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.<p>My favorite version of the guide is the printable version that you can fold up and put in your wallet: <a href="https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-recommendations/consumer-guides" rel="nofollow">https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-recommendations/consume...</a><p>Here's the main site where you can search for a fish by name: <a href="https://www.seafoodwatch.org/" rel="nofollow">https://www.seafoodwatch.org/</a><p>This is geared towards the USA but I think the guides are at least somewhat useful in other countries.
Everyone please stop blaming coral bleaching on climate change. Nitrogen run-off from farming is the main cause. We need to reduce nitrogen enrichment in farming, which will lead to lower yields and lower profits (or, more likely, higher prices). But blaming climate change here is an egregious example of green washing which will prevent or delay resolving the real issue. Stop it. Please.<p>"Anthropogenic nutrient enrichment is often associated with coral reef decline. Consequently, there is a large consent that increased nutrient influxes in reef waters have negative longterm consequences for corals"
<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877343513001917" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187734351...</a><p>"Increased loadings of nitrogen (N) from fertilizers, top soil, sewage, and atmospheric deposition are important drivers of eutrophication in coastal waters globally. Monitoring seawater and macroalgae can reveal long-term changes in N and phosphorus (P) availability and N:P stoichiometry that are critical to understanding the global crisis of coral reef decline"
<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-019-3538-9" rel="nofollow">https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-019-3538-9</a>
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 difficult to ask 3rd world nations to cut back while first world nations have been reaping benefits for so long.<p>While I wish organically growing food and conservation was the answer, its unfortunately not. Society just wont change to support it. A science fiction style solution is going to be the only way to feed the world.
I'm shocked that the article didn't mention this, but the mass die-offs we're seeing are because the world's coral reefs will be dead by 2050:<p><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/environment-90-percent-coral-reefs-die-2050-climate-change-bleaching-pollution-a7626911.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/environment-90-per...</a><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/great-barrier-reef-could-disappear-by-2050-why-2019-10" rel="nofollow">https://www.businessinsider.com/great-barrier-reef-could-dis...</a><p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2020/02/24/70-90-percent-of-coral-reefs-will-disappear-over-the-next-20-years-scientists-say/" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2020/02/24/70-90-per...</a><p>The effect of this is that 500 million pacific islanders will be forced to flee to Southeast Asia as their primary food source dies, which will lead to widespread political instability and possibly war. Not to mention that since 25% of sea life depends on reefs, their death will have catastrophic ripple effects throughout the ocean.<p>All due to runaway global warming acidifying the ocean with CO2. This was well-understood and warned about decades ago (I learned about it as a kid in the 1980s).<p>I sure wish a tech billionaire would do something about this. Their inaction on countless fronts, in fact their complacency in undermining progress on environmental causes in global politics, is one of the thousand reasons I got out of tech.
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.
The orange roughy story is particularly sad <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_roughy" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_roughy</a><p>"The orange roughy is notable for its extraordinary lifespan, attaining over 200 years."<p>"Orange roughy is fished almost exclusively by bottom trawling. This fishing method has been heavily criticized by environmentalists for its destructive nature."
The actual study is here:<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272771419307644" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027277141...</a><p>Fishery biomass trends of exploited fish populations in marine ecoregions, climatic zones and ocean basins<p>It's a journal called Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science.
> Of the populations analyzed, 82 per cent were found to be below levels that can produce maximum sustainable yields, due to being caught at rates exceeding what can be regrown. Of these, 87 populations were found to be in the “very bad” category, with biomass levels at less than 20 per cent of what is needed to maximize sustainable fishery catches.<p>It seems to me that we don't have a clear concept of sustainable commercial fishing looks like (with regards to wild capture). Thankfully, it seems Aquaculture is on the rise to offset increasing demand: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_industry" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_industry</a>
Interesting article that just came out yesterday from Yale University that is right in line with this article how China's commericial fishing fleet is doing a lot of this damage.<p><a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-chinas-expanding-fishing-fleet-is-depleting-worlds-oceans" rel="nofollow">https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-chinas-expanding-fishing-...</a>
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.<p>I've cut back on buying them as much. I may quit after this.
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I would encourage anyone interested in doing good to mostly abstain from animal products altogether. This must not necessarily be carried to extreme veganism but if you have the choice to not use animal products it’s in almost all circumstances better to take it. Plant based products are generally better for our health, our future, and the animals.
When are people going to start acknowledging the elephant in the room: there are too many humans for us all to live western lifestyles, and unless we want our descendants to live vastly poorer lives we need to give serious attention to population control now.
We cultivate all our other food. We don't feed ourselves by walking around the plains of Anatolia and collecting wild wheat. Why should we feed ourselves by dragging hooks through the oceans? The fishing industry is the last vestige of humanity's hunt-and-gather past, and it, too, needs to yield to agriculture. We need better fish farms.
Oh Impossible Fish[1], where art thou?<p><a href="https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/foodservice-retail/whats-possible-impossible-foods-teases-its-fishless-fish-aspirations" rel="nofollow">https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/foodservice-retail/whats-...</a>
When I consider the implications for the children of this world, these thoughts make me deeply sad.<p>Not in a way I feel I can directly action. Not in a way that many children don't have bigger problems than saving the whales. Just sad.<p>I hope people share this feeling.
Ian Urbina, investigative reporter, has written a book and published articles describing a fleet of 800 industrial fish boats from china who are illegally poaching catch from North Korea waters ... fallout is a devastating drop in squid partly due to these chinese boats catching squid as they migrate to their spawning grounds ( caught before they breed ) which is extremely short sighted and illegal ... also hundreds of ghost fishing boats from North Korea washing up on Japanese shores with dead crew ... I suggest you read up on Ian Urbina's work
Aquafarming or aquaculture is the way we solve that.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture</a>
One symptom of overfishing is seeing a lot of fish below reproductive age.<p>If you see this, you are seeing fish that could not reproduce. This is not sustainable.<p>Once I bought canned fish and saw 3 small fish instead of one regular fish inside.
I really wish there was a way to stop all fishing at a commercial level for 10 years. Not that you can’t eat a fish just that if you want that luxury you have to go catch it yourself. I know this will never happen.
250 new humans are born every single minute. This is the biggest issue we are facing. This problem must be solve immediately. Once the population stops growing efficiency measures become effective.