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Comment by tw04 | Hacker News Reader

Which we should all rejoice. Because the oceans are already being over fished to the point we're facing a very real likelihood of collapse. If Americans were pulling at the same rate as nations like Japan or India, we'd all be in a very bad place already.

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No, this is actually a terrible thing in the long run for one simple reason: fisheries are being destroyed everywhere [1], and the US is the only nation currently with the clout to really push to change this. But since seafood isn't even on most Americans' radar and we live in a democracy, it's very unlikely any politician will ever spend political capital on it.

Fisheries are being destroyed is because blue water fisheries are a commons -- no nations own them, so whoever vacuums up the fish first reap the profits. Not to mention global warming and ocean acidification are stressing fish breeding grounds worldwide.

This model made sense up until WW2, and was in line with how international waters were historically governed, but it is an ecological disaster in the making because technological developments during the war (sonar, deep sea nets, etc.) allowed huge fishing fleets to completely destroy blue water fishing grounds.

The only way to change this is for someone to push at the international level to rewrite the agreements on fisheries (restrict them by quotas, manage them by an international body with an eye towards conservation, etc.), and the only superpower that has the political capital to really get the ball rolling is the US.

But most Americans don't eat much seafood so it's not on anyone's radar. Enjoy your seafood while you still can. Maybe rich nations will have farmed fish or domestic freshwater sources, but cheap seafood from the ocean will basically not exist within a few decades.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/07/global-f...

Can we really stop China and Japan from hoovering up fish and whales? Historically we have not had much success.

Also why should America have to be the fish police, on top of all the other polices we are. What if I would rather spend the fish police money on universal healthcare and free college tuition for fellow Americans?

I'm not making a moral case that America should police the seas, but simply pointing out the practical reality that the US Navy actually does control them, and hence we're the natural party to propose and also enforce any agreement.

The truth is that if the US does nothing, mass fishery collapse is the most probable outcome. It will hurt poor, seafood-consuming nations much more than it hurts the US.

Is this more important than any of our other priorities? That's up for you to decide.

America should be helping fight for a world where we don't need fish police. In other words, we should encourage governments that naturally want to act in a reasonable, secular-based manner.

I don't really like getting into political arguments, but I'd like to point out that the US is not really that much more forward looking than other nations wrt fishery conservation. They, after all, increased quotas for pacific salmon fishing that decimated the Canadian fisheries for years. Why? In retaliation for the unsustainable Canadian softwood lumber prices (that were shutting down all the US mills). It's politics all the way down, unfortunately.

I do agree that we need international level agreements, but I trust the US exactly the same as I trust most other governments on this issue. I think one of the biggest problems is that it's a bit like global warming. Most people simply deny that there's a problem. In fish-loving Japan, where I live, nobody will listen to me. They sell cod illegally fished from the grand banks in the super market. They even have a big sign "Grand Banks Cod!!!" I think if I brought an east cost Canadian fisherman to Japan, they'd go postal. But, if I try to educate someone, the response is always, "It has to be a lie. Look at all the cheap fish in the super market. If it was really getting scarce, then there would be no fish there. People in other parts of the world just want to complain about the Japanese. That's all it is".

If the US was a fish eating nation, I have very little doubt that the same thing would be happening, unfortunately.

My supervisor at university did fish population simulations as his research. He published a paper, maybe 30 years ago now, where he predicted the collapse of all wild fisheries. Nobody paid any attention to it. It seems to be on track now...

I don't see where GP ever claimed that the US was forward looking?

"Look at all the cheap fish in the super market. If it was really getting scarce, then there would be no fish there. "

But it sounds very logical, so why is this not true?

Because the fish can't be stored very economically once you harvest them, the cheapness of fish now is due to overfishing, and directly contributes to future scarcity.

Strangely, the best place to 'store' fish is right in the ocean, and for an overly harvested fishery, you even get paid interest for it.

"future scarcity"

But if there is too much fish taken away, then it is harder to catch them, right, so scarcity. But the remaining fish then have much more space and food to reproduce ... so they go ack to the old levels quickly, so where is the problem (unless some species go literally extinct)?

They don't go back to "the old levels" because once the numbers recover even a small amount it becomes profitable to knock them right back down. You reach an equilibrium at a much smaller amount of fish in the wild than you could have had with proper management. Fish prices are higher, but fisherman catch fewer per day, so nobody wins.

You're right that at carrying capacity, the limiting factor is food and space.

But most of our fisheries are far below that now. Fish can only breed as fast as there are breeding fish available, but we're eating them faster than they are being born.

You can view a fishery basically as a giant fish-making factory. If you eat away half your fishery's biomass, then to a very rough first approximation, your factory will only produce half as many fish.

"your factory will only produce half as many fish."

But then why is fish still so cheap and plenty of it avaiable, which was the main point?

(but again, I don't know that, I am just refering to the argument)

One reason is that many governments are essentially paying people to take fish out of the ocean [1], to the tune of tens of billions a year. Japan, China, and Taiwan are some of the main players. They do it to keep fishermen employed.

Related to this: because technological change has made it really cheap and easy to catch fish [2], and up to now, that has more than offset the decreased productivity from damaging our fisheries.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisheries_subsidy [2] http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00222/33368/35784.pdf

When I read "the US is the only nation currently with the clout to really push to change this", I don't interpret that to mean the US is/would be more sensible about protecting fisheries. It sounds to me like smallnamespace is proposing that there's a coordination problem--tragedy of the commons/prisoners dilemma, I would assume--and you need one big pushy guy to insist we all follow sensible rules.

You don't need an especially socially responsible or forward-thinking entity to solve coordination problems. You just need one that's able to push hard enough to make everyone fall in line.

Something like the UN/WTO would ideally serve that purpose, but seems like no one wants to give them much clout. I assume the big people prefer to keep the clout in their complete control and the small guys know the big guys would still have stuff like permanent seats and veto power.

> Because the oceans are already being over fished to the point we're facing a very real likelihood of collapse.

Evidence please.

Most of the costal area of India uses relatively far more primitive fishing methods compared to Japan or China. Have not seen any ocean fish becoming less available in last 30 years even though population might have doubled and demand for fish gone up by 5 fold. At least there is no evidence on ground !

Beef and pork are significantly worse than seafood in terms of environmental impact. There's nothing to celebrate in the sources of American protein.

If America was as hungry for seafood as East Asia, fisheries would have depleted enough to create frighteningly high prices long ago, and we'd probably have a thriving aquaculture industry today.

I'm very skeptical of that claim, particularly wrt pork. Once we've completely depleted the oceans of wild fish stock and rely entirely aquaculture, then it'll be a fair comparison.

According to this article, based on CO2 production farmed salmon has the same impact as pork:

  http://www.ewg.org/meateatersguide/a-meat-eaters-guide-to-climate-change-health-what-you-eat-matters/climate-and-environmental-impacts/

And chicken has a substantially lower impact than either.

I wouldn't trust anything from EWG. They are an agenda driven pseudoscience organization. They actively criticize conventional agriculture (see their "dirty" dozen list) and vehemently oppose genetic engineering.

I live near the Great Lakes, so there is literally no such thing as a safe fish to eat. Every fish has a limit to how much you can eat and how often -- that is if you are an adult male, if female or child you are far more limited yet.

Especially near me, where the waterways are also toiletways. You'd have to go out into the lake to escape the toilet and dioxin-laden water, where the fish should never be eaten, and even then you have, like I said above, a limit depending on how much toxic fish you feel comfortable ingesting.

I lived in Houston where you cant eat anything near the coast. When I went to Australia it was incredible you can fish and eat almost everywhere/everything near the coast.

Don't fish for dinner near big cities in Australia though. It can be just as bad as anywhere else.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-16/health-warning-over-fi...

http://www.fishingworld.com.au/news/toxins-found-at-popular-...

Those links appear to warn of fishing around Sydney harbour and Oyster Bay. I still would bet almost anywhere along the proper beach is at least an order of magnitude safer than in comparable regions of the states. Many beaches I consistently saw heaps of guys surf casting.

Many people eat the fish in Sydney Harbour too. Despite being warned not too.

Sydney's ocean beaches are often closed to swimmers because of pollution. Sydney disposes of its sewerage via deep ocean outlets, and this can often make the water quality very bad, depending on ocean currents.

I'm not sure my post warranted a down-vote. Is it because I contradicted you? or do you think I am wrong? I lived on a houseboat on The Georges river/Botany Bay for many years, and have spent some serious time on Sydney's waterways, and offshore. I wouldn't eat anything caught in Sydney's rivers or beaches knowingly.

Hey I am not one of the people who downvoted you. I think while yes there is a point to be made that Sydney/Australia also has water quality issues the problem in general when you compare the US to Australia is quite a big difference.

> Many beaches I consistently saw heaps of guys surf casting.

You can easily observe locals fishing in the river(s) running through Shanghai. The fact that they do it doesn't mean those fish are safe to eat.

Sure but Australia has a $22/hr min wage and absurdly good welfare and you can eat potato chips on it all day ig you want. China is rougher. But yes of course just because many do something does not mean its a good idea, but analyzing what others are doing may be food for thought when deciding where a placr is relaticely good to fish or not.

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