8 ms·

I freedive the Pacific coast on a weekly basis year-round. The little purples are actually tastier than the commercially harvested reds to me, but it's a lot le

I freedive the Pacific coast on a weekly basis year-round. The little purples are actually tastier than the commercially harvested reds to me, but it's a lot less meat for just as much work. I don't see them really making this work commercially, especially as much as the states (especially California) limit commercial urchin permits. Thing is, the environment will sort itself out. Two years ago the urchin blight was hitting SoCal extremely hard. This year isn't so bad, a lot of places have kelp coming back extremely thick, and the purples aren't creating any kind of apocalypse. While it's true that there aren't as many sea otters as there were in yesteryear there are plenty of reef fish that eat the urchins. Sheephead are very numerous and they love crunching those guys - in fact every time I gut one it's packed full of purple urchin debris. In five years I'm sure there'll be an imbalance with too many sheephead, and we'll have some other article to read and worry about.

bestouff 7y ago
That seems like a generalized gospel in the US : the environment will sort this out. The free market will sort this out. No worries, god's hand will sort this out. I'm genuinely curious, are you taught this at some point ?
- ivanhoe 7y ago
  As opposite to European belief that nothing can be solved without at least one government's committee discussing it for a few years first. I'm European, but in practice I'd say Americans got it closer to the truth. Most of the things get sorted out and heal on their own just if us humans leave it alone long enough.
- dominicr 7y ago
  It might be worth considering in this discussion that there are different levels of what we refer to as an environment and levels of cause & effect. Variations in local climate, populations booms & busts, freak weather events: these are all things that happen regardless of any global level climate change. A population fall or damage to a localised ecosystem can recover naturally. Nature is resilient and it is sometimes accurate to say that nature to return to what's typically normal for a localised ecosystem (reverting to mean). The concern with climate change is that these events are more common and "normal" is harder/longer to return to due to a long term change in environmental variables. More storms means less time to recover; higher temperatures mean some species won't thrive where they used to. In this article there does not appear to be a strong claim that this bloom is directly casued by climate change, but the long term climate change might be making it harder for the ecosystem here to recover. Just as a cold winter doesn't mean global warming is a myth, a localised ecological event doesn't mean that effect is permanant or signifier of how things will be elsewhere. A local view point (from the poster above) is useful in understanding this situation. For a global view, you need experts to take long term views at much lager scales than this article covers.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  I think he's just echoing ecological boom-bust cycles (as I was taught in ecological modelling lectures at Uni, in UK)?
- scotty79 7y ago
  Maybe it's a cultural side effect of high religiosity?
  - simonebrunozzi 7y ago
    For high religiosity you should go to Spain or Italy, not California.
    - wyattpeak 7y ago
      According to [1] and [2], Spain and California seem to have very similar levels of religious observance. Italy is substantially more religious, though.[3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Spain [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_California#Religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_California#Rel... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Italy
    - scotty79 7y ago
      I don't have to go anywhere. I live in Poland where religion is apparently even more important than in Italy. At least according to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_coun... US as a whole doesn't seem to be far behind Italy though and it matters more where you grew up not that you currently live in California. As I understand people in US move a lot especially to more modern, richer areas like California bringing their upbringing with them. Although I must admit religiosity might have different flavor in different countries. Polish flavor is less denying evolution, at least up to a human level, virtually no denying of age of earth and less feeling that God will take care of us somehow (probably influenced by our history).
    - amval 7y ago
      Spain is not very religious.Even what look like religious manifestations from afar, are simply rooted in traditions/seen as culture. Very different from Italy, as far as I know. For comparison, although I am not sure how well these reflect reality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_Spain EDIT: I see others also replied in a similar vein.
- wolco 7y ago
  Think of it as allowing nature to take it's course.
- creddit 7y ago
  Do you have a specific criticism of his post or do you just fully the hate the idea that there are systems structured such that for some set perturbations, they regain a stable equilibrium??
  - onion2k 7y ago
    I hate the idea that people think the environment is a stable system. It very clearly isn't. There are literally tens of thousands of papers and studies demonstrating that it's changing and not returning to its prior state. To argue that some change (eg sea urchin population) will return to its previous level in the face of that is stupid. I'm not saying it won't, but no one should state with confidence that it will, because we don't know.
    - monort 7y ago
      We do know in many cases, here is an example of stable succession of forest systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_succession#Types https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_succession#Types
  - neuronic 7y ago
    The attitude of "we can break it as much as we want because it will fix itself (in a few million years)" is so disturbing.
- Enginerrrd 7y ago
  As an environmental engineer, albeit one educated in the US, this is generally a pretty true statement provided you stop doing whatever it is that wrecked the environment to begin with. I have seen some of the worst environmental atrocities caused by people with good intentions of "fixing it". Let it be, it's often halfway to sorting itself out if you'll just leave it alone long enough.
  - acchow 7y ago
    Even Chernobyl pretty much sorted itself out.
    - pvaldes 7y ago
      > Even Chernobyl pretty much sorted itself out. I must admit that I almost cry when the bunnys, blue-tits, bears and deer all together started pouring concrete and building the sarcophagous whereas singing heigh-ho.
    - smcl 7y ago
      For a very specific and narrow definition of "sorted itself out" (I presume you mean that some wildlife has returned and some species flourish in the no-go zones) - there was a substantial amount of effort involved in minimising the ongoing harm, and people literally died as a result of the cleanup operations To say that Chernobyl sorted itself out is to completely fail to understand what happened and what was done in the decades following it.
      - ivanhoe 7y ago
        It would still sort itself out eventually, one way or the other. We can speed up the recovery and try to minimize the impact, but even if there's no humans left life would probably continue in some form. If some species are destroyed, others would evolve into the empty niche. That's how nature works. That's literally how we and all other life got to exist on this planet in a first place, as a replacement for someone else less lucky/efficient.
- acje 7y ago
  The environment will sort itself out, just not always in our favour.
- coliveira 7y ago
  Americans are very religious. They believe in god or in the free market, or in both.
  - wil421 7y ago
    Very religious compared to what country? Africa and South/Central America have us beat by a decent percentage.[1] Ireland, Poland, and a few of smaller European countries are 10% higher as well. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_attendance#Attendance_by_country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_attendance#Attendance...
    - coliveira 7y ago
      There is a difference between having an "official religion" and being religious. Most people in South America go to church, but are very irreligious. God for us is just something abstract that you accept for convenience. If you asked people if they believe that god requires them to do something, they will mostly tell that each one should care of their own life and religion should get out of their business. In the US, a good part of the population believes that religion should dictate social laws.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
- jboggan 7y ago
  No, it's called paying attention and forming judgments from copious amounts of personal empirical data and drawing conclusions from that. I was pretty concerned when the kelp disappeared and the urchin barrens arrived, but it's pretty remarkable to see firsthand how the system has returned to the previous equilibrium so quickly. Why am I the only person in this thread who has firsthand experience about this phenomena yet everyone wants to talk about it as a jumping off point for their straw-boogeymen about America, capitalism, and religiosity?
  - adventured 7y ago
    First, I appreciate the comment you made, which is fortunately at the top of the thread right now. I don't understand why HN hasn't banned the America Bad comments by now given their prevalence in so many threads. It would not be tolerated if it were directed at most any other nation (China still gets a lot of that type of nation-level ad hominem commenting). Such low quality comments never contribute positively to a thread. People seem to throw them in as a cheap excuse to attack the US via tangents that are usually only connected to the discussion at a bare minimum level. And simultaneously they seem to often directly or indirectly insult the OP they're responding to in the process.
    - NotSammyHagar 7y ago
      You seriously want to ban comments about limitations in America? Because america is really great or something? I read your comment and I think it's serious, please elaborate why comments about the us should be treated differently.
    - dang 7y ago
      The moderation comments we post against nationalistic flamebait and slurs are the same for all countries. I've posted many such comments in response to comments talking about the US, India, China, Russia, South Africa, you name it. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20national&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... If you see a comment that hasn't been moderated that should have been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. We don't (can't) read everything that gets posted here. You can help by flagging it and, in egregious cases, emailing us a heads-up at hn@ycombinator.com.
technics256 7y ago
Solo? How deep? I miss the sport.
- jboggan 7y ago
  Solo night freedives for lobster, no deeper than 30 feet on shore dives just because it doesn't get that deep within a quarter mile of the surf. I usually stick above 50 during daytime out in the islands.

bestouff 7y ago

That seems like a generalized gospel in the US : the environment will sort this out. The free market will sort this out. No worries, god's hand will sort this out. I'm genuinely curious, are you taught this at some point ?

ivanhoe 7y ago
As opposite to European belief that nothing can be solved without at least one government's committee discussing it for a few years first. I'm European, but in practice I'd say Americans got it closer to the truth. Most of the things get sorted out and heal on their own just if us humans leave it alone long enough.
dominicr 7y ago
It might be worth considering in this discussion that there are different levels of what we refer to as an environment and levels of cause & effect. Variations in local climate, populations booms & busts, freak weather events: these are all things that happen regardless of any global level climate change. A population fall or damage to a localised ecosystem can recover naturally. Nature is resilient and it is sometimes accurate to say that nature to return to what's typically normal for a localised ecosystem (reverting to mean). The concern with climate change is that these events are more common and "normal" is harder/longer to return to due to a long term change in environmental variables. More storms means less time to recover; higher temperatures mean some species won't thrive where they used to. In this article there does not appear to be a strong claim that this bloom is directly casued by climate change, but the long term climate change might be making it harder for the ecosystem here to recover. Just as a cold winter doesn't mean global warming is a myth, a localised ecological event doesn't mean that effect is permanant or signifier of how things will be elsewhere. A local view point (from the poster above) is useful in understanding this situation. For a global view, you need experts to take long term views at much lager scales than this article covers.
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
I think he's just echoing ecological boom-bust cycles (as I was taught in ecological modelling lectures at Uni, in UK)?
scotty79 7y ago
Maybe it's a cultural side effect of high religiosity?
- simonebrunozzi 7y ago
  For high religiosity you should go to Spain or Italy, not California.
  - wyattpeak 7y ago
    According to [1] and [2], Spain and California seem to have very similar levels of religious observance. Italy is substantially more religious, though.[3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Spain [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_California#Religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_California#Rel... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Italy
  - scotty79 7y ago
    I don't have to go anywhere. I live in Poland where religion is apparently even more important than in Italy. At least according to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_coun... US as a whole doesn't seem to be far behind Italy though and it matters more where you grew up not that you currently live in California. As I understand people in US move a lot especially to more modern, richer areas like California bringing their upbringing with them. Although I must admit religiosity might have different flavor in different countries. Polish flavor is less denying evolution, at least up to a human level, virtually no denying of age of earth and less feeling that God will take care of us somehow (probably influenced by our history).
  - amval 7y ago
    Spain is not very religious.Even what look like religious manifestations from afar, are simply rooted in traditions/seen as culture. Very different from Italy, as far as I know. For comparison, although I am not sure how well these reflect reality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_Spain EDIT: I see others also replied in a similar vein.
wolco 7y ago
Think of it as allowing nature to take it's course.
creddit 7y ago
Do you have a specific criticism of his post or do you just fully the hate the idea that there are systems structured such that for some set perturbations, they regain a stable equilibrium??
- onion2k 7y ago
  I hate the idea that people think the environment is a stable system. It very clearly isn't. There are literally tens of thousands of papers and studies demonstrating that it's changing and not returning to its prior state. To argue that some change (eg sea urchin population) will return to its previous level in the face of that is stupid. I'm not saying it won't, but no one should state with confidence that it will, because we don't know.
  - monort 7y ago
    We do know in many cases, here is an example of stable succession of forest systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_succession#Types https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_succession#Types
- neuronic 7y ago
  The attitude of "we can break it as much as we want because it will fix itself (in a few million years)" is so disturbing.
Enginerrrd 7y ago
As an environmental engineer, albeit one educated in the US, this is generally a pretty true statement provided you stop doing whatever it is that wrecked the environment to begin with. I have seen some of the worst environmental atrocities caused by people with good intentions of "fixing it". Let it be, it's often halfway to sorting itself out if you'll just leave it alone long enough.
- acchow 7y ago
  Even Chernobyl pretty much sorted itself out.
  - pvaldes 7y ago
    > Even Chernobyl pretty much sorted itself out. I must admit that I almost cry when the bunnys, blue-tits, bears and deer all together started pouring concrete and building the sarcophagous whereas singing heigh-ho.
  - smcl 7y ago
    For a very specific and narrow definition of "sorted itself out" (I presume you mean that some wildlife has returned and some species flourish in the no-go zones) - there was a substantial amount of effort involved in minimising the ongoing harm, and people literally died as a result of the cleanup operations To say that Chernobyl sorted itself out is to completely fail to understand what happened and what was done in the decades following it.
    - ivanhoe 7y ago
      It would still sort itself out eventually, one way or the other. We can speed up the recovery and try to minimize the impact, but even if there's no humans left life would probably continue in some form. If some species are destroyed, others would evolve into the empty niche. That's how nature works. That's literally how we and all other life got to exist on this planet in a first place, as a replacement for someone else less lucky/efficient.
acje 7y ago
The environment will sort itself out, just not always in our favour.
coliveira 7y ago
Americans are very religious. They believe in god or in the free market, or in both.
- wil421 7y ago
  Very religious compared to what country? Africa and South/Central America have us beat by a decent percentage.[1] Ireland, Poland, and a few of smaller European countries are 10% higher as well. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_attendance#Attendance_by_country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_attendance#Attendance...
  - coliveira 7y ago
    There is a difference between having an "official religion" and being religious. Most people in South America go to church, but are very irreligious. God for us is just something abstract that you accept for convenience. If you asked people if they believe that god requires them to do something, they will mostly tell that each one should care of their own life and religion should get out of their business. In the US, a good part of the population believes that religion should dictate social laws.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
jboggan 7y ago
No, it's called paying attention and forming judgments from copious amounts of personal empirical data and drawing conclusions from that. I was pretty concerned when the kelp disappeared and the urchin barrens arrived, but it's pretty remarkable to see firsthand how the system has returned to the previous equilibrium so quickly. Why am I the only person in this thread who has firsthand experience about this phenomena yet everyone wants to talk about it as a jumping off point for their straw-boogeymen about America, capitalism, and religiosity?
- adventured 7y ago
  First, I appreciate the comment you made, which is fortunately at the top of the thread right now. I don't understand why HN hasn't banned the America Bad comments by now given their prevalence in so many threads. It would not be tolerated if it were directed at most any other nation (China still gets a lot of that type of nation-level ad hominem commenting). Such low quality comments never contribute positively to a thread. People seem to throw them in as a cheap excuse to attack the US via tangents that are usually only connected to the discussion at a bare minimum level. And simultaneously they seem to often directly or indirectly insult the OP they're responding to in the process.
  - NotSammyHagar 7y ago
    You seriously want to ban comments about limitations in America? Because america is really great or something? I read your comment and I think it's serious, please elaborate why comments about the us should be treated differently.
  - dang 7y ago
    The moderation comments we post against nationalistic flamebait and slurs are the same for all countries. I've posted many such comments in response to comments talking about the US, India, China, Russia, South Africa, you name it. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20national&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... If you see a comment that hasn't been moderated that should have been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. We don't (can't) read everything that gets posted here. You can help by flagging it and, in egregious cases, emailing us a heads-up at hn@ycombinator.com.

technics256 7y ago

Solo? How deep? I miss the sport.

jboggan 7y ago
Solo night freedives for lobster, no deeper than 30 feet on shore dives just because it doesn't get that deep within a quarter mile of the surf. I usually stick above 50 during daytime out in the islands.