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Most of this comes from a single type of ship waste: "Half of the great Pacific garbage patch is made up of fishing nets, by weight, according to a report publ

Most of this comes from a single type of ship waste: "Half of the great Pacific garbage patch is made up of fishing nets, by weight, according to a report published last year in Scientific Reports."

irrational 7y ago
So the ocean is being overfished and is being polluted by fishing. The clear answer is to ban fishing. Though, as someone who dislikes all seafood, this is easy for me to say.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  Seafood haters unite! You're the only other person I've ever found who doesn't like seafood, I feel like we should form a club or something.
  - pluc 7y ago
    There are dozens of us
  - detritus 7y ago
    Smells like death to me.
    - jdnenej 7y ago
      Most raw meat smells disgusting.
      - reggintoggaf 7y ago
        Raw horse is tasty.
    - viraptor 7y ago
      Fresh fish has barely any smell. You won't smell fish in a reasonable quality sushi train place for example. It's only if you don't preserve it well for hours that it starts to stink.
      - StavrosK 7y ago
        Personally, I don't mind fish, they smell and taste like nothing to me. I hate crustaceans/etc because they look disgusting, basically cockroaches of the sea. I can't understand how people look at them and still eat them (obligatory XKCD here https://www.xkcd.com/1268/ https://www.xkcd.com/1268/).
        DonHopkins 7y ago
        I was eating dinner at a Thai restaurant with an ideological vegetarian friend of mine, when I noticed that he ordered prawns. So I teased him with "For heaven's sake, John! You're a vegetarian! Why are you eating Prawns??? Prawns are insects!!!" fully expecting to have an enjoyable argument about whether or not prawns qualified as insects for the purpose of vegetarianism, a hill I was willing to die on, for which I had a bunch of subjective emotional aesthetic talking points locked and loaded. But he headed me off at the pass by accepting my premise and shutting me up: "Of course I eat insects. Insects are the enemy! We MUST eat them!!!"
        StavrosK 7y ago
        Damnit. He has a point.
        Falling3 7y ago
        Shrimping is so bad for the environment and other marine life. The amount of bycatch involved is disturbing. He made a pretty lousy argument.
      - detritus 7y ago
        I've lived near the sea most of my life and have always been exposed to very fresh fish. To me (perhaps not you) it smells like death. - ed As an aside - I remember reading some thing a few years ago about 'supertasters' and there was a checklist that i went through that implied I had a particularly acute sense of smell. Probably bullshit, but perhaps it's something to do with that. I really wish I could enjoy fish - as a meat it looks wonderful, but I simply cannot stand the stuff. That has the peripheral benefit of allowing me to be smugly pious when it comes to the subject of over-fishing and depleted stocks, etc..
- Nursie 7y ago
  There are types of fishing we really should think about banning because of the harm the cause to the ocean ecosystem. And that's before you take into account the fishing net waste.
- yellowstuff 7y ago
  Like prohibition in the US, a ban that is unpopular and impossible to enforce can be counterproductive. Consider the difficulties in enforcing a ban on something that 1) Millions of people depend on for their livelihood; 2) Happens in the middle of the ocean.
  - asdfman123 7y ago
    Yeah, in the middle of the ocean the only governmental/law enforcing body that really exists is the ship's captain. Beyond that, people can do whatever the hell they want because there's no one else for miles. Also, no, the world is not going to stop fishing because a few people on HN think it's a good idea. Trying to enforce your own sense of morality on others is pointless.
- fulvous 7y ago
  "Approximately 1 billion people people are dependent on fish as the principal source of animal protein" http://www.suds-en-ligne.ird.fr/ecosys/ang_ecosys/intro1.htm http://www.suds-en-ligne.ird.fr/ecosys/ang_ecosys/intro1.htm
  - intarga 7y ago
    Is there something in particular necessary about animal protein, that it gets a distinct category from just protein in general? It also stands to reason that if that many people really are dependent on fish, it will be devastating to them when overfishing and pollution destroy fish stocks. All the more reason to reduce fishing and build alternatives now.
    - zaroth 7y ago
      What do you mean “gets a distinct category”? Nutritionally it’s certainly possible to survive without eating fish, but a very large number of people do eat fish to survive. Statisticians will collect and analyze data at many levels of granularity. Obviously it’s nice to know the types of food billions of people eat more generally than “fat”, “protein”, and “carbs”. It stands to reason that fishing should be done sustainably, just like anything should be done sustainably, lest it become unsustainable. In other words, this says essentially nothing, right? Only in the context of what the substitute is, how readily available it is, how comparable in cost, how comparable in nutrition, how much is it preferred or disliked compared to the status quo, and what negative externalities might exist in scaling up the alternative, only in that context can a useful discussion be had.
    - Slippery_John 7y ago
      Well yes, but actually no. Not all proteins are equal, they have different quantities of different kinds of amino acids. Humans need 9 distinct amino acids for a healthy diet, and animal proteins are by far the easiest source of "complete proteins" from a single source. It's absolutely possible to get plant-based complete proteins (e.g. soy or quinoa), but often that involves deliberately mixing different protein sources to get a complete balance.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  The ocean is interconnected commons though so nobody really has a whole domain over it. Banning non-biodegradable nets and lines would be far more sensible and even that would have compliance issues.
- wmeredith 7y ago
  Ban fishing? That's like saying we should ban email because of spam. Or ban the internet because of malware.
hanniabu 7y ago
It'd be great if fishers needed to be checked for how many nets they have on board and then checked when they arrive and then be fined for the difference.
- amelius 7y ago
  Or only allow certified nets, and make them cost so much that you'll never want to dump them in sea.
  - hanniabu 7y ago
    Also valid, but in this case you'll still need to check their ships before they leave. Though I guess the cost of the nets could help pay for these checks. I imagine in both cases the ships would just have a boat meet them out at sea with additional nets so they either don't need to pay the fine for nets lost or don't need to buy expensive certified nets.
    - amelius 7y ago
      > I imagine in both cases the ships would just have a boat meet them out at sea with additional nets so they either don't need to pay the fine for nets lost or don't need to buy expensive certified nets. I don't think they would go through that much trouble just for not bringing a net back home. In any case, you could also put an ID or name on a net, just like a license-plate. Also, having nets without certification would be a crime, so that boat waiting at sea would be in problems if caught.

Most of this comes from a single type of ship waste: "Half of the great Pacific garbage patch is made up of fishing nets, by weight, according to a report published last year in Scientific Reports."

irrational 7y ago

So the ocean is being overfished and is being polluted by fishing. The clear answer is to ban fishing. Though, as someone who dislikes all seafood, this is easy for me to say.

StavrosK 7y ago
Seafood haters unite! You're the only other person I've ever found who doesn't like seafood, I feel like we should form a club or something.
- pluc 7y ago
  There are dozens of us
- detritus 7y ago
  Smells like death to me.
  - jdnenej 7y ago
    Most raw meat smells disgusting.
    - reggintoggaf 7y ago
      Raw horse is tasty.
  - viraptor 7y ago
    Fresh fish has barely any smell. You won't smell fish in a reasonable quality sushi train place for example. It's only if you don't preserve it well for hours that it starts to stink.
    - StavrosK 7y ago
      Personally, I don't mind fish, they smell and taste like nothing to me. I hate crustaceans/etc because they look disgusting, basically cockroaches of the sea. I can't understand how people look at them and still eat them (obligatory XKCD here https://www.xkcd.com/1268/ https://www.xkcd.com/1268/).
      - DonHopkins 7y ago
        I was eating dinner at a Thai restaurant with an ideological vegetarian friend of mine, when I noticed that he ordered prawns. So I teased him with "For heaven's sake, John! You're a vegetarian! Why are you eating Prawns??? Prawns are insects!!!" fully expecting to have an enjoyable argument about whether or not prawns qualified as insects for the purpose of vegetarianism, a hill I was willing to die on, for which I had a bunch of subjective emotional aesthetic talking points locked and loaded. But he headed me off at the pass by accepting my premise and shutting me up: "Of course I eat insects. Insects are the enemy! We MUST eat them!!!"
        StavrosK 7y ago
        Damnit. He has a point.
        Falling3 7y ago
        Shrimping is so bad for the environment and other marine life. The amount of bycatch involved is disturbing. He made a pretty lousy argument.
    - detritus 7y ago
      I've lived near the sea most of my life and have always been exposed to very fresh fish. To me (perhaps not you) it smells like death. - ed As an aside - I remember reading some thing a few years ago about 'supertasters' and there was a checklist that i went through that implied I had a particularly acute sense of smell. Probably bullshit, but perhaps it's something to do with that. I really wish I could enjoy fish - as a meat it looks wonderful, but I simply cannot stand the stuff. That has the peripheral benefit of allowing me to be smugly pious when it comes to the subject of over-fishing and depleted stocks, etc..
Nursie 7y ago
There are types of fishing we really should think about banning because of the harm the cause to the ocean ecosystem. And that's before you take into account the fishing net waste.
yellowstuff 7y ago
Like prohibition in the US, a ban that is unpopular and impossible to enforce can be counterproductive. Consider the difficulties in enforcing a ban on something that 1) Millions of people depend on for their livelihood; 2) Happens in the middle of the ocean.
- asdfman123 7y ago
  Yeah, in the middle of the ocean the only governmental/law enforcing body that really exists is the ship's captain. Beyond that, people can do whatever the hell they want because there's no one else for miles. Also, no, the world is not going to stop fishing because a few people on HN think it's a good idea. Trying to enforce your own sense of morality on others is pointless.
fulvous 7y ago
"Approximately 1 billion people people are dependent on fish as the principal source of animal protein" http://www.suds-en-ligne.ird.fr/ecosys/ang_ecosys/intro1.htm http://www.suds-en-ligne.ird.fr/ecosys/ang_ecosys/intro1.htm
- intarga 7y ago
  Is there something in particular necessary about animal protein, that it gets a distinct category from just protein in general? It also stands to reason that if that many people really are dependent on fish, it will be devastating to them when overfishing and pollution destroy fish stocks. All the more reason to reduce fishing and build alternatives now.
  - zaroth 7y ago
    What do you mean “gets a distinct category”? Nutritionally it’s certainly possible to survive without eating fish, but a very large number of people do eat fish to survive. Statisticians will collect and analyze data at many levels of granularity. Obviously it’s nice to know the types of food billions of people eat more generally than “fat”, “protein”, and “carbs”. It stands to reason that fishing should be done sustainably, just like anything should be done sustainably, lest it become unsustainable. In other words, this says essentially nothing, right? Only in the context of what the substitute is, how readily available it is, how comparable in cost, how comparable in nutrition, how much is it preferred or disliked compared to the status quo, and what negative externalities might exist in scaling up the alternative, only in that context can a useful discussion be had.
  - Slippery_John 7y ago
    Well yes, but actually no. Not all proteins are equal, they have different quantities of different kinds of amino acids. Humans need 9 distinct amino acids for a healthy diet, and animal proteins are by far the easiest source of "complete proteins" from a single source. It's absolutely possible to get plant-based complete proteins (e.g. soy or quinoa), but often that involves deliberately mixing different protein sources to get a complete balance.
Nasrudith 7y ago
The ocean is interconnected commons though so nobody really has a whole domain over it. Banning non-biodegradable nets and lines would be far more sensible and even that would have compliance issues.
wmeredith 7y ago
Ban fishing? That's like saying we should ban email because of spam. Or ban the internet because of malware.

hanniabu 7y ago

It'd be great if fishers needed to be checked for how many nets they have on board and then checked when they arrive and then be fined for the difference.

amelius 7y ago
Or only allow certified nets, and make them cost so much that you'll never want to dump them in sea.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  Also valid, but in this case you'll still need to check their ships before they leave. Though I guess the cost of the nets could help pay for these checks. I imagine in both cases the ships would just have a boat meet them out at sea with additional nets so they either don't need to pay the fine for nets lost or don't need to buy expensive certified nets.
  - amelius 7y ago
    > I imagine in both cases the ships would just have a boat meet them out at sea with additional nets so they either don't need to pay the fine for nets lost or don't need to buy expensive certified nets. I don't think they would go through that much trouble just for not bringing a net back home. In any case, you could also put an ID or name on a net, just like a license-plate. Also, having nets without certification would be a crime, so that boat waiting at sea would be in problems if caught.