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14 nations commit to protect oceans
- ClosedPistachio 6y ago>The 14 members are Australia, Canada, Chile, Ghana, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Namibia, Norway, Portugal, and the island nations of Fiji, Jamaica, and Palau.
- ClosedPistachio 6y agoAlso from TFA: > Combined, they represent 40 percent of the world’s coastlines, 30 percent of the offshore exclusive economic zones, 20 percent of the world’s fisheries, and 20 percent of the world’s shipping fleet.
- hobofan 6y ago> 40 percent of the world’s coastlines At what resolution? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox
- throwaway894345 6y agoPresumably it’s 40% at any resolution. Specifically I would think any two coastlines would increase proportionately for a fixed increase in resolution.
- riffraff 6y agoI doubt this matters, but it seems different kind of coastlines would have different length at different resolution. i.e. the presence of fjords compared to long sandy beaches would produce diverging measures. Or, if rivers have large deltas or estuaries you could get very different measures.
- hobofan 6y agoYup, see this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_length_of_coastline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_length_of... In the list of the article here, Norway in particular tipped me off, as it's incredibly jagged coastline can be lead to great resolution-dependent differences.
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- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y agoDoes this mean that Japan will now stop their “research” whale hunts? If it doesn’t, I am worried about how much this commitment is real.
- jbay808 6y agoSome Japanese people I speak with who work in the marine industry believe that whales are a major threat to fish stocks and are gobbling up all the fish so that not enough is left for humans. I don't believe that's true and make an effort to persuade them otherwise. But at the very least I'm sure that many Japanese people (based on what they have been taught) earnestly do not see an incongruity between whaling and a desire to protect the oceans.
- valarauko 6y agoJapan has resumed commercial whaling since July 2019 https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/02/asia/japan-first-whale-catch-31-years-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/02/asia/japan-first-whale-catch-...
- qart 6y agoWhy single out Japan? Canada, Greenland, Faroe Islands, and Norway all exceed it. Canada and Norway are signatories of this new commitment. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling#Whaling_catches_by_location https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling#Whaling_catches_by_loc...
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- throw0101a 6y agoThe only people who do whaling in Canada are the First Nations, and they do it in Canada's territorial waters: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_Canada * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_whaling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_whaling They generally eat it, make art, and perhaps use parts for traditional clothing. Japan on the other hand (a) has no Indigenous peoples following their traditional ways, (b) often violates the waters of other countries, and (c) has no basis for scientific inquiry (as ruled by the ICJ): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_Japan You don't see Intuit fisherman in the Southern Ocean off the coast Antarctic, but you do see Japanese fishing boats.
- pstuart 6y agoI imagine the US will come on board some time after January 20.
- sweetlucipher 6y agoJust as Japan is about to dump a million ton (or more?) of radioactive water (from Fukushima) into the ocean.
- xwdv 6y agoRadioactivity isn’t really a big deal for animals and non-sentients. It mostly prevents humans from entering certain areas, which in this case maybe it’s good that humans will avoid them so animals could thrive there.
- vbezhenar 6y agoWhat about caught radioactive fish that humans will eat?
- NullPrefix 6y agoOnce again, a problem for humans which means animals eventually could thrive
- ironmagma 6y agoWe aren't the only animals that eat fish.
- xwdv 6y agoThe animals don’t care about radiation. They will die of something else long before they die of radiation, some might even mutate in beneficial ways.
- ironmagma 6y agoThat seems like a rather uneducated guess. Some species of shark for example live a very long time (bordering on immortal), and orcas live as long as many humans.
- Apes 6y agoDon't panic! Don't worry! China is more than willing to pick up the ocean destroying slack from these 14 nations! They're already doing around 80% of the damage, how could they not just do a bit more?
- Darmody 6y agoIt's crazy how activists never point at the ones who do the most damage.
- PradeetPatel 6y agoCan finger pointing really solve anything though? Starting a wider conversation and raising awareness will probably help a lot more in the long run.
- wincy 6y agoI don’t know what a China embargo would look like, but I know that any first world government who tried it would find themselves promptly removed from power and a newer Chinese friendly government installed amongst rabid cries for new iPhones and gadgets.
- zests 6y ago"China embargo" could be replaced with many other terms. Here's another to try on for size: > I don’t know what a Global Warming Plan would look like, but I know that any first world government who tried it would find themselves promptly removed from power and a newer consumer/polluter friendly government installed amongst rabid cries for new iPhones and maintaining current niceties of life.
- AnthonyMouse 6y agoEmbargoes aren't used much anymore. Countries use tariffs. Which the US has shown are actually quite effective against China, because China has a legitimate fear of competitors springing up elsewhere since once they exist they may continue to exist even after the tariffs are gone. So they respond by devaluing their currency to remain competitive even against the tariffs, which is equivalent to paying the tariffs rather than passing the cost on to the customers. But then your own citizens don't feel the pinch from the tariffs and you can maintain them indefinitely, or even increase them, until you get what you're asking for. That assumes you're a large enough player to get them to respond that way, but smaller players can form coalitions.
- CapitalistCartr 6y agoThese are not the "key" nations. Those are USA, China, India, Japan, EU, Britain. Until they get on board, it's still too little (and probably too late).
- comeondude 6y agoCan’t build a better future with cynicism.
- KiranRao0 6y agoCan't built a better future with blind optimism either
- eloff 6y agoI think you can put together a list of counter examples pretty easily. Blind optimism is perfectly fine for making progress, in the cases where the action taken turns out to work. Plenty of people started businesses on what may be termed blind optimism and succeeded. I think it even helps a little to underestimate the obstacles in innovation - otherwise one might not attempt it in the first place. But just a little, because diverging too far from reality brings its own problems. Optimism is essential to progress.
- macg333 6y agoBut we can all build a better future together. :)
- standardUser 6y agoYou can build a better future with or without optimism. You cannot build a better world if the default position being communicated and adopted is cynical and defeatist.
- rixed 6y agoLet's agree to be cynical about the motives and results of institutions that are by and large out of control, and to be optimistic about the outcome of our own individual actions.
- arminiusreturns 6y agoSo did Ghislaine Maxwell... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/style/ghislaine-maxwell-terramar-boats-jeffrey-epstein.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/style/ghislaine-maxwell-t... https://www.insider.com/ghislaine-maxwells-mysterious-ocean-non-profit-being-investigated-2019-7 https://www.insider.com/ghislaine-maxwells-mysterious-ocean-... https://newspunch.com/jeffrey-epstein-ghislaine-maxwells-company-terramar-tied-clintons-rothschilds/ https://newspunch.com/jeffrey-epstein-ghislaine-maxwells-com...
- ouid 6y agoI hear that hitler opposed blowing up the entire earth.
- throwawaysea 6y agoI don't see how any commitment to protect the oceans can be taken seriously without China committing to it. See this prior comment I made in a different discussion, concerning China's distant fishing fleet, which is ravaging ocean environments worldwide: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25120998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25120998
- freewilly1040 6y agoA great recent book that touches on the topic of overfishing and ecological damage to the oceans is: The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier by Ian Urbina.
- frEdmbx 6y agoI'm still surprised the "99%" haven't made a pact to all use a cryptocurrency. I can understand why the 5 wealthiest nations that all want to be the one with a world reserve fiat global enslavement system would oppose such a thing.. but the bottom 190 nations with no chance of theirs being the world reserve currency should all get together and agree to use, contribute to, and defend Bitcoin. These allied nations could agree to contribute at least some minimum, and not exceed 25% of the mining power, with each nation limited to 1/195th of that total. Any attempt at corrupting should be seen as a crime, and act of war, against humanity.
- sjs382 6y agoSince it's buried a little: > The 14 members are Australia, Canada, Chile, Ghana, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Namibia, Norway, Portugal, and the island nations of Fiji, Jamaica, and Palau.
- liminal 6y agoI like this approach of coalitions of the willing. If the willing can gain critical mass they can hopefully apply enough trade pressure/incentives for the unwilling to join too. These sorts of efforts seem to need momentum. Everything seems impossible until it's done.
- renewiltord 6y agoNations can only control their sovereign seas. The majority of the world oceans are unpoliced. And honestly, I don't see why I, as a developing nation, shouldn't overfish the seas. The developed nations (excluding perhaps the US for being so young) are where they are because they chopped their forests, killed their wildlife, and burned what else they could find. England isn't going to reforest. Germany isn't going to reintroduce all the wildlife they hunted. And the peoples of neither nation have paid reparations to the Earth (for good reason, they can't afford to). If I were running China, the right thing for me to do is to strip the Earth dry, and then a century later when I'm rich demand that "All nations must do their part". After all, it's not like anyone will make me pay for everything that happened a century ago. So you'll either have to make me not do this or you're going to have to suck it up. China's navy doesn't have the ability to protect her shipping fleets so that's her problem.
- triceratops 6y ago> I don't see why I, as a developing nation, shouldn't overfish the seas. Developed nations should pay them not to.
- renewiltord 6y agoEconomically, I agree that this is how the resources should flow. Practically, I suspect there is an enforcement problem.
- sgift 6y agoWe tried this with Brazil. Result: They continued to remove forests and said "and if you don't pay anymore we will accelerate it". So, sounds good in theory, is not in good in practice.
- triceratops 6y agoEmbargoes. Sanctions. Tariffs. Freeze assets abroad. This is not a difficult problem to solve. It just needs some balls.
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- FirstLvR 6y agoas a Chilean, I'm a bit sceptical
- Kharvok 6y agoPosturing. Almost all of the plastic pollution in the ocean comes out of 5 river systems in Asia
- jimmaswell 6y agoWait, I thought banning convenient shopping bags and drinking utensils was supposed to fix everything.
- aledalgrande 6y ago"not the usual gang of suspects" ehr, Canada is there ;)
- markdown 6y agoAustralia, the country destroying its own Great Barrier Reef on the altar of resource extraction (coal, etc), is promising to protect oceans? This commitment isn't worth the paper it's written on.
- raytracer 6y agoThe Great Barrier Reef will continue to deteriorate until the problems of global warming and ocean acidification are resolved. But these aren't the only problems the ocean is facing. Resolving other issues will help maintain the health of ocean ecosystems. It's likely wishful thinking but possibly it will be harder to justify new coal mines etc if enough of these individual agreements are accepted. :shrug:
- markdown 6y ago> The Great Barrier Reef will continue to deteriorate until the problems of global warming and ocean acidification are resolved. Yes and Australia has been actively working against that while laughing about the plight of the islanders who're most affected by climate change "time doesn't mean anything when you're about to have water lapping at your door" - Home Affairs Min. Dutton https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-11/dutton-overheard-joking-about-sea-levels-in-pacific-islands/6768324 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-11/dutton-overheard-joki... At COP25, it was Australia (along with Saudi Arabia and Brazil) who were blocking progress.
- jxmorris12 6y agobot ^
- kleer001 6y agoI hope this might be the start of a solution to the planet wide tragedy of the commons of the ocean. I do not have high hopes. The territory is too large and the criminals too small.
- Danieru 6y agoSince no one has mentioned the elephant in the room: this appears to be a lobby of countries not happy with the current absolute ban on whaling. Norway never signed, Canada has always had natives continuing to hunt, and Japan dislikes how the treaty meant to restore whale populations has become a treaty to forever ban. Thus we see the world's pro whaling group. Plus the smaller nations who can be bought to the table. One should expect sustainable whaling to be top of this groups agenda.
- jaspax 6y agoAnd good on them! I like whales and I think nations should coordinate to ensure that they stick around, but this doesn't have to mean that we ban whaling forever. As with most natural resources, managed harvest is a better long-term policy than an absolute ban.
- ficklepickle 6y agoUm, no. Whales are sentient creatures. We should not be slaughtering commercial quantities of whales. I'm fine with the northern aboriginal people killing their 7 whales, but I'm not down with Japan killing thousands because the meat is a delicacy, oh I mean "research". I'm willing to make a compromise though. If we can hunt human children, your children, then I think that would be fair. Either we can kill any sentient animal for money/sport or none of them. I'll see myself out.
- naniwaduni 6y ago> I'm fine with the northern aboriginal people killing their 7 whales I think you're grossly understating the extent of aboriginal whaling. Reading numbers off the table at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling#Whaling_catches_by_location https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling#Whaling_catches_by_loc... and cross-checking with the "by country" writeups below: Canada kills a thousand whales per year, about 2:1 narwhals to belugas, with "subsistence" amounts of bowheads. Greenland contributes about equal numbers of belugas and narwhals, and half as many minkes. Alaska contributes almost as many beluga kills, but also about a hundred bowheads a year. Faroese pilot whale kills number another ~800 per year. Any two of these four outstrip the scale of all commercial whaling. Let's dispense, too, with the delusion that these aboriginal peoples "don't take more than they need and they use the entire animal": > Hunters in Hudson's Bay rarely eat beluga meat. They give a little to dogs, and leave the rest for wild animals.[15] Other areas may dry the meat for later consumption by humans. An average of one or two vertebrae and one or two teeth per beluga or narwhal are carved and sold.[15] Aboriginal whaling is no less reprehensible than the commercial variety. Hell, at least commercial whaling is mostly constrained to operating at profit.
- WalterBright 6y agoIf I was President, I'd declare some offshore zones as National Parks. No fishing or motorized boats would be allowed in them.
- pstuart 6y agoI imagine our next president may be sympathetic to this issue.
- oriettaxx 6y agoI saw "The Cove" a couple of days ago (in streaming here, btw https://azm.to/movie/the-cove https://azm.to/movie/the-cove ) where Japan is portrayed pretty bad: the worst is how they "engage" small/poor countries to support their national policy over fishing: the list of these 14 reminds me that a bit. Anyhow, as some of you said: it's probably better then nothing