4 ms·

> 2.7 trillion fish are caught every year, or up to 5 million caught every minute. Bycatch aside, this number absolutely floors me. There is no way this number

> 2.7 trillion fish are caught every year, or up to 5 million caught every minute. Bycatch aside, this number absolutely floors me. There is no way this number can sound remotely sustainable to anyone, right? I love seafood, but I know the issues with overfishing so I don't eat it often and when I do, I do my best to only eat sustainably caught or farmed fish...but I feel absolutely hopeless seeing numbers like this.

thaumasiotes 4y ago
> There is no way this number can sound remotely sustainable to anyone, right? Why not? How many fish are born every minute?
- cinntaile 4y ago
  Overfishing and dwindling fish populations are pretty established facts.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    What does that have to do with the number?
    - cinntaile 4y ago
      I get that you wanted the original poster to realize that a big number doesn't necessarily mean anything. But we already know it's not sustainable.
      - thaumasiotes 4y ago
        You can either point at the number and say "Look at this number! Can't you just tell that it isn't sustainable?" or you can say "It doesn't matter what the number is, we know it's not sustainable for other reasons." But neither of those is a support for the other. If you start with the assumption that the number is unsustainable, you're not doing anything when you look at the number.
swatcoder 4y ago
Overfishing is an issue for sure, but the number just speaks to home unfathomably huge the oceans are. Poke around and look up how big wild schools of anchovy can be, or how many krill it takes to feed a whale. And each of those numbers you find are just teensy little blips. The ocean is really big and its teeming with life.
- mellavora 4y ago
  > The ocean is really big and its teeming with life. The ocean is really big and was teeming with life. There, fixed it for you
- myshpa 4y ago
  "There are large areas in the middle of the major oceanic basins called the subtropical gyres. These could be considered the deserts of the ocean in that the biomass (total mass of all organisms) density and biodiversity are low. This is because the ocean circulation doesn't replenish the nutrients available in these areas for algae to live off, which are the base of the food-chain. In general, you tend to find much more biomass and biodiversity closer to the coasts. But you can get hotspots of productivity in other places such as upwelling regions and also near seamounts (shameless plug of my paper on this)." "People assume, well oceans are massive so fish stocks are massive as well. But if you went hunting for game as a protein source you wouldn't assume it lives at the top of every mountain and bottom of every valley. You know it has a range that confines its distribution and therefore its abundance. You dont go hunting across the vast, empty desert. Commercial fisheries know this and are squeezing the last bits they can out of the pelagic fish we all expect on the dinner table (tuna, mahi, etc), but as you aptly point out, the majority of fisheries biomass is near the coast. Fish we eat do not come from habitat that covers 70% of the planet, its much closer to < 10 %." https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/imu81a/if_you_picked_a_random_spot_in_the_middle_of_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/imu81a/if_you_p... https://www.sciencealert.com/there-s-a-desert-in-the-middle-of-the-pacific-and-we-now-know-what-lives-there https://www.sciencealert.com/there-s-a-desert-in-the-middle-...
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  The ocean is really big and its teeming with life. As earlier responses have noted, this is an exceedingly common misperception. It further fails to acknowledge harms done. Estimates are that upwards of 90% of all marine animal life has been destroyed largely by human activity. Vast fisheries have utterly collapsed, notably Grand Banks cod off Newfoundland, sardines off California, orange roughy, and more. Surviving fisheries are hugely impacted, often with both far fewer and far smaller individuals than in historical records. Records and understand themselves are exceptionally limited, as major scientific study of the oceans dates only to the mid-20th century, after which much of the harm had already been done. A fascinating trivium is that there is more oil floating in tankers over the oceans than there are fish swimming in it. And, as myshpa noted, the deep oceans tend not to have much biological activity. Fish (and plankton) aggregate near continental boundaries where upwelling provides essential nutrients. Sunshine and water alone are vastly insufficient. Map of global fisheries / fish stocks: <https://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/fisheries-and-aquaculture.php https://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/fisheries-an...> State of fisheries: <https://worldoceanreview.com/en/wor-2/fisheries/state-of-fisheries-worldwide/ https://worldoceanreview.com/en/wor-2/fisheries/state-of-fis...> Notably this map showing sustainable- / over-exploitation status: <https://worldoceanreview.com/en/files/2013/04/wor2_c3a_s52_3-7_19_fishing_areas_fao_b.jpg https://worldoceanreview.com/en/files/2013/04/wor2_c3a_s52_3...>
illirik 4y ago
It's not just fish. The sheer number of animals that are slaughtered to produce meat for human consumption is absolutely mind-boggling. In addition to the fish, humans killed 72 billion chickens, 3.3 billion ducks, 1.3 billion pigs, over a half-billion geese, turkeys, rabbits, sheep, and goats (each!), over 300 million cattle, and over 70 million rodents for food in 2019 alone [1]. Animal agriculture overall generates more CO2 emissions than every automobile, ship, and airplane on Earth - more carbon than the entire transportation sector. An overwhelming majority of arable land on this planet is used to feed those animals, fated to death from birth, rather than humans - in many developing countries, humans starve while livestock are plumped for slaughter and export. [2]. 75% of historic deforestation in the Amazon, 55% of erosion, 60% of nitrogen pollution, and 44% of anthropogenic methane and nitrous oxide emissions (each) are a direct result of animal agriculture [3]. If you live in the US, like I do, it's not just the animals and the environment that suffer under animal agriculture. It's an open secret that undocumented children are exploited to work in slaughterhouses in this country [4] while politicians are actively rolling back protections for those exploited children [5] to ensure that boneless skinless chicken breasts stay cheap at WalMart. There is no such thing as sustainable animal agriculture - it is a lie used to greenwash products, to make us feel righteous when we pay for corpses at the grocery store or restaurant. The only sane and ethical response to this devastation is to completely reject the economic exploitation of animals - to adopt a fully vegan philosophy. Of course, this does cause some difficulties in the modern context (especially in the US), but the trouble of learning to cook vegetables and seitan is nothing compared to the harm that animal agriculture causes to billions of humans and non-humans every year. (It also cured my high blood pressure and pre-diabetes in three months, but everyone knows vegetables are good for you :) [1] https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL (https://web.archive.org/web/20211208184438/https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL https://web.archive.org/web/20211208184438/https://www.fao.o...) [2] https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2022/03/15/it-may-be-uncomfortable-we-need-talk-about-it-animal-agriculture-industry-and-zero-waste#:~:text=Animal%20agriculture%20produces%2065%25%20of,all%20the%20transportation%20emissions%20combined https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2022/03/15/it-may-be-uncomf.... [3] https://climatenexus.org/climate-issues/food/animal-agricultures-impact-on-climate-change/ https://climatenexus.org/climate-issues/food/animal-agricult... [4] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-find-100-children-cleaning-slaughterhouses-pssi-rcna71171 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-find-100-children-... [5] https://www.axios.com/local/nw-arkansas/2023/03/13/arkansas-roll-back-child-labor-protections https://www.axios.com/local/nw-arkansas/2023/03/13/arkansas-...

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> There is no way this number can sound remotely sustainable to anyone, right? Why not? How many fish are born every minute?

cinntaile 4y ago
Overfishing and dwindling fish populations are pretty established facts.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  What does that have to do with the number?
  - cinntaile 4y ago
    I get that you wanted the original poster to realize that a big number doesn't necessarily mean anything. But we already know it's not sustainable.
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      You can either point at the number and say "Look at this number! Can't you just tell that it isn't sustainable?" or you can say "It doesn't matter what the number is, we know it's not sustainable for other reasons." But neither of those is a support for the other. If you start with the assumption that the number is unsustainable, you're not doing anything when you look at the number.

swatcoder 4y ago

Overfishing is an issue for sure, but the number just speaks to home unfathomably huge the oceans are. Poke around and look up how big wild schools of anchovy can be, or how many krill it takes to feed a whale. And each of those numbers you find are just teensy little blips. The ocean is really big and its teeming with life.

mellavora 4y ago
> The ocean is really big and its teeming with life. The ocean is really big and was teeming with life. There, fixed it for you
myshpa 4y ago
"There are large areas in the middle of the major oceanic basins called the subtropical gyres. These could be considered the deserts of the ocean in that the biomass (total mass of all organisms) density and biodiversity are low. This is because the ocean circulation doesn't replenish the nutrients available in these areas for algae to live off, which are the base of the food-chain. In general, you tend to find much more biomass and biodiversity closer to the coasts. But you can get hotspots of productivity in other places such as upwelling regions and also near seamounts (shameless plug of my paper on this)." "People assume, well oceans are massive so fish stocks are massive as well. But if you went hunting for game as a protein source you wouldn't assume it lives at the top of every mountain and bottom of every valley. You know it has a range that confines its distribution and therefore its abundance. You dont go hunting across the vast, empty desert. Commercial fisheries know this and are squeezing the last bits they can out of the pelagic fish we all expect on the dinner table (tuna, mahi, etc), but as you aptly point out, the majority of fisheries biomass is near the coast. Fish we eat do not come from habitat that covers 70% of the planet, its much closer to < 10 %." https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/imu81a/if_you_picked_a_random_spot_in_the_middle_of_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/imu81a/if_you_p... https://www.sciencealert.com/there-s-a-desert-in-the-middle-of-the-pacific-and-we-now-know-what-lives-there https://www.sciencealert.com/there-s-a-desert-in-the-middle-...
dredmorbius 4y ago
The ocean is really big and its teeming with life. As earlier responses have noted, this is an exceedingly common misperception. It further fails to acknowledge harms done. Estimates are that upwards of 90% of all marine animal life has been destroyed largely by human activity. Vast fisheries have utterly collapsed, notably Grand Banks cod off Newfoundland, sardines off California, orange roughy, and more. Surviving fisheries are hugely impacted, often with both far fewer and far smaller individuals than in historical records. Records and understand themselves are exceptionally limited, as major scientific study of the oceans dates only to the mid-20th century, after which much of the harm had already been done. A fascinating trivium is that there is more oil floating in tankers over the oceans than there are fish swimming in it. And, as myshpa noted, the deep oceans tend not to have much biological activity. Fish (and plankton) aggregate near continental boundaries where upwelling provides essential nutrients. Sunshine and water alone are vastly insufficient. Map of global fisheries / fish stocks: <https://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/fisheries-and-aquaculture.php https://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/fisheries-an...> State of fisheries: <https://worldoceanreview.com/en/wor-2/fisheries/state-of-fisheries-worldwide/ https://worldoceanreview.com/en/wor-2/fisheries/state-of-fis...> Notably this map showing sustainable- / over-exploitation status: <https://worldoceanreview.com/en/files/2013/04/wor2_c3a_s52_3-7_19_fishing_areas_fao_b.jpg https://worldoceanreview.com/en/files/2013/04/wor2_c3a_s52_3...>

illirik 4y ago

It's not just fish. The sheer number of animals that are slaughtered to produce meat for human consumption is absolutely mind-boggling. In addition to the fish, humans killed 72 billion chickens, 3.3 billion ducks, 1.3 billion pigs, over a half-billion geese, turkeys, rabbits, sheep, and goats (each!), over 300 million cattle, and over 70 million rodents for food in 2019 alone [1]. Animal agriculture overall generates more CO2 emissions than every automobile, ship, and airplane on Earth - more carbon than the entire transportation sector. An overwhelming majority of arable land on this planet is used to feed those animals, fated to death from birth, rather than humans - in many developing countries, humans starve while livestock are plumped for slaughter and export. [2]. 75% of historic deforestation in the Amazon, 55% of erosion, 60% of nitrogen pollution, and 44% of anthropogenic methane and nitrous oxide emissions (each) are a direct result of animal agriculture [3]. If you live in the US, like I do, it's not just the animals and the environment that suffer under animal agriculture. It's an open secret that undocumented children are exploited to work in slaughterhouses in this country [4] while politicians are actively rolling back protections for those exploited children [5] to ensure that boneless skinless chicken breasts stay cheap at WalMart. There is no such thing as sustainable animal agriculture - it is a lie used to greenwash products, to make us feel righteous when we pay for corpses at the grocery store or restaurant. The only sane and ethical response to this devastation is to completely reject the economic exploitation of animals - to adopt a fully vegan philosophy. Of course, this does cause some difficulties in the modern context (especially in the US), but the trouble of learning to cook vegetables and seitan is nothing compared to the harm that animal agriculture causes to billions of humans and non-humans every year. (It also cured my high blood pressure and pre-diabetes in three months, but everyone knows vegetables are good for you :) [1] https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL (https://web.archive.org/web/20211208184438/https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL https://web.archive.org/web/20211208184438/https://www.fao.o...) [2] https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2022/03/15/it-may-be-uncomfortable-we-need-talk-about-it-animal-agriculture-industry-and-zero-waste#:~:text=Animal%20agriculture%20produces%2065%25%20of,all%20the%20transportation%20emissions%20combined https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2022/03/15/it-may-be-uncomf.... [3] https://climatenexus.org/climate-issues/food/animal-agricultures-impact-on-climate-change/ https://climatenexus.org/climate-issues/food/animal-agricult... [4] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-find-100-children-cleaning-slaughterhouses-pssi-rcna71171 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-find-100-children-... [5] https://www.axios.com/local/nw-arkansas/2023/03/13/arkansas-roll-back-child-labor-protections https://www.axios.com/local/nw-arkansas/2023/03/13/arkansas-...