
colechristensen wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a bit excessive. No human knows how to manage fish populations?

No human knows how to solve global coordination, i.e. if some countries switch to be sustainable and some others don't, the former pay the costs, but the latter gain a signficant benefit as their immediate catches simply increase (as fish don't care about borders). We don't have a "world government" that can practically impose binding restrictions on anyone in cases that don't go so far as where military violence mak…

>fish don't care about borders

Plenty of fisheries are indeed quite local, and managed responsibly. Likewise some aren't.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#294

Post by ch4s3 »

hh3k0 wrote: post #216
ggreer wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the straw + lid combo that is most advantageous. It lets you drink in a vehicle without worrying about spilling. Reusable options like sippy cups are a non-starter for any sort of takeout or fast food. I recently spent a week in Texas and I must say, the disposable plastic bags and plastic straws were a big improvement in quality of life. I'd gladly pay some extra fees to offset the environmental damage. Banning…

> I'd gladly pay some extra fees to offset the environmental damage. I doesn't work that way, though. Offsetting environmental damage is just capitalism cosplaying as environmentalism, pure feel-good propaganda.

I depends on the offset does it not? What if you're just paying the lifecycle cost of making sure the material is properly disposed of?

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#295

Post by steve_adams_86 »

Gordonjcp wrote: post #181
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most dramatic changes an individual can make is switching to a plant based diet. Don’t support fishing, don’t support animal agriculture, and you’re way ahead. Not only in energy expenditure but resource utilization as well. It’s a stunning difference.

Doesn't shipping plant-based food around the planet cause massive climate change? PLant-based diets only make sense if you live somewhere where it's ecologically cheaper to eat plants than animals. This doesn't work, for most of the world.

As others have pointed out, the data shows that it clearly works well for most of the world.

For cases where it doesn’t make sense (these are exceedingly rare), they should do what works best for them.

If we were to ship the equivalent calories and nutrition in vegetable form we would be able to ship it earlier and more often than the meat, too. Plant based nutrition is more abundant, more efficient, and more secure in almost every region of the earth.

The only case where meat makes rational sense is generally when you prefer the taste and/or calorie density. This doesn’t often make sense on a population scale. I don’t think it makes sense for individuals either, but that is still considered opinion these days.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#296

Post by williamscales »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #266
kiliantics wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible to restrict vehicle size in urban centres, plenty of cities do. You can move things with smaller safer trucks and vans for the last mile. In some cases, this is even done with cargo bikes.

I guess my point was “the trucks doing the last mile delivery aren’t going anywhere”, contrary to the parent’s claim that trucks are unnecessary and that rail will handle the last mile. I fully expect trucks will get smaller if only because no one is going to use an 18-wheeler to transport goods between a rail depot and a supermarket a mile or so down the street.

I don’t think rail will handle the last mile in all cases, but I also don’t think the last mile requires trucks. It’s the last mile. There are so many options besides semi trucks.

It’s worth looking at Switzerland where they have many electric spur lines that do handle the last mile.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#297

Post by Gordonjcp »

ornornor wrote: post #287
Gordonjcp wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay but animals raised for meat don't eat food shipped from round the world.

They do, soy for animal feed is grown far far away.

You don't feed livestock soy, it's too expensive. The animal feed that contains soy is made from the stuff that humans can't eat - roughly 80% of the plant mass of soy is simply inedible by humans.

If you've got a clever trick for using this without running it through a cow, you'll be rich.

Otherwise, what are you going to do with it? Pile it up and let it rot, releasing even more carbon dioxide and methane?

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#298

Post by triceratops »

ggreer wrote: post #100
triceratops wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't get the point of straws, other than for handicapped people or small children (who have washable sippy bottles and cups anyway). Are people that bad at drinking from cups and glasses?

It's the straw + lid combo that is most advantageous. It lets you drink in a vehicle without worrying about spilling. Reusable options like sippy cups are a non-starter for any sort of takeout or fast food. I recently spent a week in Texas and I must say, the disposable plastic bags and plastic straws were a big improvement in quality of life. I'd gladly pay some extra fees to offset the environmental damage. Banning…

I can drink fine through a plastic lid with the 4 slits without needing a straw.

Coffee cups also have lids that let you drink without a staw. Is there any reason you can't put the same lids on soft drink cups?

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#299

Post by throwaway894345 »

eloisius wrote: post #289
throwaway894345 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol you came so close! Suburban supermarkets would get their goods just like your urban supermarket: smaller box trucks transporting goods from rail depot to supermarket.

I doubt it would be viable to stock suburban walmart via box trucks.

I don’t see why not, but in any case you wouldn’t need long-haul trucking to get goods from a local rail depot.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#300

Post by eru »

hnick wrote: post #280
eru wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter whether any one particular fee or tax is progressive or flat or regressive. It's the overall tax burden (or net payment, for poor people) of the whole system that's important for these kinds of fairness considerations. The design of individual taxes should be more concerned with efficiency and deadweight losses.

I agree with that. But there has to be minimal delay between any expense and refund if you are making the up front cost higher for the lower income brackets. Waiting until the end of the year for a rebate won't be good enough.

I wasn't suggesting to give people a rebate for bread. Just the opposite.

Bread should cost whatever it fetches on the market (and that will include pigovian taxes, if any).

The amount and frequency of welfare transfers to poor people should be independent of how much bread they buy and when.

To give a concrete example: you get your welfare check at the start of the month, and the government doesn't whether you buy bread with it or noodles, and shouldn't give you a refund either way.

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