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Tuna’s Last Stand

hakaimagazine.com

31–40 of 67 posts

Re: Tuna’s Last Stand

#31

Are fisheries guilty? Are regulators and governments guilty? I think the guilty side are end-consumers, particularly in rich countries, people themselves and their lifestyle (ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_food#Impact ) note: I haven't eat a gram of fish or meat since more than a decade (mostly because I don't feel the need, being already full with local products: fruits, plants, legumes, rice

This is a typical collective action problem. If you believe individual change in behaviour can fix it you're centuries behind on your sociology.

Re: Tuna’s Last Stand

#32

Are fisheries guilty? Are regulators and governments guilty? I think the guilty side are end-consumers, particularly in rich countries, people themselves and their lifestyle (ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_food#Impact ) note: I haven't eat a gram of fish or meat since more than a decade (mostly because I don't feel the need, being already full with local products: fruits, plants, legumes, rice

The claims in that wikipedia article and the cited news article seem unbelievable.

>Studies suggest pets consume about a fifth of the world’s meat and fish, and a dog’s carbon footprint is more than twice that of a 4x4 car, according to Yora.

Can anyone find the study which makes this claim? It kind of seems like a garbled version of this one:

>As calculated, US dogs and cats consume as much dietary energy as ~62 million Americans, which is approximately one-fifth of the US population.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Re: Tuna’s Last Stand

#33

> “All industrial fisheries, with very few exceptions, are ultimately drained of life after a certain time,” says Daniel Pauly, a University of British Columbia fisheries biologist. “They increase and push, push, until they collapse. Why should skipjack tuna be any different?” There you have it.

I mostly eat salmon, but I'd love to switch to smaller fish. Does anyone know a good way to get herring or sardines other than canned? Apart from being more expensive due to preparation, even bpa free can liners worry me a bit. Frozen would be ideal.

The vast majority of salmon is farmed, so sustainable in the sense that it isn't going to diminish wild stocks. There are arguments against open-pen aquaculture too of course, but it's all relative. And a lot of money is being spent on solving those issues, such as deep sea aquaculture (where the effluent isn't a big problem, compared to static coastal pens), closed-containment (where all waste can be collected and used to make fertilizer), and land-based aquaculture (personally, I really don't like this).

Re: Tuna’s Last Stand

#34

Are fisheries guilty? Are regulators and governments guilty? I think the guilty side are end-consumers, particularly in rich countries, people themselves and their lifestyle (ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_food#Impact ) note: I haven't eat a gram of fish or meat since more than a decade (mostly because I don't feel the need, being already full with local products: fruits, plants, legumes, rice

I'm sorry, but I refuse to feel guilty and I don't see why anyone should. When I go to the store and buy some tuna I expect that it was responsibly fished. If it wasn't then it's the fault of our government and regulation, regular customer shouldn't be worried about that. The same with meat - when I buy some I expect that animals weren't abused and beaten at farms, if they were then there's an issue in the system.

"There's an issue in the system" doesn't absolve you of responsibility. Right now, unless you take it on yourself to do some research and pay a premium, you know for a fact that any tuna you buy will have been irresponsibly fished and any meat you buy will come from animals that were abused. That is why they're so cheap and everyone knows it.

You cannot "expect" anything when you know the opposite for a fact. You can want it, but evidently not enough to lift a finger.

I wonder what you would do if you lived in a slave state or fascist regime. Would you buy slave-made goods and justify it because, sure, it's evil, but it's not your job to fix?

Re: Tuna’s Last Stand

#35

Are fisheries guilty? Are regulators and governments guilty? I think the guilty side are end-consumers, particularly in rich countries, people themselves and their lifestyle (ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_food#Impact ) note: I haven't eat a gram of fish or meat since more than a decade (mostly because I don't feel the need, being already full with local products: fruits, plants, legumes, rice

I'm sorry, but I refuse to feel guilty and I don't see why anyone should. When I go to the store and buy some tuna I expect that it was responsibly fished. If it wasn't then it's the fault of our government and regulation, regular customer shouldn't be worried about that. The same with meat - when I buy some I expect that animals weren't abused and beaten at farms, if they were then there's an issue in the system.

> I'm sorry, but I refuse to feel guilty

Then you're not sorry.

> When I go to the store and buy some tuna I expect that it was responsibly fished. If it wasn't then it's the fault of our government and regulation, regular customer shouldn't be worried about that.

How do you think regulations come to be?

If a consumer wants a product, a company finds a way to provide it. The company will poison the land, sea and sky in order to provide it to you, they don't give a shit. The government allows it until the people demand regulations to stop it. But you are the people - if you don't want it stopped, it won't be. And so there are no regulations made.

There is no parental overlord making sure that what you purchase is sustainable or cruelty-free. Sitting around saying "somebody should stop me from ruining the earth" doesn't actually make it happen. I know you don't want to have any personal responsibility or culpability for the shitty way the world works, but you do.

Ultimately, you, and everyone like you, are the reason we can't have nice things.

Re: Tuna’s Last Stand

#36
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tuna is hunted wildlife, an international commons. It's clearly evident that no regulation will happen anytime soon that will actually make a difference. If you buy it, you are part of the problem, either ignorantly or knowingly. Occasionally I find myself in some gastronomy setting were nothing in the menu appeals to me other than the dishes containing tuna and then I eat it, and enjoy it a lot. It happens less than…

I'm sorry, but tuna being farmed in international waters shouldn't be an obstacle. In all EU countries and UK there are quotas of what a fishing vessel can bring into port. So it doesn't matter where the fish was actually caught, if the country ran out of annual quota for tuna for instance, then no fishing vessel can bring any tuna to any port. It's not an insurmountable problem.

[deleted]

Re: Tuna’s Last Stand

#37

Go to the Tokyo Fish Market if you really want your eyes opened. 1500 tons of fish brought in every day. They just scoop up everything they can get their nets on and sell it at the market. Truly eye-opening experience.

[deleted]

Re: Tuna’s Last Stand

#38
post #3

This is a fascinating article, but I'm bookmarking it for the unreadable graphs. It will be a great example for future presentations.

> unreadable graphs

Can you explain your issues with the second graph, it seems perfect fine to me.

The first graph is merely "meh" ... the two key data points for this article are readily apparent: over all harvesting of tuna is increasing and the percentage of shipjack in that harvest is also increasing. What message was this graph supposed to communicate that it did not?

Re: Tuna’s Last Stand

#39

> “All industrial fisheries, with very few exceptions, are ultimately drained of life after a certain time,” says Daniel Pauly, a University of British Columbia fisheries biologist. “They increase and push, push, until they collapse. Why should skipjack tuna be any different?” There you have it.

I mostly eat salmon, but I'd love to switch to smaller fish. Does anyone know a good way to get herring or sardines other than canned? Apart from being more expensive due to preparation, even bpa free can liners worry me a bit. Frozen would be ideal.

Jarred herring is pretty common. Whole Foods carries https://products.wholefoodsmarket.com/brand/blue-hill-bay which are quite delicious.

Note: don't overdo it with the small fishes. They have high levels of purines which cause gout.

Re: Tuna’s Last Stand

#40
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an interesting insight. I would like to learn more about making graphs that communicate well. Can you share some specifics about how these graphs are unreadable, and how they can be improved?

Uhm... did you look at them? They both use very very similar shades of blue for all of the series which makes them impossible to distinguish. The second graph is a little better but even in that one the very similarly coloured blue lines cross each other so you have to really look closely to figure out which is which.

Yes. They both could have been better but both communicate their key message.

I guess the point is ... I've seen many, many examples of worse graphs, graphs where the point was obscured or graphs that were deliberately misleading; so I'm trying to figure out how these two are worthy of appearing in a presentation.

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