I am not actually going to go into the shrimp rant at the moment. Rather, I want to point out what some of the bigger issues are that surround seafood as a whole. There are a number of things to take into account. Here are a few main ones:
1. Overall sustainability of the fishery (ie - are we taking more fish than are being replaced?)
2. Bycatch - in some industries (/cough
3. Habitat destruction - bottom trawlers absolutely destroy habitats (hmm....shrimp again)
Farming seafood also has it's own set of problems, including additional habitat destruction, waste management, and diseases. Really, it's all a lot to keep track of. Fortunately for we innocent bystanders who just want to eat some fish, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has put together lists of seafood do's an don't's based on the region of the country you live in. I HIGHLY recommend you check it out: http://www.mbayaq.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp
In all seriousness, the world's fisheries are in bad shape. There is a substantial amount of evidence that ALL of the world's fisheries may collapse within the next 40 years, do largely to a combination of poor management practices and other pressures, like pollution. I really really hope that doesn't happen. In the meanwhile, we can contribute by supporting those fisheries who are doing it "right"...or at least more right (wild caught Alaskan salmon and halibut, for example), and choosing not to support those who are unnecessarily damaging (orange roughy, shrimp, swordfish, etc). Alright, I'm done being on my soapbox now.
5 comments:
Well now I'm just all confused! First we get some very lucidly explained and scientifically backed information that there's all sorts of fish in the sea, and now we can't eat any of them. This kind of inconsistency in reporting inspires very little confidence in the veracity of any arguments made. However, the second post is notably more emotionally charged and lacking in significant data and organization, so it carries much less weight. Furthermore, the use of blanket qualifiers like 'all' and 'any' and 'absolutely' and 'really' and 'right' continue the damage to the argument. Because of all this wiff-waffling, I guess I just can't go to Rach for advice/information/analysis about environmental issues anymore!
On the other hand, if you had stashed some explosives in the significant logical holes in my comments for the previous post, I might have rolled over...
I'm sorry, but the holes in your logic were so big that explosive wouldn't have done anything to widen them.
You obviously need a bigger nuke.
If I used a nuke big enough to have any affect on your non-existent logic, the entire planet would be exploded into a gazillion little pieces, at which point this whole argument would be moot.
So...you're really an anarchist/world destroyer that wishes "the entire planet would be exploded into a gazillion little pieces" posing as an environmentalist.
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