Tuna’s Last Stand

We already have territorial waters which are broadly ignored by fishing fleets from certain countries. Property laws on land work because you can enforce them. The ocean is too big.. and wet..

> It is about "tragedy of the commons", not any specific feature of industrial fishing.

I am certain the TotC is a feature of commercial fishing, and I am perplexed how anyone could separate the two. Overfishing, driven by greed ("Take what you can; give nothing back" [1]), itself is a specific feature of commercial fishing. [2] But I agree with your second statement, though the situation is more complex than merely the problem of fishing all of the fish and the collapse of entire species. [3] What I also believe is desperately needed is an indefinite moratorium on fishing anywhere beyond coastal territories. [4]

[1] Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, 2003 (though this phrase actually originates from Caribbean pirates, though the original meaning concerns lines: when pulling a ship into a dock, to pull in as much slack as you can and don't let it go. In only a literal sense it seems it very much applies to commercial fishing.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overfishing#Examples_and_evide...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_fishin...

[4] https://e360.yale.edu/features/a-global-ban-on-fishing-on-th...

Frozen sardines can be found in the US although not nearly as commonly as other fish. I've seen fresh sardines in Whole Foods but very rarely.

The vast majority of salmon is farmed, so sustainable in the sense that it isn't going to diminish wild stocks. There are arguments against open-pen aquaculture too of course, but it's all relative. And a lot of money is being spent on solving those issues, such as deep sea aquaculture (where the effluent isn't a big problem, compared to static coastal pens), closed-containment (where all waste can be collected and used to make fertilizer), and land-based aquaculture (personally, I really don't like this).

Jarred herring is pretty common. Whole Foods carries https://products.wholefoodsmarket.com/brand/blue-hill-bay which are quite delicious.

Note: don't overdo it with the small fishes. They have high levels of purines which cause gout.

It depends on where you live. If you is very far from the sea and main markets, freswhater fishes could be the choice.

Sardines are easy to find in Europe. You can have also bigger pieces canned but preserved in salt. Is a different product that your typical canned sardines and more environmentally responsible. The elder fishes have a choice to reproduce before to being fished and tins are bigger so more efficient to produce. Some people love them, other dislike the extra salty stuff. is an acquired taste.

How many tons is sustainable?

> When I go to the store and buy some tuna I expect that it was responsibly fished.

Why do you expect this, when there is evidence to the contrary?

> regular customer shouldn't be worried about that

Nobody is asking you to single-handedly save the oceans. Start by installing Seafood Watch and do your best to select a sustainable option any time you're eating seafood.

> If it wasn't then it's the fault of our government and regulation

This is why crony capitalism is forever bound to a love affair with the state; it relieves us of any responsibility for building real communities.

Governments have never - and I believe will never - regulate society into behavior befitting the respect due to the Earth. We have given profiteers and their lobbyists access to a single point of failure; we can't be surprised when they utilize it.

That’s kind of a silly assumption frankly. Even on fish cans in the grocery store some advertise themselves as sustainably fished with certifications, and some don’t. Some egg cartons advertise themselves as “free range” and some don’t. Some meat advertises itself as “grass fed” and others don’t.

The products themselves are telling you there are a variety of production standards and it is almost willful blindness to say you believe there is nothing going on because there ought to be nothing going on.

You could make an analogous argument about gasoline “Look if this was harming the atmosphere why would governments allow it to be sold? I refuse to feel guilty”

But you (plural form if you wish) are part of the system. Without you the system would not exist.

Tuna is hunted wildlife, an international commons. It's clearly evident that no regulation will happen anytime soon that will actually make a difference. If you buy it, you are part of the problem, either ignorantly or knowingly.

Occasionally I find myself in some gastronomy setting were nothing in the menu appeals to me other than the dishes containing tuna and then I eat it, and enjoy it a lot. It happens less than once a year.

(I do actually share your position wrt farmed meat, those farms are infinitely more regulateable than international fishing and I think we should regulate it hard, hard enough to solve big parts of the inherent inefficiency of putting nutrients though animals before they reach a human mouth by price)

> I go to the store and buy some tuna I expect that it was responsibly fished. If it wasn't then it's the fault of our government and regulation

I eat canned tuna also, but that logic doesn’t work generally.

By the same logic you could say that if you could buy a BB gun, it’s ok to shoot people with it, because it must not be harmful.

Come to think of it, that’s what kids did to each other when I was growing up.

You can expect anything you want. Doesn’t make your expectations realistic or absolve you of responsibility, though.

Nobody’s going to step in and change things if it’s easy money and people will keep buying it and shifting blame. It doesn’t work that way.

"The consumer is completely to blame" is definitely ridiculous.

"As a consumer I have no responsibility in what products I choose to buy" is equally ridiculous.

> I'm sorry, but I refuse to feel guilty

Then you're not sorry.

> When I go to the store and buy some tuna I expect that it was responsibly fished. If it wasn't then it's the fault of our government and regulation, regular customer shouldn't be worried about that.

How do you think regulations come to be?

If a consumer wants a product, a company finds a way to provide it. The company will poison the land, sea and sky in order to provide it to you, they don't give a shit. The government allows it until the people demand regulations to stop it. But you are the people - if you don't want it stopped, it won't be. And so there are no regulations made.

There is no parental overlord making sure that what you purchase is sustainable or cruelty-free. Sitting around saying "somebody should stop me from ruining the earth" doesn't actually make it happen. I know you don't want to have any personal responsibility or culpability for the shitty way the world works, but you do.

Ultimately, you, and everyone like you, are the reason we can't have nice things.

No, just because there's no law against it doesn't make it morally right.

> there's an issue in the system.

But everyone else is just as apathetic as you, so there's no incentive to ever change anything.

You say, "The government should ban this!" and the government says, "People are buying and eating this, so in a Democratic system we can't ban this!"

You slough off responsibility on them - they slough it off on you - you all convince yourselves you have no possibility at all.

Also - I'm curious - have you ever contacted your representatives? Asked them to do anything about it?

I'm sure when the tuna finally goes, you'll say, "Yes, I ate tuna all my life, but I bear no responsibility - it's everyone else's fault."

"I refuse to feel guilty. When I fill my Hummer at the pump, I expect it to be filled with renewable corn oil. If it isn't, there's an issue with the system."

consider fruit in the supermarket, that came in plane from another continent. By not buying them, in the short term, there'll be a bit of waste and donations to associations. In the mid/long term supermakets reshape their strategy, stop buying them as well, exporters then reduce their shippings, etc..

same goes for fish/meat productions, if you cut down the consumer stream, the producers will be forced to adapt, takes time sure..

About pets, our planet is overpopulated (at least over-consuming), the fact there are over a billion of pets is already a nonsense, it's like virtually increasing human population by 5-10%, do we really need this?

Uhm... did you look at them? They both use very very similar shades of blue for all of the series which makes them impossible to distinguish.

The second graph is a little better but even in that one the very similarly coloured blue lines cross each other so you have to really look closely to figure out which is which.

the first graph is completely useless, how can you distinguish between all these similar shades of light blue?