The Tragedy of the Oceans
The noise produced by the global warming debate often overwhelms other environmental issues. I find this unfortunate, because some of these issues matter a great deal and are arguably equally urgent, if in a quieter way. For example, take fish.
There is little doubt at this point that overfishing is greatly impacting the quantity of fish in our oceans, particularly those fish that people actually like to eat. Farmed fish are a long way from being a solution to this problem, being quite inefficient to produce and a source of pollution themselves. They are also arguably unethical to produce, for many of the same reasons as factory-farmed chickens. Once basically a free good, fish in high-development areas have also become prohibitively expensive
In this article, the cookbook author Mark Bittman (who incidentally writes and edits a good and generally fun food blog, Bitten), ruminates sadly on the great difficulty of buying “sustainable” fish. His approach boils down to buying fish very carefully, and eating it a good deal less than he used to. Which has implications he does not address: fish is one of the only reliable sources of the essential fatty acids DHA and EPA, which are crucial for brain development and heart health. As go the fish, so do we.
~ Maxwell
UPDATE: Maybe I should cheer up a bit. Ray Hilborn offers some context.
UPDATE: Regarding amba’s question in the comments: I found it striking that both Hilborn and the activists referred to the same source for their statistics, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. The following graphic is from page 51 of the UNFAO’s The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2008.
So the actual picture here is more complex than either the professor or the activists claim. On the one hand, overexploited/depleted/recovering marine stocks seem to have plateaued at 25%, at least for now. But underexploited stocks are on a fairly rapid decline, while fully exploited stocks have hovered around 50% for thirty five years.
So I guess the picture right now seems less depressing, but more tense. Things could break either way, it seems.
Ambiance 
Icepick said,
June 10, 2009 at 12:25 pm
The noise produced by the global warming debate often overwhelms other environmental issues. I find this unfortunate, because some of these issues matter a great deal and are arguably equally urgent, if in a quieter way.
I’ve been saying this for years. (I think Annie can vouch for the last few years. Also, I have at least made some comments about this on my blog.) Frankly, I don’t care if the globe adds a few points of temp – it’s been warmer in the recent past, and colder, and much warmer and much colder at points. Change happens! But fucking up the oceans could REALLY wipe us out.
Unfortunately, those working the ocean beat haven’t been as successful in their advertizing campaign for their cause as the MMGWs have been in their cause.
Maxwell said,
June 10, 2009 at 12:51 pm
While that might be true, I don’t think the two issues can always be separated. The problem is more that global warming has become something of a catchphrase for all sorts of environmental problems that are co-occurring and interrelated. Some of those may be overplayed, but others are definitely underplayed.
Icepick said,
June 10, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Maxwell, the Global Warming industry is about one thing and one thing only – using government to destroy the modern economy. They seek to destroy the fossil fuel industry, with those at the top looking to line their pockets in the meantime.
Bruce B. said,
June 10, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Cousteau sounded this alarm a generation ago. Unfortunately, his message got polarized, when in fact it shouldn’t have been.
amba12 said,
June 10, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Maxwell’s last link, to the guy saying 75% of fisheries are in good shape and many others are recovering, makes my head spin. Who to believe?? I’m not satisfied with believing the one that suits my worldview, i.e. the dire one if I’m “green” (around the gills) and the hearty one if I’m ruddy-red-blooded.
A few years ago I got my dad this book by Carl Safina, which was sounding the alarm a decade ago. And here’s a story I worked on a couple of years ago about the destruction of long-lived, slow-breeding deep-sea fish such as orange roughy by bottom trawling.
Maxwell said,
June 10, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Icepick, you’re a smart and funny person. So you can manage a better argument than the flimsy, conspiratorial ad hominem above. When you do, I’ll be happy to read it.
Icepick said,
June 12, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Okay, let’s start with a language lesson.
Conspiracy (n) – the act of conspiring together
Collusion (n) – secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose
Essentially the two words mean the same thing. (Definitions taken from Mirriam-Webster Online for the sake of convenience.) Now for a concept learned from gambling.
Implicit collusion: In a tournament where, for example, only the top 5 players are paid and there are 6 remaining (the last of whom is terribly short-stacked), implicit collusion involves all players at the table flat-calling through the river for the maximum likelihood that the short stack be busted by having all hands see the finish. This strategy is never mentioned at the table, merely assumed.
Such forms of tacit collusion occur in real life as well. Here is another such case.
Really, why should I assume something OTHER than a conspiracy? We have a global leftist political movement that has been trying to seize control of production for well over a century now. Those people happen to be the ones most ardently pushing the MMGW theory. Scientists (and academics more generally) have been becoming more and more radicalized in their leftist beliefs for decades. They have also become more and more dependent on government money.
So now the scientists have a chance to get even more government money for their research while pushing for more and more government control over all aspects of the global economy. You have an environmentalist movement that can also profit from playing up the scare factor. This profit will come in terms of more prestige, more chances to whisper into the ears of the powerful, and more money in either the form of donations or government hand-outs for “good works”. (A faith based initiative government hand-out for the left.) Not to mention that there is significant overlap between the environmentalist movement and leftist politics.
And at the center of it all are politicians who ALWAYS want more of what’s good for politicians – more power for government. (Near the center are the various parasites always looking to feed off the scraps – the scammers who want government money for their start-ups, the flacks and lawyers that make money from the behind-the-scenes politicking, etc.)
Consider two different men who are benefitting – Al Gore and Steven Chu. How much has Al Gore done to stoke the flames of panic over MMGW? How much of this has he done while telling everyone else how to live? How much LARGER has he made his own carbon footprint in the meantime, by living in ever more luxurious terms, flying private jets, etc, etc? And how much richer has he gotten from all of this?
Or consider our new Energy Secretary, Steven Chu. A top-notch scientist, he has now become just another political hack. Notably, he supports giving more government money to people just like him! Who would have seen that coming? Chu has also called for more direct government control of various aspects of the economy, through cap and trade and other schemes. He’s also0 been pushing dire warnings of the effects of global warming that either do not match any of the current models (see some of his specific agricultural predictions) or that are at best ambiguous according to the current models (see his predictions on hurricane activity.)
Not that we need to wait for governments to start using the police to “stop” global warming.
So what we have here is a situation in which several parties all get to push for exactly what it is they want to do anyway: The environmentalists get to stop human economic activity; the leftists get to seize control of remaining economic activity and also get to punish the developed nations; politicians get more power; governmental hangers-on get more chances for graft; scientists get to grab a bigger piece of the pie for themselves; journalists (excuse me, I mean the Obama Propaganda Machine) get easy stories to write whenever they lack for shark bite victims or cute abducted white girls. And the best part of this is that no one has to actually sit down in a committee meeting to plan this out – everyone just does what they want to do anyway! It’s a perfect case of tacit collusion. And the justification for this is a collection of weak data and computer models. (You know, like the computer models that DIDN’T see the current economic crisis coming.)
The science is in fact NOT settled, and our understanding of climate is still in its childhood. (I remember a study that came out a few months ago that stated that the cooling period around 1700 had been man-made – the European discovery of the Americas had led to a huge die-off in native populations. That meant that agricultural lands started reverting to forest lands. That additional tree growth took CO2 out of the atmosphere in large enough quantities to cool the planet. Only one study, of course, and subject to further review, but it does show that we don’t even know how much we have to consider. Recently reports have begun to notice that the Amazon rain forest may be re-growing faster than anticipated. Have the models taken all of THAT into account? And what is it that SHOULD be in the models that isn’t? We’re being asked to do a lot based on a little.
Moreover, the people pushing this crisis are not behaving as though the crisis were real! They continue to fly in private jets, ride in SUVs (see Obama going to New York City for a couple of hours of fun for his wife, or Steven Chu and other notables flying to London to have a photo-op with Prince Charles), they are NOT moving away from the coasts, and they are not pursuing any sensible policy options.
Examples of the latter: Chu claims to be in favor of building more nuclear power plants, which makes imminent sense. Yet the Obama Administration, the Democrats in Congress and the environmentalists remain absolutely opposed to nuclear power. The proof is in the pudding: they have not and will not lessen the onerous regulatory rules that essentially make it impossible to build new nuclear power plants. (Obama wants nuclear power for Iran, but not for the USA. Hmm, something seems curious about THAT fact.) And they plan on making it more onerous to build new coal plants. Meanwhile, they plan on having everyone paint their roofs white, instituting a cap and trade carbon scheme that we know from Europe’s example DOES NOT WORK, and they plan on pouring even more government money down the rat-hole of “alternative energy”. I’ve been hearing about the imminent breakthroughs on the alternative power front since Carter was in office. I’m still waiting.
Alternative energy, in fact, is another example of the MMGW crowd’s bullshit: Note how Kennedy and all the other leftist illuminati fought to stop windmills from being erected within sight of their luxury homes. If they REALLY thought GW was so important they would be willing to make some sacrifices of their own. They’re not, so I assume they are just trying to scam the rest of us.
And even if they get most of the things they want, China’s ever increasing output of carbon emissions (and India’s to follow) means that we are unlikely to have a material impact on the situation, period. However, the economy in the West will be (further) hamstrung, government will have more power over people’s lives, we’ll all essentially get a little poorer, and the press will have even more to write about. All of that and NO material impact on global warming.
So I ask again, why shouldn’t I assume a conspiracy, tacit or otherwise?
Icepick said,
June 12, 2009 at 3:21 pm
And since we’re giving each other debating advice, Maxwell, let’s consdier your advice to me:
Stop with the back-handed compliments. If you are too stupid to understand what I mean, or too lazy to figure it out on your own, just ask for help. Goading me with smug superiority is not necessary.
(See, that’s how an insult should be done: directly. Have a nice day, asshole. That’s another example of direct insult. Repetition will hopefully drive the lesson home, even to a dolt such as yourself. All the cool kids do direct insults. But that’s an example of an indirect insult. Sorry for muddying the lesson like that.)
Maxwell said,
June 12, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Icepick,
All I said was that climate change may itself be a contributor to “fucking up the ocean,” an eventuality you claimed to be concerned about. I guess you’re not that concerned.
As for the self-righteousness, please. You know as well as I do that accusing a broad sector of society of authoritarianism is the surest way to end a civil discussion. I’m not here for flame wars; if that’s what you seek, try someone else.