1. The great unacknowledged environmental disaster of our current age is probably the collapse of fish stocks. Unlike headline-grabbing global warming, this is happening now and the magnitude of the effects are beyond discussion (they are mostly catastrophic).
Furthermore, unlike global warming, over-fishing is one of the few things where consumers are directly at fault and a change in consumer habits in Western nations could have a fast positive impact on the situation on the ground (in terms of global warming, “fast action” means anything that has an impact over the next 40 years; reducing over-fishing could have a large positive impact which would start to see in 4 years).
It is thus a bit puzzling that this doesn’t get more press. I guess a big cod just isn’t a cuddly animal.
2. Good has a well-written report of what’s happening of the American coast (which happens to be the a well-managed coast in the world—elsewhere is generally worse—but the bar is low):
Twenty years ago, if you had come to this spot off Wellfleet or, for that matter, any other along the Atlantic coast of North America, you would have found an ocean still brimming with life. The waters had been fished for hundreds of years, but they still harbored an impressive number of species. And none were more abundant than cod. They seemed innumerable and inexhaustible, and when they disappeared, as if overnight—decimated at last by years of overfishing—it came as a profound shock.
(via Andrew Sullivan)
3. Governments are also at fault:
Many experts think that governments have been too kind to the fishing industry. The European Union, China, Japan, and the United States spend as much as $20 billion a year to subsidize a $90 billion industry.
In the EU, fishing represents one of the failures of the shared-sovereignty principles. Every country seems to have taken upon itself to defend its fishing industry, in a bad case of one special interest (fishers) taking over policy.
4. This is one case where consumers could have an immediate, large-scale positive impact as most fishing is to supply consumers directly. I have stopped buying wild fish at the supermarket. The farm-raised alternatives are much more responsible (especially if they come from decent countries like Chile which take care to minimise the negative impacts of fish farms).
