Comments on: Stop Eating Tuna http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna.html Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:52:40 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Yves Smith http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna.html#comment-1772 Yves Smith Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:03:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna/#comment-1772 George, <br/><br/>I agree with your point. If you saw my comment above, with the 1993 E.O, Wilson, humanity is toast. I recall reading that back then, saying that humans were using 20 to 40% of the solar energy. It was obvious that that isn't sustainable, yet no one seemed willing to connect the dots. The Club of Rome had been wrong, so no need to be cautious. Of course, the Club of Rome was right, but they drew the trend lines a bit too steeply, <br/><br/>So here we are, 15 years later, with even more people on the planet and everyone wanting to live a first world lifestyle. We are going to go down the tubes as a civilization due to our inability to manage our use of resources. The human race may survive in some form, but the damage to the planet (particularly species loss and pollution) will take millions of years to reverse. Cadmium and lead in the soil? Yikes.<br/><br/>So yes, mentioning tuna is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. But I'd like to see as many species survive as possible. And a secondary rationale for the post is to educate people as to the cost of eating food higher up on the food chain. George,

I agree with your point. If you saw my comment above, with the 1993 E.O, Wilson, humanity is toast. I recall reading that back then, saying that humans were using 20 to 40% of the solar energy. It was obvious that that isn’t sustainable, yet no one seemed willing to connect the dots. The Club of Rome had been wrong, so no need to be cautious. Of course, the Club of Rome was right, but they drew the trend lines a bit too steeply,

So here we are, 15 years later, with even more people on the planet and everyone wanting to live a first world lifestyle. We are going to go down the tubes as a civilization due to our inability to manage our use of resources. The human race may survive in some form, but the damage to the planet (particularly species loss and pollution) will take millions of years to reverse. Cadmium and lead in the soil? Yikes.

So yes, mentioning tuna is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. But I’d like to see as many species survive as possible. And a secondary rationale for the post is to educate people as to the cost of eating food higher up on the food chain.

]]> By: George http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna.html#comment-1770 George Tue, 20 Nov 2007 07:25:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna/#comment-1770 WIth all species of fish being depleted so drastically is it time to recognize the inevitable?<br/><br/>IT isn't a species by species problem.<br/>Their are simply too many people for the oceans to support with natural wild fish.<br/><br/>We are actually reaching that point predicted where humanity is too large to be sustained by the natural planet.<br/><br/>either we all start eating farm raised stuff that is the next level lower than solent green or the wild populations of the earth will have their final remianing taters eaten to extinction.<br/><br/>There is virtually nothing left inthe oceans now. literally.<br/>people simply don't realize it is a vast wasteland of oceanic desert now whereas just 20 yrs ago it was still full.<br/><br/>www.vivzizi.com WIth all species of fish being depleted so drastically is it time to recognize the inevitable?

IT isn’t a species by species problem.
Their are simply too many people for the oceans to support with natural wild fish.

We are actually reaching that point predicted where humanity is too large to be sustained by the natural planet.

either we all start eating farm raised stuff that is the next level lower than solent green or the wild populations of the earth will have their final remianing taters eaten to extinction.

There is virtually nothing left inthe oceans now. literally.
people simply don’t realize it is a vast wasteland of oceanic desert now whereas just 20 yrs ago it was still full.

http://www.vivzizi.com

]]> By: Yves Smith http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna.html#comment-1751 Yves Smith Mon, 19 Nov 2007 02:18:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna/#comment-1751 Anon of 9:56 AM and Juan,<br/><br/>Thanks for the links. Sadly, overfishing is not going away as a topic, and they will be good references for future posts. Anon of 9:56 AM and Juan,

Thanks for the links. Sadly, overfishing is not going away as a topic, and they will be good references for future posts.

]]> By: Juan http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna.html#comment-1750 Juan Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:18:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna/#comment-1750 On the opposite end of the chain we have the phytoplankton and detritus eating Atlantic Menhaden, a fish which the attached calls 'the most important in the sea' and which has evidently been suffering a particular commercial over-exploition.<br/><br/>"You've never heard of them, but your life may depend on them"<br/>http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~hbf/menhaden.htm On the opposite end of the chain we have the phytoplankton and detritus eating Atlantic Menhaden, a fish which the attached calls ‘the most important in the sea’ and which has evidently been suffering a particular commercial over-exploition.

“You’ve never heard of them, but your life may depend on them”
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~hbf/menhaden.htm

]]> By: Anonymous http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna.html#comment-1745 Anonymous Sun, 18 Nov 2007 14:56:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna/#comment-1745 A large majority of commercial fisheries have never been, and continue not to be, sustainable. Ocean ecosystems simply cannot sustain the fishing pressure humans impose, even in managed fisheries. It's not just tuna high up on the food web that are suffering from overfishing. The biomass of high-trophic level fishes has declined by two-thirds during the last 50-year period, and with a factor of nine over the century. There are many factors that pressure fishery managers: social, political, economic, and the increasing demand for boidiversity, and all of these rarely diverge at one solution. It's also a complex problem that's hard to alleviate since tuna live largely in the open ocean where catch regulation falls upon cooperation of international bodies. Not to mention the difficulty of catching illegal fishing vessels before they do excessive damage, even in stocks that are meant to be left to recover. <br/><br/>I imagine we'll see moratoriums on many fisheries in the next couple years. Unfortunately the people studying the problems and finding that we have to stop exploiting marine resources so heavily are rarely the ones that have the political ability to stop the fishery until the fishers actually go out and find that there is nothing left to catch. <br/>------------<br/>Christensen, V. et al. (2003) Hundred year decline of North Atlantic<br/>predatory fishes. Fish and Fisheries 4, 1–24<br/> <br/><br/>Pauly, D., Christensen, V., Dalsgaard, J., Froese, R. & Torres, F. Jr Fishing down marine food webs.<br/>Science 279, 860–863 (1998)<br/><br/>Hutchings, J. A. Collapse and recovery of marine fishes. Nature 406, 882–885 (2000).<br/><br/>Pauly D, Christensen V, Guénette S, Pitcher TJ, Sumaila UR, Walters CJ, Watson R, Zeller D.<br/>Abstract<br/>Towards sustainability in world fisheries.<br/>Nature. 2002 Aug 8;418(6898):689-95. A large majority of commercial fisheries have never been, and continue not to be, sustainable. Ocean ecosystems simply cannot sustain the fishing pressure humans impose, even in managed fisheries. It’s not just tuna high up on the food web that are suffering from overfishing. The biomass of high-trophic level fishes has declined by two-thirds during the last 50-year period, and with a factor of nine over the century. There are many factors that pressure fishery managers: social, political, economic, and the increasing demand for boidiversity, and all of these rarely diverge at one solution. It’s also a complex problem that’s hard to alleviate since tuna live largely in the open ocean where catch regulation falls upon cooperation of international bodies. Not to mention the difficulty of catching illegal fishing vessels before they do excessive damage, even in stocks that are meant to be left to recover.

I imagine we’ll see moratoriums on many fisheries in the next couple years. Unfortunately the people studying the problems and finding that we have to stop exploiting marine resources so heavily are rarely the ones that have the political ability to stop the fishery until the fishers actually go out and find that there is nothing left to catch.
————
Christensen, V. et al. (2003) Hundred year decline of North Atlantic
predatory fishes. Fish and Fisheries 4, 1–24

Pauly, D., Christensen, V., Dalsgaard, J., Froese, R. & Torres, F. Jr Fishing down marine food webs.
Science 279, 860–863 (1998)

Hutchings, J. A. Collapse and recovery of marine fishes. Nature 406, 882–885 (2000).

Pauly D, Christensen V, Guénette S, Pitcher TJ, Sumaila UR, Walters CJ, Watson R, Zeller D.
Abstract
Towards sustainability in world fisheries.
Nature. 2002 Aug 8;418(6898):689-95.

]]> By: Yves Smith http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna.html#comment-1736 Yves Smith Sun, 18 Nov 2007 04:44:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna/#comment-1736 kissthegoat,<br/><br/>Agreed that canned tuna accounts for the vast majority of tuna consumption (ex bluefin). However, restaurant owners and chefs, particularly top ones, get press. If they learn their customers are concerned about environmental issues, and particularly overfishing, they will not only fall into line but will likely talk it up. That at least may influence middle/upper middle class consumers. <br/><br/>Although Chilean sea bass was never a mainstream item, most restaurants and many fishmongers stopped carrying it once word got out it was severely overfished (and having cooked it, it was the most fault tolerant fish, perfect for entertaining, and it tasted terrific too).<br/><br/>Canned tuna is now so cheaply priced that it will be hard to wean people off it. kissthegoat,

Agreed that canned tuna accounts for the vast majority of tuna consumption (ex bluefin). However, restaurant owners and chefs, particularly top ones, get press. If they learn their customers are concerned about environmental issues, and particularly overfishing, they will not only fall into line but will likely talk it up. That at least may influence middle/upper middle class consumers.

Although Chilean sea bass was never a mainstream item, most restaurants and many fishmongers stopped carrying it once word got out it was severely overfished (and having cooked it, it was the most fault tolerant fish, perfect for entertaining, and it tasted terrific too).

Canned tuna is now so cheaply priced that it will be hard to wean people off it.

]]> By: Yves Smith http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna.html#comment-1733 Yves Smith Sun, 18 Nov 2007 03:27:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna/#comment-1733 Anon of 7:02 PM,<br/><br/>No, if you eat tuna, you only get 10% of the food energy of tuna, which is already one of the costliest predators. To be in the same position as the tuna, you'd need to eat what tunas eat.<br/><br/>The human race is consuming food energy way way out of proportion to anything that is sustainable. Eating food that is high up on the food chain is wasteful. Given how many people are on the planet, it is destructive to the biosphere and ultimately makes it unlikely that advanced civilizations will be sustained.<br/><br/>I recall hearing Jim Rogers say in the late 1990s that for the Chinese to meet their objective of having everyone eat one more egg a week, world wheat production would have to triple (no wonder he has been long commodities). Jared Diamond, author of <i>Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed</i>,estimates that there will be <a HREF="http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/are-we-at-risk-of-collapse.html" REL="nofollow">no first world lifestyles</a> in 30 to 50 years. Nevertheless, top predators (except humans per the discussion below) play an important role in keeping ecosystems in balance.<br/><br/>I will let esteemed biologist Edward O. Wilson address your argument via his 1993 essay, "I<a HREF="http://www.well.com/user/davidu/suicidal.html" REL="nofollow">s Humanity Suicidal?</a>":<br/><br/><i>Now in the midst of a population explosion, the human species has doubled to 5.5 billion during the past 50 years. It is scheduled to double again in the next 50 years. No other single species in evolutionary history has even remotely approached the sheer mass in protoplasm generated by humanity. <br/><br/>Darwin's dice have rolled badly for Earth. It was a misfortune for the living world in particular, many scientists believe, that a carnivorous primate and not some more benign form of animal made the breakthrough. Our species retains hereditary traits that add greatly to our destructive impact. We are tribal and aggressively territorial, intent on private space beyond minimal requirements and oriented by selfish sexual and reproductive drives. Cooperation beyond the family and tribal levels comes hard. <br/><br/>Worse, our liking for meat causes us to use the sun's energy at low efficiency. It is a general rule of ecology that (very roughly) only about 10 percent of the sun's energy captured by photosynthesis to produce plant tissue is converted into energy in the tissue of herbivores, the animals that eat the plants. Of that amount, 10 percent reaches the tissue of the carnivores feeding on the herbivores. Similarly, only 10 percent is transferred to carnivores that eat carnivores. And so on for another step or two. <br/><br/>In a wetlands chain that runs from marsh grass to grasshopper to warbler to hawk, the energy captured during green production shrinks a thousandfold. In other words, it takes a great deal of grass to support a hawk. Human beings, like hawks, are top carnivores, at the end of the food chain whenever they eat meat, two or more links removed from the plants; if chicken, for example, two links, and if tuna, four links. <br/><br/>Even with most societies confined today to a mostly vegetarian diet, humanity is gobbling up a large part of the rest of the living world. We appropriate between 20 and 40 percent of the sun's energy that would otherwise be fixed into the tissue of natural vegetation, principally by our consumption of crops and timber, construction of buildings and roadways and the creation of wastelands. In the relentless search for more food, we have reduced animal life in lakes, rivers and now, increasingly, the open ocean. </i> Anon of 7:02 PM,

No, if you eat tuna, you only get 10% of the food energy of tuna, which is already one of the costliest predators. To be in the same position as the tuna, you’d need to eat what tunas eat.

The human race is consuming food energy way way out of proportion to anything that is sustainable. Eating food that is high up on the food chain is wasteful. Given how many people are on the planet, it is destructive to the biosphere and ultimately makes it unlikely that advanced civilizations will be sustained.

I recall hearing Jim Rogers say in the late 1990s that for the Chinese to meet their objective of having everyone eat one more egg a week, world wheat production would have to triple (no wonder he has been long commodities). Jared Diamond, author of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,estimates that there will be no first world lifestyles in 30 to 50 years. Nevertheless, top predators (except humans per the discussion below) play an important role in keeping ecosystems in balance.

I will let esteemed biologist Edward O. Wilson address your argument via his 1993 essay, “Is Humanity Suicidal?“:

Now in the midst of a population explosion, the human species has doubled to 5.5 billion during the past 50 years. It is scheduled to double again in the next 50 years. No other single species in evolutionary history has even remotely approached the sheer mass in protoplasm generated by humanity.

Darwin’s dice have rolled badly for Earth. It was a misfortune for the living world in particular, many scientists believe, that a carnivorous primate and not some more benign form of animal made the breakthrough. Our species retains hereditary traits that add greatly to our destructive impact. We are tribal and aggressively territorial, intent on private space beyond minimal requirements and oriented by selfish sexual and reproductive drives. Cooperation beyond the family and tribal levels comes hard.

Worse, our liking for meat causes us to use the sun’s energy at low efficiency. It is a general rule of ecology that (very roughly) only about 10 percent of the sun’s energy captured by photosynthesis to produce plant tissue is converted into energy in the tissue of herbivores, the animals that eat the plants. Of that amount, 10 percent reaches the tissue of the carnivores feeding on the herbivores. Similarly, only 10 percent is transferred to carnivores that eat carnivores. And so on for another step or two.

In a wetlands chain that runs from marsh grass to grasshopper to warbler to hawk, the energy captured during green production shrinks a thousandfold. In other words, it takes a great deal of grass to support a hawk. Human beings, like hawks, are top carnivores, at the end of the food chain whenever they eat meat, two or more links removed from the plants; if chicken, for example, two links, and if tuna, four links.

Even with most societies confined today to a mostly vegetarian diet, humanity is gobbling up a large part of the rest of the living world. We appropriate between 20 and 40 percent of the sun’s energy that would otherwise be fixed into the tissue of natural vegetation, principally by our consumption of crops and timber, construction of buildings and roadways and the creation of wastelands. In the relentless search for more food, we have reduced animal life in lakes, rivers and now, increasingly, the open ocean.

]]> By: Will http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna.html#comment-1732 Will Sun, 18 Nov 2007 01:36:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna/#comment-1732 If you eat tuna, make it Albacore Tuna. Just watch out for the mercury! :-0<br/><br/>-Will If you eat tuna, make it Albacore Tuna. Just watch out for the mercury! :-0

-Will

]]> By: Gimme Squab http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna.html#comment-1731 Gimme Squab Sun, 18 Nov 2007 01:02:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna/#comment-1731 The tuna will go the same way as the extinct Passenger Pigeon.....eat yer squab before its gone....<br/><br/>http://www.qc.ec.gc.ca/faune/oiseaux_menaces/html/tourte_voyageuse_e.html<br/><br/>http://www.eco-action.org/dt/pigeon.html The tuna will go the same way as the extinct Passenger Pigeon…..eat yer squab before its gone….

http://www.qc.ec.gc.ca/faune/oiseaux_menaces/html/tourte_voyageuse_e.html

http://www.eco-action.org/dt/pigeon.html

]]> By: Anonymous http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna.html#comment-1730 Anonymous Sun, 18 Nov 2007 00:02:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/11/stop-eating-tuna/#comment-1730 Your reasoning here makes no sense to me. If we fish Bluefin into extinction then we are eliminating a species that is very high on the food chain. Ergo, the food that species <b>would</b> have eaten had it not gone extinct is now available for other species. If you were instead arguing that we need to give Tuna a rest so stocks could rebuild and then we can resume eating them, I would understand. But your claim that its high position on the food chain makes it a "wasteful" method of harvesting calories implies that if we didn't reduce their numbers, Tuna collectively would consume fewer calories. That's nonsense, of course. Your reasoning here makes no sense to me. If we fish Bluefin into extinction then we are eliminating a species that is very high on the food chain. Ergo, the food that species would have eaten had it not gone extinct is now available for other species. If you were instead arguing that we need to give Tuna a rest so stocks could rebuild and then we can resume eating them, I would understand. But your claim that its high position on the food chain makes it a “wasteful” method of harvesting calories implies that if we didn’t reduce their numbers, Tuna collectively would consume fewer calories. That’s nonsense, of course.

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