Live data from Hacker News

Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

news.ubc.ca

41–50 of 394 posts

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#41

We should be fixing farmed fish. When was the last time people ate wild cow. It's not sustainable for a population to be exploiting wild fish, farm properly and learn to do it quickly. As long as we eat meat, we have to do it in the least intrusive way.

Problem is the farmed fish are fed on wild fish, so it's several times less efficient than just eating whatever you would have fed them.

Some farmed fish (like tilapia) can live on a variety of things, including soy and corn pellets.

Algae, which can be used for many things - human consumption, farmed animal/fish feed and even fuel - can also be farmed sustainably.

I think we urgently need global legislation and enforcement of rules, as well as satellite monitoring to stop overfishing. World leaders need to work together on this.

Marine ecosystems may not come back once collapsed and that would be a huge disaster. I hope there is some kind of self-limiting dynamic here where industrial fishing becomes unprofitable, but we avoid extinctions and total collapse of ecosystems - but I'm not sure that's the case.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#42
I buy canned sardines regularly. I've noticed for the last year that the size of the sardines are increasing, and many that are canned now have eggs. It makes me wonder if pressure is making them age and try to reproduce sooner than before, or if the fishing season is being expanded to meet demand.

I've cut back on buying them as much. I may quit after this.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#43

With the way the human population is expanding and the rising income of 3rd world nations we are really going to look at a major increase in both genetically engineering food stock to be larger and more nutritious as well as ramping up lab grown meat. Conservation is clearly not going to work as so many nations ignore it anyway and quite often regulations lack teeth due to the fear of killing an industry. Its difficu…

> Society just wont change to support it. Maybe this is just me, but I would happily change my diet to be around 50% Soylent or other meal replacement if the cost was cheaper. Currently I eat around 2400 calories a day, with Soylent that costs me $20 a day. I can get Chipotle for ~$15 per day, and between the two Chipotle clearly wins on taste. From what I can tell meal replacements are often far more environmentally…

It also will wreck metabolic havoc since it's processed and often uses PUFAs, non bioavaiable versions of nutrients and and other such things.

You think we have an obesity crisis now? Wait until it's near mandatory to only eat things like cheap-edition soylent.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#44

With the way the human population is expanding and the rising income of 3rd world nations we are really going to look at a major increase in both genetically engineering food stock to be larger and more nutritious as well as ramping up lab grown meat. Conservation is clearly not going to work as so many nations ignore it anyway and quite often regulations lack teeth due to the fear of killing an industry. Its difficu…

Time to start killing industries

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#45

So if the population collapses, the fishermen will go out of business until the population recovers? Or is it not as simple as that?

It is as simple as that. But, populations are very slow to recover. This is only one example and is a bit of a special case.

https://www.newsdeeply.com/oceans/articles/2017/10/13/boom-a...

Fishery collapse has happened in other areas as well. Here is an example that didn't follow a disaster.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_north...

In all the cases I have looked at recovery is decades long.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#46

We should be fixing farmed fish. When was the last time people ate wild cow. It's not sustainable for a population to be exploiting wild fish, farm properly and learn to do it quickly. As long as we eat meat, we have to do it in the least intrusive way.

Since cow are definitionally domesticated, nobody has ever eaten a wild cow, but people eat wild mammals on a regular basis. Game is typically much healthier as a food source than domesticated animals; this includes wild-caught fish vs. farm-raised fish.

> but people eat wild mammals on a regular basis.

Not in meaningful quantity. It would bet that the median time since a typical Westerner last had wild mammal could be measured in months if not years.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#47
post #29

With the way the human population is expanding and the rising income of 3rd world nations we are really going to look at a major increase in both genetically engineering food stock to be larger and more nutritious as well as ramping up lab grown meat. Conservation is clearly not going to work as so many nations ignore it anyway and quite often regulations lack teeth due to the fear of killing an industry. Its difficu…

Yup. We're already pretty much at capacity in terms of using arable farming land[1]. We need more efficient farming, which means GMOs and advanced farming methods; we don't need less efficient farming like organic and anti-GMO. [1] https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/how-much-arabl...

Any good studies estimating the carrying capacity of Earth with current ag tech?

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#48

With the way the human population is expanding and the rising income of 3rd world nations we are really going to look at a major increase in both genetically engineering food stock to be larger and more nutritious as well as ramping up lab grown meat. Conservation is clearly not going to work as so many nations ignore it anyway and quite often regulations lack teeth due to the fear of killing an industry. Its difficu…

Time to start killing industries

While there is a small cushion to "kill" in terms of wealth and conspicuous consumption, before long you're talking about killing people. These industries don't just extract wealth for the 1%. They're also feeding billions of people.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#49

With the way the human population is expanding and the rising income of 3rd world nations we are really going to look at a major increase in both genetically engineering food stock to be larger and more nutritious as well as ramping up lab grown meat. Conservation is clearly not going to work as so many nations ignore it anyway and quite often regulations lack teeth due to the fear of killing an industry. Its difficu…

> Society just wont change to support it. Maybe this is just me, but I would happily change my diet to be around 50% Soylent or other meal replacement if the cost was cheaper. Currently I eat around 2400 calories a day, with Soylent that costs me $20 a day. I can get Chipotle for ~$15 per day, and between the two Chipotle clearly wins on taste. From what I can tell meal replacements are often far more environmentally…

The price for Soylent you quoted is for pre-prepared bottles.

You can get the add-water-only version for much cheaper. In fact, you can get a day's worth of calories for about $10 even with better quality formulation competing products such as Huel 3.0 or Plenny Active. You literally scoop the powder into the provided bottle with the provided scoop they give you, fill it with water, shake it up for 30 seconds, and it's ready to drink.

A bit more of a fair comparison just in case anyone reading this is curious on the development of this space.

Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

#50

With the way the human population is expanding and the rising income of 3rd world nations we are really going to look at a major increase in both genetically engineering food stock to be larger and more nutritious as well as ramping up lab grown meat. Conservation is clearly not going to work as so many nations ignore it anyway and quite often regulations lack teeth due to the fear of killing an industry. Its difficu…

> A science fiction style solution is going to be the only way to feed the world.

What about plant-based diets? That doesn't seem too SF to me

Post reply on HN