Tuesday 3 September 2013

The Age of Impoverishment


The Age of Ignorance

Disturbing and beyond sad that young people largely do not even begin to comprehend what we are destroying for ever:

"Recent analyses of the history of fishing off the California coast, as seen through interviews with three generations of fishermen, produced startling findings. The youngest group (age 15-30) had no idea that it was once common to fish right off the coast. They didn’t view the coastal zone as being overfished because, they said, there were no fish in this zone."

"The oldest group (age 55 and above) could recall eleven species that had disappeared from today’s far offshore fishing ground, whereas the group between age 31 and 54 could recall seven, and the youngest group only two. Sixty years ago the oldest group could recall catching 25 goliath groupers per day, but by the 1960s the number had plunged to eleven, and then to only one a day in the 1990s. Tragically, only ten percent of the youngest group believed that stocks of the grouper had disappeared because they didn’t think they were ever there to begin with."

From Brent Blackwelder. Read more at the Daly News blog from the Centre for Advancement of the Steady State Economy.

(Before it's too late!)
Posted by between-the-lines at 16:00

6 comments:

  1. Sabio Lantz4 September 2013 at 12:19

    Damn, this is the last post I am reading before going to work this morning. Nice job sending me off depressed to a 12-hour shift.

    Wait, but if I think of the same happening to overpopulated humans, it does not seem sad. So maybe some fish are happy for the wider, freer oceans.

    Hmmmm, this analysis is anthropocentric. Wheew, I feel better.
    Off to work!

    ReplyDelete
  2. between-the-lines4 September 2013 at 20:57

    Sabio, here's a tip: never, ever, EVER read anything on my blog last, it is 100% guaranteed miserable! Worse than Country and Western.

    12 hour shift, huh? My God, are you one of the nickel-and-dimed Temp Economy in the US I've heard about?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhS3AvkwYM0

    All the best,

    PS not sure I understand your point about happy fish, but if it floats your boat ...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sabio Lantz4 September 2013 at 21:15

    (1) No, I am not a "temp" -- full time in medicine (see my blog for background if you are interested)

    (2) If what floats my boat?

    ReplyDelete
  4. between-the-lines5 September 2013 at 08:03

    1. Hey, you lucky man! 12 hour shifts aren't so bad when you're actually getting paid something worthwhile, are they.

    I did take a quick look at your philosophy blog but didn't see anything about medicine.

    2. Thinking of the few offshore fish still permitted by humans to swim in the deeper ocean, rather than the coastal fish that have already been wiped out by human greed.

    Those fish shouldn't relax too soon though, the human psychopaths are coming to finish them all off quite soon ...

    See my next post if you want any more.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sabio Lantz5 September 2013 at 10:50

    (1) Yep, "lucky" is appropriate in many ways -- born in priviledge of many sorts and all. Inappropriate in that getting there was a circuitous route with many falls.
    (1a) If you'd have gone to my "About" page and clicked on Biography, you'd have seen it. Perhaps it is all a bit buried.
    (1c) Do you have an "About" page where we can learn about you?

    (2) Fish
    I agree, humans are a horrible dangerous animal, doing all the horrible things they naturally do. They differ only in degree from fish or even plankton. Each species will overrun and destroy itself and others, given the chance (evolutionary, chance that is).

    But I want human to change their behaviors too -- I work on it daily but it is a losing battle. But I keep trying -- for their own sake and the sake of others.

    ReplyDelete
  6. between-the-lines5 September 2013 at 14:21

    Hi again Sabio,

    I'm sure you were tongue in cheek when you called humans "horrible". I don't see humans as horrible, I see us as very much a mixed bag. We are, as you say, as we have evolved to be in order to survive in a very different environment to the one we have made today. Most of us are a mix of what we construct as more "noble" motivations, alongside more ignoble motivations. It seems unfortunate though, to me, that we have allowed too strong a tendency towards psychopathy to spread in the population, with dire consequences for all.

    Since you ask (very flattering) I do not have an "about" page, but I do have a Youtube account which if you take a look will tell you far more about me than you will probably ever wish to know, including a photo of me from about 30 years ago on a student amphetamine come-down. I really don't look that different today, if you want to believe that, except maybe somewhat healthier. It's my lifestyle see, I'm happily married, walk everywhere, grow my own food as much as possible, and wash my clothes by hand. We have no car, no holidays, no flights, no washing machine, no fridge, very few 'mod-cons' at all except computer and cheap old mobile phone.

    Simplest, cheapest and best as they say in India.

    http://www.youtube.com/user/Lupakalia

    ReplyDelete

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