Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 154 posts

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#91

Post by mratzloff »

sametmax wrote: post #85
singularity2001 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO The lack of mosquitos is the single positive aspect of a crippled nature. Allegedly a Pharao had a slave covered in honey to get some peace from those beasts. New Zealand is paradise except that on some beaches you just can't stop unless you want to get drained.

For your human comfort yes. But mosquitoes are part of the food chain, and also help mixing blood from very different species. This, in turn, allow micro-organisms that should never meet to interact with each others, giving a new path to biodiversity. As annoying as it is, it's a useful critter. You see, the way you react is the very cause of our current troubles: we only see the living systems as a way to please us,…

Just to clear, there are about 3500 or 4000 species of mosquitoes, and if we eradicated the tiny handful that carry malaria, Zika, etc. it would only have positive results. That would leave thousands to continue pollinating and serving as food for fish, frogs, and other wildlife.

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#92

Post by aerique »

gambiting wrote: post #75
ekr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience of this is that 10-15 years ago, when I was a child, my dad would often take us on road trips by car, sometimes arriving home late into the night. (the trips were around Central Europe) The headlights, windshield and parts of the body were always significantly covered by dead insects. For the past 5 years or so however, they have almost always been perfectly clean. This has amazed me.

As someone who has just done a 13 hour drive from Amsterdam to Krakow, I can assure you that my car was absolutely covered in dead insects, the front licence plate was barely readable, the layer of dead bugs was so thick.

That must have been the last part of your trip then. When I drove from The Netherlands to Bretagne (about 900km, ±10 hours) last Summer I had less insects on the car than I had in my parent's car 35 years ago for 1/10 of the trip length.

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#93

Post by NeedMoreTea »

sametmax wrote: post #84
dajohnson89 wrote: post #5

One of the more depressing things to read, is how back in the early days of America, one could just reach into the river/sea and grab a fish. E.g. lobsters were once so plentiful that native americans used them as fertilizer[0]. And there's photographic evidence of overfishing too. [1] is a nice NPR piece about how the largest catch of the year at a particular spot in Florida has been dwindling. [0] - http://www.gma.…

Equally terrible is the same comparison about bugs, but it's easier to make people flip because it happened in our lifetime (recent and so fast!): When I was young, I was driving a small bike. Having mosquitoes or flies clouds was a common occurrence on the road and the best motivator to wear a helmet for a youngster not bothered by security. Nowadays, I'm still driving a bike, although a bigger one. But I encounter…

Awareness is relative. What you see in your formative years sets what's normal. Everything is relative to that. Older photos of abundance or massive piles of horseshoe crabs to be ground for fertiliser[0] are a strange alien world. People in their 20s are used to a lack of wildlife and consider it normal simply as that is what they grew up seeing, along with acres of monoculture in the "countryside".

The almost insolvable problem we have is everyone 60 or younger grew up with throwaway consumerism as "normal". My parents generation didn't. They had a fraction of my generation's environmental impact without any efforts to environmentalism. Simply they expected to buy something once then repair it if need be and replace when broken beyond repair. Not when something a little better gets released.

For all the huge increase in general awareness of the environment, when in the 80s the environment was something of the fringe, we're destroying it at an ever increasing rate. I'm not optimistic.

[0] https://modernfarmer.com/2014/03/horseshoe-crabs-went-fertil...

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#94

Post by kaybe »

jaggederest wrote: post #14
mncharity wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that change blindness, I wonder if an interesting component of teaching history could be to emphasize 'things you would find jaw-droppingly different if you were dropped back in time'? Precise arrangements for where/when to meet ("at 10:10, on the corner of mumble and mumble") - because no cell phones. Boston Python, having an unusually large turnout... so someone needed to pull up an extra chair to the confere…

My current point of concern is that I can go out and sit all evening without a mosquito bite. That was unheard of even 30 years ago when I was a kid. You'd be lucky if you didn't have one for every minute you spent outside. I think the insects are dying, and it's frightening. Second item would be watching the bison migrate on the plains. Literally horizon to horizon, a hundred thousand individuals or more in a group.…

In our area mosquitos are killed on purpose, by poisoning their main breeding areas when they are still in the water. (And I am just finding out that this is done by a sanctioned non-profit organisation.)

Maybe something similar is done in your region?

https://www.kabsev.de/ (German)

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#95

Post by ponzored »

waivek wrote: post #67
ponzored wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europeans have been responsible for the majority of scientific advances we all enjoy today. Native Americans died from diseases and conflicts with a superior group of people. Competition for resources is a core driver of evolution and is nothing new for any species on Earth.

Europeans got the lucky bounce of Genghiz Khan. It's very probable that the Islam golden age would have beaten Europeans to the punch if not for him. And what do you mean by "superiors group of people"?

Superior technology.

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#96

Post by sametmax »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #93
sametmax wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equally terrible is the same comparison about bugs, but it's easier to make people flip because it happened in our lifetime (recent and so fast!): When I was young, I was driving a small bike. Having mosquitoes or flies clouds was a common occurrence on the road and the best motivator to wear a helmet for a youngster not bothered by security. Nowadays, I'm still driving a bike, although a bigger one. But I encounter…

Awareness is relative. What you see in your formative years sets what's normal. Everything is relative to that. Older photos of abundance or massive piles of horseshoe crabs to be ground for fertiliser[0] are a strange alien world. People in their 20s are used to a lack of wildlife and consider it normal simply as that is what they grew up seeing, along with acres of monoculture in the "countryside". The almost insol…

That's a good point, and maybe a solution lies in it.

When I read other comments about birds obscuring the sky, fishes you could caught by hand, etc. It seemed unreal, almost magical. A fairy tale on some Westeros-like world.

If we can use this narrative to astonish people, and make them get perspective on what should be, it can be a powerful message.

"Eat less meat", "recycle", "use less the car/plane" are not really sexy. They are constraints.

"Look how amazing things used to be before we did this", however, is much more inspirational.

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#97

Post by marliechiller »

mratzloff wrote: post #91
sametmax wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For your human comfort yes. But mosquitoes are part of the food chain, and also help mixing blood from very different species. This, in turn, allow micro-organisms that should never meet to interact with each others, giving a new path to biodiversity. As annoying as it is, it's a useful critter. You see, the way you react is the very cause of our current troubles: we only see the living systems as a way to please us,…

Just to clear, there are about 3500 or 4000 species of mosquitoes, and if we eradicated the tiny handful that carry malaria, Zika, etc. it would only have positive results. That would leave thousands to continue pollinating and serving as food for fish, frogs, and other wildlife.

> and if we eradicated the tiny handful that carry malaria, Zika, etc. it would only have positive results.

for humans yes - which was his point. looking at this from a human perspective is a problem. there are likely unknown consequences elsewhere in the food chain if we completely eradicate a species for our own gain

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#98

Post by baxtr »

sametmax wrote: post #89
baxtr wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all really bad and we're not on a good path here as a species... But one thing to remember is that nature works locally. I think there is a chance to protect the environment through isolated "islands" - with no human contact whatsoever - where flora and fauna have the chance to come back. Interestingly, Chernobyl is quite a good example for that: https://nordic.businessinsider.com/wildlife-near-nuclear-rea...

But I'm not worried about nature at all, although the massacre disturb my sense of aesthetic and empathy. It's sad we destroy it. I wish we would not. But it will survive, thrive even. The problem is that our current actions will kill us.

My idea is to preserve nature so it can safe us. If there are large areas where no human being has access to, nature will thrive and we can then use that area to take whatever we need, whatever has been extinct through us and grow it back. Think of it as a safe for your most valuable things, in this case, nature

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#99

Post by topmonk »

jaggederest wrote: post #14
mncharity wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that change blindness, I wonder if an interesting component of teaching history could be to emphasize 'things you would find jaw-droppingly different if you were dropped back in time'? Precise arrangements for where/when to meet ("at 10:10, on the corner of mumble and mumble") - because no cell phones. Boston Python, having an unusually large turnout... so someone needed to pull up an extra chair to the confere…

My current point of concern is that I can go out and sit all evening without a mosquito bite. That was unheard of even 30 years ago when I was a kid. You'd be lucky if you didn't have one for every minute you spent outside. I think the insects are dying, and it's frightening. Second item would be watching the bison migrate on the plains. Literally horizon to horizon, a hundred thousand individuals or more in a group.…

The following is conjecture, but I'm guessing that insects of the last century mainly survived off of crops from farmland, either directly or indirectly.

So, if true, that means that it was hardly natural beforehand either. It may be we are just using better pesticides, so we moved from one artificial environment to a different one. Both are out-of-whack compared to what would naturally be there. How do you know the previous conditions, where there was lots of farmland, but no good pesticides was the better one?

Re: One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

#100

Post by sametmax »

baxtr wrote: post #98
sametmax wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I'm not worried about nature at all, although the massacre disturb my sense of aesthetic and empathy. It's sad we destroy it. I wish we would not. But it will survive, thrive even. The problem is that our current actions will kill us.

My idea is to preserve nature so it can safe us. If there are large areas where no human being has access to, nature will thrive and we can then use that area to take whatever we need, whatever has been extinct through us and grow it back. Think of it as a safe for your most valuable things, in this case, nature

Islands as Noe's ark. Why not.

It's a good complement to old seeds data banks like kokopelli's.

Post reply on HN