Maybe we should approach the question from the other side.
- We need more fish than can be sustainably caught.
- Most of the ocean is a desert [1] due to the lack of essential elements close to the surface, and only near the shore or in places where current brings nutrients up from the depth there is a significant amount of life.
- Ocean surface acts as a giant solar battery because of termocline.
This means we can create floating platforms that would pump water from seabed to the surface, creating vast new fisheries and at the same time removing carbon from the atmosphere since this essentially is a controlled form of iron fertilization.
Leave it to humans to develop convuluted engineering for problems nature already solved but we destroyed, just to avoid solving the real problem: we eat way too much fish and meat.
So far nature have not solved the problem of most of the earth being desert and all of the live ending in 600mln years [1]. One could argue that having humans (trillions of them) is natures way of solving these problems, and having less people that eat less fish doesn't help with any of these.
The article is scarce on details but the first part: "Climate change is already affecting oceans, fisheries, and the livelihoods that depend on them. Some local fish stocks are declining, while other fish populations are shifting their distributions, forcing fishers to travel farther to make their catch."
Already has me thinking that they are blaming the effects of over-fishing on climate change. A nice way to shift the blame.
Are you saying that the effects of climate change are negligible compared to those of overfishing, or just that the article should talk about both causes?
The crux of the article seems to be explaining the difference between a 1.5C rise and a 3.5C rise, so they are making an argument to decrease global warming to get a better yield each year. The best case scenario for them then would be that we don't do anything about global warming and they can go "well, clearly it's the temperatures fault" instead of over-fishing? They are prepping us for projections that may or may not happen, and they hope they do, otherwise they have nowhere to hide the overfishing? And don't you think after a 3.5C increase we would have bigger fish to fry (pun absolutely intentional)?
It's articles like this (and people using them as "proof") that has made me become extremely skeptical of any "the science shows" claim, on any topic, because when I do the legwork to hunt down "the science" behind claims I read, at least half of the time it's not actually saying what is being subsequently claimed, or lacks certainty, etc.
It would be interesting to know how much of broad society's decrease in trust of experts (so they say) is related to this phenomenon. Not much I imagine.
That's a good point, and totally worth questioning. If you're interested in a scientific analysis supporting that claim, there's a great research paper [1] (disclaimer: my advisor wrote it) on this subject.
I can never tell if studies like this take into account much evolution and adaptation? They always seem to assume that current trendlines will continue.
Finally, my PhD research is relevant. This particular work doesn't, but other work in the land of organismal responses to climate change does. There's a good review of this [0] (disclaimer: written by my advisor). Here's [1] another one by two of the greats in the field (Ray Huey/Kearney)
So, does this show that fisheries will be more productive with 1.5C or 3.5C warming vs 0C? A difference of 6.5% biomass between 1.5C and 3.5C doesn't warrant trillions of spending, IMO. This along with 1-4ft increase in sealevel[1] over 100 years begs the question, so what?
Good question. The research done by these folks suggests the following (from the article):
> "They found that if climate change is limited to 1.5 °C, the biomass of the top revenue-generating fish species will be on average 6.5% higher than it would be with 3.5 °C of warming. Sustainable catch levels of these species will be 7.3%, or 3.3 million metric tons, greater than they would be if we stay on our current trajectory."
So, 1.5C warming is better than 3.5C warming because the top-revenue-generating fish biomass with 1.5C warming is 6.5% higher than with 3.5 C warming. Put another way, excessive warming (3.5C) decreases fish biomass availability relative to less extreme warming scenarios.
Curtailing the progression of climatic warming, therefore, appears to be an important step in ensuring sustainable fish stocks. This is the "so what."
Well the thing is that there are other countries and other countries may be disproportionately affected by climate change, for example: "Around the Mediterranean, freshwater availability will drop by almost twice as much at 2 degrees as at 1.5 — 17 percent versus 9 percent," or "But even getting up to 2 degrees, 'tropical regions like West Africa, South-East Asia, as well as Central and northern South America are projected to face substantial local yield reductions, particularly for wheat and maize.'
So, yeah, you might have more productive fisheries, but the cost is the death of millions of humans. There's also no true indication we will keep climate change within that 1.5 to 3.5c window, so it's unknowable what the true cost would be.
We want a zero degree increase things are good as they have been for thousands of years. Now if we go up to 1.5C we lose a lot of fish. We will have 6.5% more fish then if we go to 3C increase so the "so what" is we stand to lose millions of peoples jobs, livelihoods, and the only way they feed their families. It means by doing nothing we are potentially sentencing millions of people to their demise. I just don't get how anyone can sit here and say "so what". And I truly do think this is a rich person problem too because you watch what happens when millions of people are pushed from their homes in a short period of time it will be pandemonium. What are we going to do when essentially an entire nation is pushed from their homes? What country is going to accept them or do we just let them die? So for me there is a huge amount at risk if their estimates in this study are true. I have kids that I want to leave a future earth to.
Here's the thing though: if we actively do something to stop carbon production, we will also be losing economic wellbeing. Developing nations will be hit harder by this cutback, too. The question is is the trade-off worth it, relative to other things we could be putting our time and attention to. According to this think tank (1), it doesn't pay out so well, compared to other goals.
Maybe we should approach the question from the other side.
- We need more fish than can be sustainably caught.
- Most of the ocean is a desert [1] due to the lack of essential elements close to the surface, and only near the shore or in places where current brings nutrients up from the depth there is a significant amount of life.
- Ocean surface acts as a giant solar battery because of termocline.
This means we can create floating platforms that would pump water from seabed to the surface, creating vast new fisheries and at the same time removing carbon from the atmosphere since this essentially is a controlled form of iron fertilization.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_production
Leave it to humans to develop convuluted engineering for problems nature already solved but we destroyed, just to avoid solving the real problem: we eat way too much fish and meat.
So far nature have not solved the problem of most of the earth being desert and all of the live ending in 600mln years [1]. One could argue that having humans (trillions of them) is natures way of solving these problems, and having less people that eat less fish doesn't help with any of these.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future
The article is scarce on details but the first part: "Climate change is already affecting oceans, fisheries, and the livelihoods that depend on them. Some local fish stocks are declining, while other fish populations are shifting their distributions, forcing fishers to travel farther to make their catch."
Already has me thinking that they are blaming the effects of over-fishing on climate change. A nice way to shift the blame.
Are you saying that the effects of climate change are negligible compared to those of overfishing, or just that the article should talk about both causes?
The crux of the article seems to be explaining the difference between a 1.5C rise and a 3.5C rise, so they are making an argument to decrease global warming to get a better yield each year. The best case scenario for them then would be that we don't do anything about global warming and they can go "well, clearly it's the temperatures fault" instead of over-fishing? They are prepping us for projections that may or may not happen, and they hope they do, otherwise they have nowhere to hide the overfishing? And don't you think after a 3.5C increase we would have bigger fish to fry (pun absolutely intentional)?
It's articles like this (and people using them as "proof") that has made me become extremely skeptical of any "the science shows" claim, on any topic, because when I do the legwork to hunt down "the science" behind claims I read, at least half of the time it's not actually saying what is being subsequently claimed, or lacks certainty, etc.
It would be interesting to know how much of broad society's decrease in trust of experts (so they say) is related to this phenomenon. Not much I imagine.
That's a good point, and totally worth questioning. If you're interested in a scientific analysis supporting that claim, there's a great research paper [1] (disclaimer: my advisor wrote it) on this subject.
[1]: https://sci-hub.se/https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate1...
Uh, you object that the anthropocene magazine concentrates on climate change?
Anthropocene as a term focuses on the human-shaped nature of Earth in general. Overfishing qualifies as a component.
I can never tell if studies like this take into account much evolution and adaptation? They always seem to assume that current trendlines will continue.
Finally, my PhD research is relevant. This particular work doesn't, but other work in the land of organismal responses to climate change does. There's a good review of this [0] (disclaimer: written by my advisor). Here's [1] another one by two of the greats in the field (Ray Huey/Kearney)
[0]: https://sci-hub.se/https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10...
[1]: https://sci-hub.se/https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/fu...
I failed to submit the actual study. It's here: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/2/eaau3855.full
So, does this show that fisheries will be more productive with 1.5C or 3.5C warming vs 0C? A difference of 6.5% biomass between 1.5C and 3.5C doesn't warrant trillions of spending, IMO. This along with 1-4ft increase in sealevel[1] over 100 years begs the question, so what?
[1] https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/
Good question. The research done by these folks suggests the following (from the article):
> "They found that if climate change is limited to 1.5 °C, the biomass of the top revenue-generating fish species will be on average 6.5% higher than it would be with 3.5 °C of warming. Sustainable catch levels of these species will be 7.3%, or 3.3 million metric tons, greater than they would be if we stay on our current trajectory."
So, 1.5C warming is better than 3.5C warming because the top-revenue-generating fish biomass with 1.5C warming is 6.5% higher than with 3.5 C warming. Put another way, excessive warming (3.5C) decreases fish biomass availability relative to less extreme warming scenarios.
Curtailing the progression of climatic warming, therefore, appears to be an important step in ensuring sustainable fish stocks. This is the "so what."
Well the thing is that there are other countries and other countries may be disproportionately affected by climate change, for example: "Around the Mediterranean, freshwater availability will drop by almost twice as much at 2 degrees as at 1.5 — 17 percent versus 9 percent," or "But even getting up to 2 degrees, 'tropical regions like West Africa, South-East Asia, as well as Central and northern South America are projected to face substantial local yield reductions, particularly for wheat and maize.'
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/19/1690840...
So, yeah, you might have more productive fisheries, but the cost is the death of millions of humans. There's also no true indication we will keep climate change within that 1.5 to 3.5c window, so it's unknowable what the true cost would be.
We want a zero degree increase things are good as they have been for thousands of years. Now if we go up to 1.5C we lose a lot of fish. We will have 6.5% more fish then if we go to 3C increase so the "so what" is we stand to lose millions of peoples jobs, livelihoods, and the only way they feed their families. It means by doing nothing we are potentially sentencing millions of people to their demise. I just don't get how anyone can sit here and say "so what". And I truly do think this is a rich person problem too because you watch what happens when millions of people are pushed from their homes in a short period of time it will be pandemonium. What are we going to do when essentially an entire nation is pushed from their homes? What country is going to accept them or do we just let them die? So for me there is a huge amount at risk if their estimates in this study are true. I have kids that I want to leave a future earth to.
Here's the thing though: if we actively do something to stop carbon production, we will also be losing economic wellbeing. Developing nations will be hit harder by this cutback, too. The question is is the trade-off worth it, relative to other things we could be putting our time and attention to. According to this think tank (1), it doesn't pay out so well, compared to other goals.
1: https://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/top-outcomes
People living near the coast (hint most of the global population) would probably disagree with you.
Why? 1-4ft sealevel increase is nothing
Not if your home is 3ft above sea level.
Impossible due to tides
How is it impossible, if the tidal range is less than 3 ft, your house could be less that 3 foot above sea level and not get wet.
Where is tide less than 3 ft?
Mediterranean, Caribbean Sea. Google can answer these things relatively simply.