Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumHow Our Appetite For Fish Is Eating Us Into Extinction.
If the ocean dies, we all die. Why?
A few people have asked me to explain just why it is that humanity will die if the ocean dies.
Billions of people depend upon the ocean for food, and Im not talking about restaurants, sushi bars and fish markets in New York, Paris, London, Tokyo or Sydney. Im talking about extremely poor people whose lives actually depend upon catching fish.
But food being taken from the ocean is the least of the factors that will kill us.
The ocean is the life support system for the planet, providing 50 percent of the oxygen we breathe and regulating climate. The ocean is also the pump that allows us to have fresh water. It is the driving force, along with the sun, of the global circulation system that transports water from the land to the sea to the atmosphere and back to the land again.
Plankton the most important group of plants and animal species on the planet (excluding bacteria). Plankton populations have been diminished by 40 percent since 1950, yet there is now commercial exploitation by Norwegian and Japanese fishing corporations to extract millions of tons of plankton for conversion to a protein-rich animal feed.
Every year 65 billion animals are slaughtered to feed humans and some 40 percent of all the fish caught are converted to fishmeal to feed pigs, chickens, domestic salmon, fur-bearing animals and cat food. With fish populations diminishing, the corporations are looking to replace fishmeal with a plankton paste.
Full article at:
https://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/how-our-appetite-for-fish-is-eating-us-into-extinction/?fbclid=IwAR1mMxwDrZcpQQI3sV49BOyIlPJ_3YoJqDB7C20MmiNmMAu1S3-RhFBRCDs
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)is human imposed and with the current overpopulation, time grows short. We have been rotten stewards of this planet and unfortunately everything on this planet will pay a heavy price.
Duppers
(28,117 posts)And another inescapable conclusion: we must stop propagating ourselves into extinction - a most unpopular subject here.
Thanks for posting this, Cattledog. Wish more folks read this forum.
rwsanders
(2,594 posts)Horrible situation, this one innocent bycatch in another case of the Chinese eating their way through another endangered species.
Duppers
(28,117 posts)I remember your 2 important threads about them, gave both threads K&R's.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211695196
rwsanders
(2,594 posts)I'm still in a panic on this one. What a loss.
Duppers
(28,117 posts)I donate what I can to Paul Watson's org.
Pachamama
(16,884 posts)And if we kill the Oceans and their life, we help kill us all off....
hunter
(38,303 posts)As we got older we started catching our own fish.
We also ate plenty of mussels, clams, and squid.
I've noticed a huge decrease in the abundance of seafood in my lifetime.
I quit buying food like canned tuna many years ago.
For people still eating seafood, check out this place:
https://www.seafoodwatch.org/
mitch96
(13,870 posts)Ok, want a sustainable, actually invasive fresh water white fish? Asian Carp.. Taste a bit like catfish.. Easy to catch. Like down here in So Fla's Asian lionfish.. Good inexpensive source of protein. What ever you don't eat is pig/dog/cat food or fertilizer... Easy peasy
Give the oceans a break..
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/invasive-carp-clobber-local-catfish-in-taste-test/?redirect=1
https://www.sj-r.com/article/20120808/NEWS/308089913
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