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Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

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Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#321

Post by GordonS »

bjoli wrote: post #235
Depurator wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm doing a Ph.D. in salmon farming, it's an exciting field for sure. Just to address some common misconceptions: * The feed used for norwegian salmon is about 70-80% plant based, so the fish is a net producer of marine protein. The majority is soy, and the industry is trying to transition to sustainable feed ingredients such as insects (see Protix) and micro algae for EPA/DHA (See veramaris) * The farmed salmon does…

Are there any viable solutions to the problems with off-shore farming? Last time I checked the ecosystem around you typical Scandinavian salmon farm in the ocean was devestated. We take extreme care not to flush our own sewers into the sea, yet happily permit salmon farms with the equivalent fertilizing effect of a town of 25000 having all their toilets flush everything out on the shore.

There are lots of different approaches being taken to offshore farming, but few have been tried at scale yet.

One of the concepts is closed-containment farming, where the fish are kept in a sealed enclosure. The fish can be kept below the sea lice level, and all waste can be collected. The downsides are cost, failure modes, and welfare (the fish have less area than open-pen near-shore farms, and will never see sunlight, for example).

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#322

Post by bserge »

dublin wrote: post #294
firebaze wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to start to understand as humankind that we're a pest to other life on this planet, be it animals, plants, naval lifeforms or anything else, us included (maybe except tardigrades, extremophiles and deep-sea creatures). We need to reduce our numbers, and sustain that. Or embrace Musk's ideas.

[flagged]

Is that why he's trying to eradicate the mosquitoes? Come on...

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#323

Post by pvaldes »

vzidex wrote: post #289
pvaldes wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [Citation needed] pvaldes, 2020 Some facts are so well stablished in human knowledge that there is not need to cite it. For example: "Some crops are more productive than other. Point". We, humans know it since 10.000 years ago. Anybody can see it with their eyes. Not need to repeat what Aristotle would say about it. Primary and secondary production, is a big fat chapter in any Ecology handbook. Any Plant physiology…

> Some facts are so well stablished in human knowledge that there is not need to cite it. So, your statement is true because you say that it's common knowledge that it's true? > Primary and secondary production, is a big fat chapter in any Ecology handbook OK, then kindly provide one of these ecology handbooks that proves your point > If nobody is trying to produce a natural sized cow sculpture made of vanille beans,…

> So your statement is true because you say that it's common knowledge that it's true?

Not, my statement is true BECAUSE is has been proven extensively and is common knowledge that it's true. There is a difference. There are extensive databases, plots and tables about how many food you can expect to produce from each organism by unit of time and area. Is the basis of a main branch of ecology: Trophic chains and energy.

To say than growing Soy is more efficient than to breed Polar bears is a repeated lie, trying to make simple things that aren't simple. Not. It depends on the ecosystem, context, temperature range, soil, and climate. And is the same with breeding cattle.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#324

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

njarboe wrote: post #314
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I support nuclear as part of the mix for clean energy, it's very important to understand that nuclear is NOT failing due to "propaganda" alone. The problem is the cost, in particular the capital cost. You see similar costs globally, even in places where environmental opposition to nuclear is basically a non factor like China. Given current costs (check the Lazard decks) and likely trends, it's pretty possible t…

Fukushima was built in the early 1970's from an early 1960's design. Nuclear power had barley started to be developed and then all development stopped. Of course there are many reasons for that, but if we had continued to develop new nuclear tech from the 70's till today, imagine how many extremely safe and inexpensive reactor concepts could have been developed. This is, of course, a long and complicated topic, not v…

From what I read the root cause at Fukushima was improper risk assessment resulting in too low of a sea wall and not putting the gensets on piers. At least one engineer understood the mistake but was unable to overcome the bureaucracy to do anything about it.

So while I agree with you about how "new nuclear" could be dramatically safer, I still have concerns about how this stuff is regulated and operated. It's also why I'm in particular gung ho about small reactors, as there even if the risk estimates are messed up, the scale itself alievates many concerns.

Your final point/speculation is an interesting one. I've not heard this perspective before but it does seem plausible to me.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#325

Post by Stupulous »

vzidex wrote: post #285
Stupulous wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been wondering lately if cutting out a product is less ethical than buying the ethical version and supporting that market. Relatedly, people often don't eat meat because they oppose unethical treatment of animals. But I imagine farmers who treat animals well are disadvantaged by that strategy- people who care enough to buy their more expensive product opt out of the market entirely.

> I imagine farmers who treat animals well This is a cherry picked argument, at least in the US, where "factory farms raise 99.9 percent of chickens for meat, 97 percent of laying hens, 99 percent of turkeys, 95 percent of pigs, and 78 percent of cattle" [1]. Besides, even in this ideal farm where the farmer treats the animals perfectly and lets them live long, fulfilling lives, they're still killing the animal at th…

I don't think 'cherry-picked' is the right descriptor. My point is that in order for those percentages to change, we need to seek out ethical farming and pay for it.

If you believe that it is unethical to raise livestock with fulfilling lives and then kill them for meat, by all means do not eat meat. I disagree, but I accept that as a valid, reasonable position to hold. I think most people are more concerned with animal cruelty specifically, and also have a lot of difficulty switching to vegetarianism.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#326

Post by jsilence »

RankingMember wrote: post #229
KerrickStaley wrote: post #75

If you're interested in adjusting your seafood eating habits towards eating more sustainable seafood, the Monterey Bay Aquarium maintains a guide on which seafood (based on species and location/method of catch) is most sustainable, somewhat sustainable, and not sustainable. My favorite version of the guide is the printable version that you can fold up and put in your wallet: https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-recom…

I think the intent is great, but what is the percentage of the population that would utilize such a thing in their daily life? Not trying to be a downer, but I think most people don't have the bandwidth to be carrying around little cards reminding them to buy this/don't buy that, "oh, and is that tuna line-caught or pole-caught?", etc. If eating a certain kind of fish is causing environmental damage, we need regulati…

Exactly! And that is probably the reason why the majority of us should cut down hard on animal based food consumption, just to be on the safe side.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#327

Post by bserge »

duhuh wrote: post #160
rdtwo wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t really see us worrying about food scarcity any time soon. We still burn the bulk of our corn as gas until that changes I see no issue with calorie shortages

This is a thread about worrying about seafood scarcity already. Not-anytime-soon has arrived on a food-by-food basis. In the case of seafood, it’s an entire food group!

Tbf, seafood is a special category, as most of it can not be farmed (not efficiently, at least), so capturing it from the wild is the easiest, and often only, solution.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#328

Post by mypalmike »

novok wrote: post #227
sharkmerry wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> that "the billionaires", in their infinite wisdom and generosity, will pull magical solutions out of their hats and save us all. Like you mention later, yeah, right. I think its more that they have the means. Cant get anything done on a large scale without lots of moolah

Meh people over-estimate the wealth of billionaires. A $1 billionaire can only buy 1000 houses in the bay area for example, and then make something like $6m/yr in rent from it. If we take all the wealth of the top 100 billionaries and put it towards the US annual budget, it wouldn't fund it for more than a year or two also and then you'd soon be out of billionaires as you go down the list. Governments are the real 'w…

More like $60m in rent, just FYI.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#329

Post by gen220 »

kickout wrote: post #155
gen220 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that every time there's been estimations on carrying capacity applied to humans, it's eventually turned out to be wrong. The reality is that we are not very efficient at agriculture in all of the places where agriculture is practiced. Most carrying capacity models make the assumption that we are at or near peak agricultural output, but this simply isn't true, so the models' predictive powers fall ap…

What? Agriculture is hyper-efficient in the biggest areas of the world (US Midwest, Brazil, Eastern Europe).

Sorry, I'd rephrase my original statement a little bit for clarity. I didn't mean at all to say that "nowhere is efficient", which in retrospect is one valid way of interpreting my original statement.

It's not that agriculture isn't hyper-efficient in certain locales. It's that it could be more efficient, if its operators cared to invest in making it so. Until demand rises relative to supply (from supply shortages), there isn't a price pressure to innovate on efficiency. This doesn't stop the "big farms" from innovating, because "big farm crops" are a race-to-the-bottom commodity business. That's why we get more corn, soy beans, whatever every year.

This is all without mentioning the places where agriculture is rather undeveloped, compared to the places you mention (many locales in Africa, central Asia, even the United States and Canada).

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#330

Post by Stupulous »

ido66667 wrote: post #140
duhuh wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure why you’re being downvoted, but yes, as a society if we find that we are over-using resources, we should cut out those foods. We seem to value a human population numbered in the billions. Some foods won’t work for that population.

You know, it seems silly to me that the choice we seem to make is rather than controlling our population, we choose having worse lives for us and all future generations. Lack of self-control will truly be the end of humanity.

I think population control is expected to happen automatically in the next 50 years. It doesn't feel like a profitable area to direct activism.
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