The Tragedy Of The Commons, Cont. - Economist

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Signs of growing scarcity are everywhere: fish are getting smaller, as are catches. Some fishing grounds, such as Canada’s Grand Banks and Europe’s North Sea, are so seriously depleted that they may never fully recover; North Sea stocks of cod have shrunk to about 10% of 1970 levels. Even the last of the world’s waters to be exploited—in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean, and round Antarctica—have succumbed to the rapaciousness of vast fishing fleets. All over the world, governments are wrestling with the problem, trying to balance what’s best for the sea against what’s best for their fishing industries. Only last week, Ireland introduced a scheme to reduce the number of fishing boats because of a shortage in marine stocks. The week before, Hong Kong’s quasi-parliament had debated similar measures.

The plight of the oceans is described in a recent report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Its tone is reserved, but the numbers contained within it seem to suggest that modern fishing is really analogous to mining: fish are pulled from the sea faster than they can be replenished. The proportion of global stocks classed by the FAO as over-exploited, depleted or recovering grew from 10% of the total in the mid-1970s to an alarming 25% by the early 1990s, and has levelled off since then. But only a tiny sliver of that is recovering. And fishing grounds that are “fully exploited” (ie, producing catches that are already at or very close to their maximum sustainable production limit) have risen to around 50% of the total, from the mid-40s ten years ago; much of this is teetering on the edge of over-exploitation. Scientists estimate that the number of large fish in the oceans has fallen by perhaps 90% since the 1950s.

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Some think the best way to tackle the fishing crisis is to encourage the growth of fish farming—a blue revolution in this century to match the green revolution of the last. To some extent, this is already happening: marine and inland farming now account for more than 30% of total fish production, up from around 26% in 1998 and single figures 30 years ago. Fish farming’s supporters argue that it could meet the growing shortfall as wild fisheries become more and more exhausted. But fish farming has its downsides too. Most farmed fish must be fed with other fish that have been caught in the sea; sometimes several tonnes of dead fish are needed for one tonne to live. Critics also argue that farmed fish is fatty, polluting and stuffed with antibiotics. If the past history of agriculture is any guide, “aquaculture” should eventually play a leading role in meeting world demand for fish. Whether this can be done in a way that does not pollute the marine environment unacceptably remains to be seen.

Others argue that the focus for the near term should be on beating the fishing fleets at their own game. Today’s vessels can find their prey using sonar and satellites, meaning that a higher proportion of what is in the sea can be caught quickly and easily (though much of this is unwanted “by-catch” which is usually thrown back). Some policy wonks think that satellites should now also be used to track those boats and ensure they are not breaking quota agreements. However, a better first step might be a system of long-term quotas that are transferable between countries, similar to the recently established global carbon-trading scheme."

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http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3930586

:(

an evolutionary dead end.

Consider this report, consider Climate Change, Peak Oil, Overpopulation. How can one come to any other conclusion?
We got brains enough to create these problems but don't even try to mitigate the results of our "genius".

Since we are a hierarchical species the primary fault can be found with our alphas, commonly known as the Rich, the Elite or the Owners.It appears that they have been selected(evolutionarily speaking) to maintain or improve their rank above all other consideration. Previously the species could survive this social gamesmanship but the weight of population, technology and history has squeezed out the wiggle room. They have failed to uphold their end of the Social Contract and should be retired, phased out, ended. As human evolution is primarily cultural nowadays it is theoretically possible that we might adopt a new form of social organization. Perhaps we'll figure out how to do socialism properly.

Which does not let we of the great unwashed off the hook; the sheeple appellation is appropriate. And I'm not just talking about christofascists, bu$hbots and dittoheads. Checkbook environmentalists, internet chatterboxes and present company(myself) are only slightly less culpable. If you're not at the barricades actively fighting The Stupidity then you are part of it. I don't think that namby pamby part-time casual activism will do much good other than make the good actor feel good about themselves. And I don't thing that many folk will realize depth of the problem or the required commitment until it is very late in the day. We are doomed.

I'm sick of it all. I'm sick of myself. Pass the popcorn.

because it was the evolution of language that allowed the betas to gang up on the alphas.

I think it is rightly possible that in five or ten years, we are going to be in period of righteous climate change awareness and activism. All are going to look back at the prescient leaders of the beginning of the movement appreciatively. You can be one of them, the leaders.

It is getting tougher to keep the old stiff upper lip, the worse shit gets the worse it gets. Got to admit that the news about Ivorybilled Woodpeckers did cause my heart to flutter a bit; perhaps it could become the cause celebre of environmental restoration. But how bad does it have to get in order for the peanut gallery to really pay attention?

Son?? I'm damn near AARP material myself, you old coot;.)
BTW, that's a very nice avatar you got there.

He drew the illustrated version of the Monkey Wrench Gang (as you probably know). You ought to look for the file at www.freshair.org . It was a good interview.

I think I was indulging in a moment of my manic optimism, there. Forgive me, Pa.

who say overpopulation is a myth and global warming is a myth.

The funny thing is - relating to your post - growing up - these siblings of mine were supposedly the "smart" ones. The ones to get in the advanced math and science courses and such. One of them is an engineer, the other an accountant who graduated at the top of her class.

And I'm the crazy artist who worries about the environment and humankind & who doesn't see these problems as myths at all and wonders how to express all this in a way that matters.

Maybe I just see through the propaganda more than they do. :shrug:

but don't think we're overpopulated. We just aren't using what we've got efficiently.

2 things to rectify:

Land Use and
monetary & fiscal issues regarding relations with developing nations.

For land use, we need less extensive and more intensive urbanization, leaving more land for agricultural produciton and ecological stabilization (wilderness / parks). This goes for here, and abroad.

As far as population is concerned: if we remove our agricultural subsidies and tarriffs, prices of food worldwide rise. Horror of horrors, this means that farmers worldwide get to make a decent living. Once farmers rise out of sustenence farming, they have the leisure time to become educated. Once they become educated, their birth rate drops, and they develop more advanced economies. Once they develop more advanced economies, they have the opportunity and demand for advanced technology products(which they will probably buy from first world countries).

and everybody stopped polluting....

I think we are overpopulated considering everyone's lifestyle.

Sure there is lots of land out there. Someone could drive through Kansas and say "overpopulation - HA!" - but that doesn't mean the current population is sustainable.

When you have:

"North Sea stocks of cod have shrunk to about 10% of 1970 levels."

as the article stated - and I've heard the same with tuna and other types of fish - well - it hardly seems that people are living in a sustainable way on the planet - unless people want to start eating their own.

I don't think there is time for your scenario to work, things are too far gone. Only a world wide one child family program has a chance of preserving any significant bit of biodiversity. EO Wilson, who I greatly respect, feels that a human population of 1 billion is max if we are to preserve biodiversity at something near current level. He would set aside half the planet for this, not just the undesirable parts. Perhaps with technology and cleverness we might do the same with 2 billion people. But I'll not hold my breath.

I didn't say that (I just wish I had) but consider what this shorthand stands for.

"Running out of love" - the stressing, disruption and eventual shredding of the social fabric and the social contract as basic survival becomes the all-consuming purpose of those still alive.

I wish I could shake my basic pessimism, but I can't. The next 50 years are not going to be a very pleasant period in which to be alive.

It seems like what solutions people might have based on how things are right now - may have no bearing on the future. From an article I'm reading in another thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x23358#23376

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"One afternoon, when I was talking to Rind in his office, he mentioned a visit that President Bush’s science adviser, John Marburger, had paid to giss a few years earlier. “He said, ‘We’re really interested in adaptation to climate change,’ ” Rind recalled. “Well, what does ‘adaptation’ mean?” He rummaged through one of his many file cabinets and finally pulled out a paper that he had published in the Journal of Geophysical Research entitled “Potential Evapotranspiration and the Likelihood of Future Drought.” In much the same way that wind velocity is measured using the Beaufort scale, water availability is measured using what’s known as the Palmer Drought Severity Index. Different climate models offer very different predictions about future water availability; in the paper, Rind applied the criteria used in the Palmer index to giss’s model and also to a model operated by noaa’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. He found that as carbon-dioxide levels rose the world began to experience more and more serious water shortages, starting near the equator and then spreading toward the poles. When he applied the index to the giss model for doubled CO2, it showed most of the continental United States to be suffering under severe drought conditions. When he applied the index to the G.F.D.L. model, the results were even more dire. Rind created two maps to illustrate these findings. Yellow represented a forty-to-sixty-per-cent chance of summertime drought, ochre a sixty-to-eighty-per-cent chance, and brown an eighty-to-a-hundred-per-cent chance. In the first map, showing the giss results, the Northeast was yellow, the Midwest was ochre, and the Rocky Mountain states and California were brown. In the second, showing the G.F.D.L. results, brown covered practically the entire country.

“I gave a talk based on these drought indices out in California to water-resource managers,” Rind told me. “And they said, ‘Well, if that happens, forget it.’ There’s just no way they could deal with that.”

He went on, “Obviously, if you get drought indices like these, there’s no adaptation that’s possible. But let’s say it’s not that severe. What adaptation are we talking about? Adaptation in 2020? Adaptation in 2040? Adaptation in 2060? Because the way the models project this, as global warming gets going, once you’ve adapted to one decade you’re going to have to change everything the next decade.

“We may say that we’re more technologically able than earlier societies. But one thing about climate change is it’s potentially geopolitically destabilizing. And we’re not only more technologically able; we’re more technologically able destructively as well. I think it’s impossible to predict what will happen. I guess—though I won’t be around to see it—I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that by 2100 most things were destroyed.” He paused. “That’s sort of an extreme view.”

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050502fa_fact3

I have noticed that whenever you come upon a degreed advocate of creationism or some other reactionary scientific position that they are completely out of their field. Chemists and physicists and mathematicians lecturing biologist and paleontologists on the core issues of their field is ludicrous. Sometimes I suspect that the abstraction involved in those fields can lead to derangement. You, as an artist, can talk about anything, perhaps not with authority but with perspective.

I have experienced this derangement you speak of. Five or six hours of downing cappucinos and doing topology proofs will make anybody deranged. To think that some people engage in that lifestyle professionally. It makes me shudder.

2:00am is the hour when all women are beautiful, and all theorems are true.

.. for the uneducated. This is true on many issues. There are a lot of reasons for this, one being that the educated receive more of the propaganda because they read more. Another thing is that they are the agents of propaganda. After all, their job is that of commissars; they're supposed to be the agents of the propaganda system so they believe it. It's very hard to say something unless you believe it. Other reasons are that, by and large, they are just part of the privileged elite so they share their interests and perceptions, whereas the general population is more marginalized ..."
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/dissent-excerpts.html

That is essentially my view of things as well but have never been able to put it so succinctly. Especially the part about being hierarchical primates. That's us.