Lit-up fishing nets reduce catch of unwanted sharks, rays and squid: study
smithsonianmag.com
smithsonianmag.com
LEDs that biodegrade after ___ years would be a good idea, too. MEMS-powered?
Edit: I have a clearer way of explaining the challenge. We are used to 'any colour' being possible from RGB style LEDs. That is one resolved colour that we perceived. But for this we aren't trying to achieve one colour, we are trying to configure a particular spectral output. You could maybe get close to that with lots of LEDs across the spectrum, but it's not the same as well designed cluster.
Our R,G,B LEDs are tuned for maximum effectiveness on our photoreceptor cells [1]. Red photoreceptors are probably not very useful for sea fish as red is easily scattered in water.
Follow-up questions like mine?
You're right though, people won't. People won't even stop hunting and eating known-endangered animals.
As was said to you eleswhere - much of the world does have a choice of where to get their calories. Taking from the sea until it has nothing left to give is a profit-driven exercise in the main, not one of caloric necessity.
That's just not true. About half of scientifically assessed fish stocks at or above target levels, thus sustainably harvested, or they are successfully rebuilding from previous overexploitation i.e. fisheries management is working. One can easily consume seafood without engaging in "Taking from the sea until it has nothing left to give". Doing so reduces the land footprint of your diet, and for some seafood like whitefish, small pelagics or cultured bivalves, you will probably decrease your carbon footprint, even relative to a vegan diet.
Trawling and trolling are slightly different fishing techniques. Both are ways to catch fish from a moving boat, but trawling involves dragging a net, while trolling means trailing a baited line.
Cultured algae, molluscs, crustaceans, echinoderms, and cultured fish versus... wild fish.
So they are removing wild molluscs, crustaceans, echinoderms and wild algae from one side of the equation in an article that focus in the message that that part has decreased. Lying with statistics. If we compare wild fish against farmed fish only, the result would be really different.
And there is pirate fishing also. Some companies under-report a percentage of their captures routinely, to hide that they fish more than are allowed to. Not so easy to do in sea farms when you can't produce more than the space assigned to you.
Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stop.
What a lovely family we have.
What's left?
Everybody being forced to stop eating fish because a few don't like and lobby against it, is totalitarianism, and in the practice is genocide. We should be fully aware that many millions of humans depend on sea food to survive.
'Let them eat candy instead' is not a realistic solution.
I also wonder, since you used the word genocide, what word would you use to describe the amount of death wrought on fish? Or the farming of them? Would being brought up solely to be eaten and never to roam free come under your use of totalitarian?
> 'Let them eat candy instead' is not a realistic solution.
Have you thought about letting people eat all kinds of non-meat foods? I enjoyed tempeh on savoury rice tonight. This morning was pumpkin soup with a mixed bean salad. Lunch was very light, just toast with almond butter. All very tasty, healthy, and high in fibre, protein and macro-nutrients.
Regardless, in most instances, vegetable farming produces much higher yields - and thus calories - per unit of farmland than farming animals ever could. It's a more realistic solution than expanding animal farming.
Because the "solution" that they propose would kill millions of people, and the majority of non-vegans have rights also.
Therefore is a non-solution for a non existent problem
And don't try to convince me that there are lots of acceptable replacements in your mind, because this is incorrect at this moment. Where you want to culture all those pumpkins?, in national parks? there is not enough fertile soil available unless we eat all the remaining nature.
> just toast with almond butter
Yep, what California needs now is to plant more almonds that suck all the water. This line explains perfectly the problem with this ideology
Again, speech is the subject, speech cannot kill anyone, so you would limit speech based on possible outcomes - that is totalitarian. I also don’t see why preventing all fishing (which is a straw man, but an easy one to defend) would kill millions of people.
> Where you want to culture all those pumpkins?, in national parks? there is not enough fertile soil available unless we eat all the remaining nature.
As I pointed out before, because the farming of animals is so inefficient, if vegetables are grown instead the yields are so high that less land would be used to produce the same number of calories. If we’re only stopping industrial fishing then that may not work, of course, but it’s unlikely without a diet change across society anyway, and I mainly want to correct your erroneous assumption that all types of farming are fungible.
> > just toast with almond butter
> Yep, what California needs now is to plant more almonds that suck all the water. This line explains perfectly the problem with this ideology
Almonds are native to Iran, I’m not American nor am I in America, and I’m not proposing that almonds replace meat nor would I support or propose increasing almond production in California. I’d prefer that you try to avoid littering your responses with straw man arguments if you’re going to continue, at least, not ridiculously obvious ones that are coming out of assumptions that have been given nary a second thought.
As non efficient as any other process that has been improved over the last 4000 years at least. In arid places there are less things more efficient than a camel or a goat.
> if vegetables are grown instead, the yields are so high
Brace yourself for a nasty surprise. To have high harvests you will need high amounts of fertilizers. Period.
And to obtain that manure you need cattle.
Bird guano is a limited resource, scarce, local and expensive produced in islands that will sink by climate change. Bat guano has the same problems plus it spreads rabies and disturb bat colonies that are essential to fruit pollination and pest control so forget about it at large scale. And you need to burn fossil energy to move it.
But of course technology will save us. We can synthesize urea in labs and then move it around the planet. We just need to burn fossil energy and solve a few minor problems (ehem, biurea). This negates the claimed energy savings, or ecological benefits. And nitrogen is not the only bottleneck in agriculture.
So those utopian vegan societies had only one reliable source of manure, and is human feces. But to have enough brown stuff you need to introduce human food first in the system. And as you spend energy in each turn to support grow and life, one year of food for somebody can't return one more year of food for the same people. Just less and less.
This solution came with a different set of problems. Your lattice can spread parasite worm eggs and human diseases, so you need to sterilize it first, spending energy in the process. Human feces will also carry antibiotics or medication that are much harder to remove.
And cattle supports much more biodiversity than soy fields.
Everybody that felt for the utopian narrative of the full-vegan paradise smash hard their faces against this reality. This societies always are hungry of manure. Without an external source you can't feed your people, so they are unstable by default and are overpowered by the other societies. There is not one single successful example of a long lasting fully vegan country isolated from neighbors with cattle.
None, so I'll ignore them.
> > because the farming of animals is so inefficient,
> As non efficient as any other process that has been improved over the last 4000 years at least.
This is wrong, for several reasons, the main one being the most pertinent - less calories are yielded per unit of farmland in animal farming than in non-animal farming. That is an objective difference in efficiency.
You wrote “what California needs now is to plant more almonds that suck all the water”.
From [1]:
> Animal feed, which includes irrigated pasture, non-irrigated pasture, and other feed crops, has the greatest water requirements (15 MAF), followed by alfalfa, straw, and hay (5.5 MAF). Together, these crops provide the primary inputs to California’s meat and dairy industry.
Over ten times the water use of almonds and the largest use of water in California farming by far. It takes 84 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of almond milk, and 880 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of cow's milk. That is an objective difference in efficiency.
You wrote “In arid places there are less things more efficient than a camel or a goat.”
Arguing from an exception isn't a winning strategy but it doesn't matter as I'm all for goats using mountain pasture. By all means, use camels in the desert instead of trying to grow wheat or whatever. Did I mention straw man arguments?
Speaking of which, if you wish to amend the essay you've provided which reads as an argument to someone else, (as I'm not in favour of a vegan utopia - whatever that is) then I'll be able to respond to it. Otherwise, you'll only be wasting your own time from here on in.
[1] https://pacinst.org/publication/assessment-of-californias-wa...
You may not see it now, but views like yours are part of the problem. We can't keep destroying the planet. Change comes at multiple levels, whether it be from the individuals with their purchasing power or governments forcing reform.
Human beings already grow enough food to feed the planet. In fact we grow enough food to feed to hundreds of billions of animals we slaughter every year. We could easily give up fishing and factory farming AND eradicate hunger, but it requires significant change to folks priorities and supply chains. It’s possible though, and we should work towards it ASAP
Forgive me, but "Many people worldwide are struggling to get certain nutrients, so it doesn't matter if we remove an important source of those nutrients" doesn't strike me as very well reasoned.
> It’s possible though, and we should work towards it ASAP
Why should we give up fishing? Improve sustainability and management of fisheries, sure, but if the goal is to eradicate hunger, why would you want to get rid of something that is an important provider of jobs and nutrients for some of the poorest people?
I understand that there are folks who are dependent on fishing right now for livelihood, but we should change that so they aren’t.
But that also brings about a point often overlooked by carnists: are _you_ personally dependent on eating fish to survive? If not then you should stop. For some reason carnists often think in terms of “well this person on the other side of the world needs to rely on fishing, so it’s fine for me to continue eating fish”
I respect that, but it's a value judgement, and your priorities therein are different than mine.
That said, I'm also not sure I should stop if I did share your ethical priorities. Example: sometimes, I spearfish not far from where I live and take a fish or abalone. Fish often get headshotted and never realise they were speared, not sure there is suffering in those cases (Other times it is a few seconds before I pith them after spearing). No bycatch. Sometimes tens of meals from one sentient being if it is a larger species. I'm pretty sure a meal of agriculturally produced plant foods results in similar amounts of animal suffering once you include animals poisoned and killed by harvest machinery.
Stop focusing on things you can't change (even tho they make you look good/moral) and start focusing on results.
If all the energy used to try and convince people to not eat meat (something that can't even theoretically happen) had instead been focused on lobbing for systemic support for development of artificial meat ... we would have already had it. Then no one would have to give up meat. Most people have no connection to the animal as is - if the messaging is done right, most will not care, especially if it's seen as "better, cheaper and healthier".
But for that, someone would have to start a massive pan-EU campaign to start devoting billions into research and commercialization of artificial meat. I would support such a (vegan) candidate.
I eat meat, but I would much prefer if there was no suffering attached to it.
Also, there are already made viable replacements for meat. I’d start with lentils, but you don’t like them there are hundreds of other options.
My argument is, that there are multiple strategies and that you are using a suboptimal, possibly at this point a counter-productive one.
You will NEVER convince everyone (or even close to a majority) to stop eating meat. At least not in anything close to a lifetime and without highly authoritarian methods. So working toward that end is pointless. You should be, instead, working on providing an alternative and making sure people adopt it.
> This is how any rights movement works.
Yeah, and they all make the same mistake. Most of them have managed to change the values of the population but then lose steam, slow down and get stuck or even slide back when trying to change societal systems. Almost like changing values and changing systems isn't the same thing.
> Also, there are already made viable replacements for meat. I’d start with lentils, but you don’t like them there are hundreds of other options.
I've tried most of the ones that are available here. And no, they have not. They are getting better, and some are very interesting as a standalone thing, but they are not a replacement.
But… I have… numerous times. You don’t really know what you’re talking about at all.
If you have an actual legitimate reason you think you ought not to reduce the suffering of animals, let me know. Otherwise, have a good life and I hope you go vegan.
Sure, I don't doubt that. The current proportion, from a quick google search, is between 1%-10% in the western world. That's after A LOT of effort and before any serious pushback.
Now try doing it for 99% of the population. The world population. How long will that take? 100 years? 500? Don't forget that historically impoverished areas are on the rise economically, and they want, justifiably, what they didn't have an abundance of - meat (among other things).
Now imagine we get real artificial meat, that people can't tell apart, but is cheaper, better tasting and nicer to look at. How long till we get the percentage of people who don't eat "real" meat up to 90%? 20 years? Maybe less?
So it's up to you how many animals will have to be killed before we stop eating them.
Besides, what exactly is your argument? That it’s hard to change things like this? If so, why does that matter at all? Lots of things are hard but worth doing.
All ecological and anti-climate change movements have the same problem. Convincing people to give up the luxury of a car, airplane, vacation, phone, (overly) warm home etc. is a great way of putting people on the defensive and triggering pushback.
That's why I'm saying you will NEVER convince anything near a majority of people to give up meat. It's a rare luxury. They will never give that up, especially as long as they watch rich people have fun on their private islands.
This is the difference: - "You can't ever eat burgers again, or you're a bad person" - "Want to eat Wagyu beef burgers, but can't afford it? No problem! Now you can, plus, you're a good person for not killing a cow in the process!"
You must realize that "belief that animals ought not to be exploited for anything" is a belief enabled by privilege. A lot of privilege. That's not bad, as privilege (a really shitty word to use for the concept) is not a bad thing. But it's a privilege that many people lack. So you need to find ways to convince people to do what you want without relying on the privilage.
The rest of the world (where we have choice when walking down a supermarket or picking where to eat) should be looking to more ethically and environmentally friendly foods.
There is easily enough land on earth to support us all. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
Your diet of dead animals is killing the planet.
> Your diet of dead animals is killing the planet.
You are showing your hand too soon mate. I'm taking about food with zero land use footprint - less than an entirely plant based diet. Nowhere did I advocate for eating terrestrial farmed animal protein. So really, by bringing up the land use footprint of terrestrial food, you are making a strong case for incorporating some seafood to reduce the impact of food. While it's cool that you are unintentionally supporting my case, I'm afraid you may come off as a zealot if you share vegan talking points that are irrelevant to the comment to which you are replying.
If you're trying to change people's values (i.e. from "who care about the environment" to "we need to protect the environment") than pragmatism isn't the way to go.
But if you want to convert values (i.e. "we need to protect the environment") into actual real world results, well in that case pragmatism is the only way to go.
Look at the whole green energy discussion. If the green movement contained its activism to fossil fuels and turned pragmatic on the topic of alternatives ... we would be living in a much cleaner world today.
But they didn't and as a result, they radically reduced their net positive effect on the world.
Fishing better? Yes for sure.
Stop fishing? Nope. This is not an reality grounded option.
If we stop fishing, we don’t need to use more land to grow more food, we just need to shift consumption towards plants and away from inefficient options like cows.
For arguments sake though, let's grant that all terrestrial food production becomes plant based: adding some well managed fishing would then reduce the land footprint required to produce the calories we need. Some of the ecosystems that have been razed into biodiversity deserts to produce crops won't be needed for agriculture, and can return to wilderness.
> we just need to shift consumption towards plants
Both terms are contradictory. Why are we still discussing basic reality facts?
Plants need land to grow. Lots of it.
Not sure re discussing basic facts, but happy to help you get a handle on reality.
Whether or not we act rationally is a different question.
Humans tend to prefer their addictions vs. adopt species saving behaviors.
I have no fantasies humans will get their shit together either.
It’s filled with people who’d rather put words in italics rather than actually make significant lifestyle changes.
That is incorrect.
Our oceans have lost 50% of life in the last 40 years; 1/3 of marine mammals and sharks and others are at risk of extinction and close to 90% of the ocean has been damaged by humans.
I’ll say it again, we have nothing close to sustainable management.
The fallacy in your understanding of fisheries management, as you describe it, is that fisheries are not managed as a single global stock. Your argument is the equivalent of saying "all worldwide governments are terrible because some totaltarian despots exist".
There certainly are some historical failures and cautionary tales in fisheries management. But partially in response to those missteps, like the collapse of Atlantic cod fisheries in 1992, the implementation of science-based fisheries management have greatly improved. This isn't just an exercise in hypotheticals, where intensive management is applied, previously overfished stocks rebuild, or stocks are at target levels that can support sustained harvesting (https://www.pnas.org/content/117/4/2218).
Fisheries management works where applied, and there are absolutely examples of sustainably managed fisheries today - take skipjack tuna a cosmopolitan species that is not at risk of overexploitation. They can be harvested on a commercial scale with pole and line gear, one at a time with very low rates of bycatch. This isn't some fringe case either, skipjack make up the majority of global tuna harvest.
Also, to counter 'there's no sustainable management (of food production)' one only needs to establish that an example does exist, and an example is going to be within some specific niche of production. As a gift to HN, I chose to stay within my realm of expertise.
Finally, maybe it's just me but considering the broader context of the thread in which we were told we ought to stop fishing entirely and rely solely on plants for sustenence, I don't get the impression that the commenter had management of cereal grain agriculture in mind when they implied 'management' practices are inherently unsustainable.