It’s become an annual affair, the rafts of green algae washing up on the shores of Qingdao, China. Since 2007, massive algae blooms in the Yellow Sea have been fueled, scientists think, by “pollution and increased seaweed farming” south of Qingdao.
The mats of photosynthetic phytoplankton aren’t dangerous to people (unless you count ruining a day at the beach as dangerous), but the return of these massive algae blooms year after year could be troubling for the marine creatures living in the Yellow Sea.
“The carpet on the surface can dramatically change the ecology of the environment beneath it,” says the Guardian. “It blocks sunlight from entering the ocean and sucks oxygen from the water suffocating marine life.”
An algae bloom in the Yellow Sea (2008)
Vast blooms of algae can cause the water to become hypoxic, [meaning] the concentration of oxygen in the water drawn down so low that
it makes it uninhabitable for many marine creatures. A strong case of
hypoxia can further lead to something called a “dead zone.”
Such recurring, annual algae blooms like the one in Qingdao aren’t limited to China’s Yellow Sea, either. According to Scientific American, there
are at least 405 dead zones around the world. One of the worst in the
world is the one in the Gulf of Mexico, where this year researchers with
NOAA expect around 8,000 square miles of the Gulf to be oxygen
depleted—a patch of ocean about the size of New Jersey, says National Geographic. If the bloom lives up to expectations, this year’s would be the largest dead zone in the Gulf on record.
So while China’s algae problem may be making a mess for swimmers, it’s the life beneath the waves that may be hurting the most.
Thank God! It's only a mess for Chinese swimmers—swimmers?—they're OK.
It's life beneath the "waves" which is taking it in the shorts.
But [Mr. Kurtz's] soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself and, by heavens I tell you, it had gone mad...
The horror, the horror... [Kurtz's dying words]
— From Joseph Conrad's The Heart Of Darkness
It has only been in the last 5 years of my life that I understood the depth of the nightmare called the Human Condition. And like Mr. Kurtz, alone in this wilderness, I am going mad. The "horror" is everywhere I look, and I can't help but see it, even when I prefer not to.
I went to my computer and turned on the radio this morning as I do every morning. Within a few minutes, the guy on National Propaganda Radio assured me that the number of jobs created in this morning's BLS report did not matter; it was the unemployment rate which mattered. That bit of received wisdom was offered without explanation.
Which made me think of The Heart Of Darkness and Mr. Kurtz. And I thought, if I look at the June BLS report, the horror will be there. So I looked at the report right at 8:30 when it came out. And there it was, the horror.
Before I get into the numbers, I want to tell you something important. For me, it's not as though the Human Condition would be just fine if it weren't for X, Y and Z. It's not as though if only we fixed X, Y and Z, we humans would be all right and everything will turn out OK in the longer run.
No, for me, the horror is everywhere. When people fixate on problem X, or problem Y, or problem Z, and can not I see the rest of what ails our deeply flawed species, it drives me crazy. That's why I lose it sometimes when I see comments on this blog that focus on one thing to the exclusion of everything else, and thus miss the Big Picture, or the miss the point of a post altogether. Sorry about that. Mea culpa.
Humans are crazy, but since they're all crazy in more or less the same way, nobody is crazy. Go figure.
So you may think seeing the horror in the June BLS report is trivial, but it is not. From where I'm sitting, everything looks pretty much the same—the human fear of the Real, of the truth about themselves, their lies and cover-ups, their defensiveness, the noxious, impenetrable clouds of bullshit they throw up around everything they do.
On the surface, the BLS reported that 195,000 jobs were created and the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 7.6%. But what kind of jobs were added? To find out, we must look at the establishment survey and Table B-1.
Leisure and hospitality added 75,000 jobs in June. Monthly job growth
in this industry has averaged 55,000 thus far in 2013, almost twice
the average gain of 30,000 per month in 2012. Within leisure and
hospitality, employment in food services and drinking places continued
to expand, increasing by 52,000 in June. Employment in the amusements,
gambling, and recreation industry also continued to trend up in June
(+19,000).
Leisure and hospitality jobs are shit. They are shitty jobs. You can't run a household on one full-time leisure and hospitality job. You might be able to run one on 2 such jobs. If you want to run a household comfortably, you need 3 such jobs or more. Leisure and hospitality jobs are shit.
When the fuckhead on NPR tells you about the unchanged unemployment rate, he doesn't mention the shitty leisure and hospitality jobs, or the retail jobs. One rung up the shitty jobs ladder lie the retail trade jobs.
Retail trade employment increased by 37,000 in June. Within retail
trade, employment increased by 9,000 in building material and garden
supply stores and by 8,000 in motor vehicle and parts dealers.
Employment in wholesale trade continued to trend up (+11,000).
Building and garden supply stores? Home Depot and Lowe's. Oh, my!
Employment in professional and business services rose by 53,000 in
June. Job gains occurred in management and technical consulting
services (+8,000) and in computer systems design and related services
(+7,000). Employment continued to trend up in temporary help services
(+10,000). Over the past year, professional and business services has
added 624,000 jobs.
Well, 10,000 of those jobs were temp jobs, so fuck that. It appears that 15,000 of those jobs might pay a living wage. Looking at Table B-1, we see that another 10,800 of those jobs were in "services to businesses and dwellings," which looks a lot like janitorial or grass-cutting jobs to me. Looking at the other subcategories, we are none the wiser.
If we add these three large categories together, we get 165,000 jobs, the vast majority of which are shitty jobs. Altogether, the BLS reported that 195,000 jobs were added in June.
There was a loss of 6,000 jobs in manufacturing.
And yet, when you look at the headlines, and listen to the fuckheads on the radio, you would think "the recovery" is gaining momentum or some such bullshit — "offering hopes for a stronger second half of the year" according to NPR.
That is the horror I am talking about. It is everywhere. It will always be there everywhere I look until the humans are gone or I am gone.
And you know what? Humans talk as though there's still some uncertainty about how the rest of the 21st century will go. That's so fucking absurd to me. There's no uncertainty at all! Well, yes, there's some uncertainty about the details, but they don't matter in the end. I laugh everytime I hear this talk because the horror is everywhere, always has been, and always will be.
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men
Scientists have discovered a diverse multitude of microbes colonizing
and thriving on flecks of plastic that have polluted the oceans—a vast
new human-made flotilla of microbial communities that they have dubbed
the “plastisphere.”
[Image left — Suctorian ciliate covered with symbiotic bacteria, along with
diatoms, and filaments on weathered and cracked microplastic debris.
(Credit: Image courtesy of Erik Zettler, Sea Education Association)]
In a study recently published online in Environmental Science & Technology,
the scientists say the plastisphere represents a novel ecological
habitat in the ocean and raises a host of questions: How will it change
environmental conditions for marine microbes, favoring some that compete
with others? How will it change the overall ocean ecosystem and affect
larger organisms? How will it change where microbes, including
pathogens, will be transported in the ocean?
The collaborative team of scientists—Erik Zettler from Sea Education
Association (SEA), Tracy Mincer from Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution (WHOI), and Linda Amaral-Zettler from the Marine Biological
Laboratory (MBL), all in Woods Hole, Mass.—analyzed marine plastic
debris that was skimmed with fine-scale nets from the sea surface at
several locations in the North Atlantic Ocean during SEA research
cruises. Most were millimeter-sized fragments.
“We’re not just interested in who’s there. We’re interested in their
function, how they’re functioning in this ecosystem, how they’re
altering this ecosystem, and what’s the ultimate fate of these particles
in the ocean,” says Amaral-Zettler. “Are they sinking to the bottom of
the ocean? Are they being ingested? If they're being ingested, what
impact does that have?”
Using scanning electron microscopy and gene sequencing techniques,
they found at least 1000 different types of bacterial cells on the
plastic samples, including many individual species yet to be identified.
They included plants, algae, and bacteria that manufacture their own
food (autotrophs), animals and bacteria that feed on them
(heterotrophs), predators that feed on these, and other organisms that
establish synergistic relationships (symbionts). These complex
communities exist on plastic bits hardly bigger than the head of a pin,
and they have arisen with the explosion of plastics in the oceans in the
last 60 years.
“The organisms inhabiting the plastisphere were different from those
in surrounding seawater, indicating that plastic debris acts as
artificial ‘microbial reefs,” says Mincer. “They supply a place that
selects for and supports distinct microbes to settle and succeed.”
These communities are likely different from those that settle on
naturally occurring floating material such as feathers, wood, and
microalgae, because plastics offer different conditions, including the
capacity to last much longer without degrading.
On the other hand, the scientists also found evidence that microbes
may play a role in degrading plastics. They saw microscopic cracks and
pits in the plastic surfaces that they suspect were made by microbes
embedded in them, as well as microbes possibly capable of degrading
hydrocarbons...
The plastic debris also represents a new mode of transportation,
acting as rafts that can convey harmful microbes, including
disease-causing pathogens and harmful algal species. One plastic sampled
they analyzed was dominated by members of the genus Vibrio, which includes bacteria that cause cholera and gastrointestinal maladies.
I should note that the natural gas liquids which are a primary feedstock for the petro-chemical industry (and thus plastics production) are invariably confused with crude oil, which is used to power most of our transportation and many other things. This confusion inflates the amount of "oil" the United States produces in a most satisfactory way to "analysts" at Citigroup or the IEA or the Wall Street Journal. This conflation in turn allows human fantasies about their Happy Future on the Earth to continue without interruption.
Win-win!
Another recent study found that ocean acidification is having large effects on primary production in the oceans. Science Daily covered it in Greenhouse Gas Likely Altering Ocean Foodchain: Atmospheric CO2 Has Big Consequences for Tiny Bacteria. We don't know what longer term effects higher ocean acidity will have on nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria. These microorganisms form the basis of all life in the sea.
Look at it this way—maybe there will be a successful transition from photosynthesizing cyanobacteria to plastic colonizing microorganisms in the world's oceans.
Maybe Mr. McGuire was right. There may be a great future in plastics
Economic life has turned to shit for most citizens in these United States of America, but you wouldn't know that if you read Notes On Falsifying Fiscalism at the blog This Is Ashok - reality in bits: economics, technology and politics.
Reading the title, you probably thought this post was about standard religion, which has Gods, Holy Books, Saints, Heavens, Hells and all the rest. Sorry to disappoint you. This post is about secular religion, also known as Keynesian economic theory (in all its many variants). See my post Economics As Religion.
The way to make monetary policy effective, then, is for the central
bank to credibly promise to be irresponsible – to make a persuasive case
that it will permit inflation to occur, thereby producing the negative
real interest rates the economy needs.
Back then, he had to end that phrase noting that “this sounds funny
as well as perverse”. That’s a sea change from today, where this is
taken as a foregone conclusion in wonkonomics. I see petitions for Larry
Summers, Janet Yellen, and Christina Romer as great Fed chairs. That’s
wonderful, and I’d be happy with any one of them (particularly Romer).
But someone has to give me a detailed explanation why there isn’t a
roaring movement – from Scott Sumner to Brad DeLong – calling on Barack
Obama to nominate Paul Krugman for the most prestigious job in the
country.
And here's the key passage.
Krugman is the intellectual father of irresponsibility, quite literally.
If there is one man in this world who can convince markets that America
will tolerate above-trend inflation, it is Paul Krugman.
If there is
one man in this world who can falsify Krugman’s own theory that we need
more fiscal stimulus, it is Paul Krugman. Indeed, if Paul Krugman cannot
credibly commit to be irresponsible, no one can.
Markets will smoke if he is shortlisted. If he is nominated, they will
all but go on fire.
So if you are interested in disproving Paul
Krugman’s many calls for fiscal policy in a liquidity trap, you best
champion for his nomination as Fed Chair.
You may be wondering what "irresponsibility" is. Basically, it means making a credible commitment to flooding the economy with printed or borrowed money (hence the inflation) to create negative real interest rates, which in turn will force "consumers" to spend their money before inflation destroys it, make it easier to take on new debt, and force investors to part with their money and throw it the "real" economy where you and I live. Presumably, after the money flood, we will get some new Burger Kings and the much-sought after jobs that come with them.
Contrary to Ashok's premise, "fiscal policy in a liquidity trap" (more stimulus) can not be falsified. If this theory could be falsified, then it already was falsified when the nearly $900 billion stimulus of 2009-2011 failed to achieve the desired long-term effect on the U.S. economy. When that move failed, religious acolytes like Ashok and high priests like Krugman (and Christina Romer or Dean Baker, etc.) claimed that the stimulus was 1) not large enough; or 2) poorly structured.
If Krugman were in a position to be irresponsible, as he would be as Fed chairman, it seems that no amount of evidence would suffice to demonstrate to religious zealots like him that an even larger stimulus had failed once again, at least not before your dollar becomes indistinguable from toilet paper. That much is clear.
The reasons for that hypothetical future failure are clear and have been for many years now. First and foremost, most Americans have not received a real (inflation-adjusted) pay raise for over 30 years now. See my post Economic Growth Fantasies. Yet, health care costs, college tuition costs, and many other costs have soared far beyond the official CPI-U inflation rate over those 30 years.
To make a long story short, Americans have no money. They are cash-poor. That story was confirmed once again when a recent survey found that 71% of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck, meaning they have less than 6 months worth of savings to cover expenses should the shit hit the fan. We can only hope that it is not a medical emergency which requires hospitalization.
From the Economist's Surgery Required — health care in America is ludicrously expensive.
But none of this matters to the Keynesian Faithful, who can not tell you how being irresponsible will magically increase wages for the working man, a situation which is determined in large part by the wage-depressing effects of globalization.
So the structural reasons why the first fiscal stimulus failed and why future stimuli would also fail are crystal clear. The U.S. economy is fucked for all sorts of reasons which lie outside the DSGE models whatever models economists like Krugman use. Those models are all but useless. But for the zealot, delusional Models Talk and Reality Walks.
When Ben Bernanke hinted that quantitative easing and near-zero short-term interest rates would eventually come to an end, 10-year T-bill rates and 30-year mortgage interest rates started to rise. That's what some people call being responsible, the opposite of being irresponsible. Krugman was very, very disappointed.
And maybe they’ll get away with it; maybe the economic recovery will
strengthen and all will be well. But rising interest rates make that
happy outcome less likely. And now that everyone knows that the Fed is
eager to slacken off, it will be hard to get interest rates back down to
where they were.
It’s sad and depressing, in both senses of the word. The fundamental
reason our economy is still depressed after all these years is that so
many policy makers lost the thread, forgetting that job creation was
their most urgent task. Until now the Fed was an exception; but now it
seems to be joining the club. Et tu, Ben?
You see, only Paul Krugman—the Conscience of a Liberal—cares deeply about the unemployed in the United States. In Paul's view, Ben Bernanke, who only made the rich richer, no longer cares. And neither does anyone else who disagrees with Krugman. Given what I've written above, I obviously don't care about the unemployed as far as Paul is concerned.
And if you think America's problems are much larger than those which mere money printing and borrowing can fix, especially in light of how the money is likely to be spent, you don't care about the unemployed either.
Only Paul (and Ashok and Dean and others among the Faithful) care about America's unemployed.
Beware of religious intolerance, in whatever form it takes and wherever you find it.
Computational scientist Stephen Emmott's Humans: the real threat to life on Earth presents us with an exercise worth going through (reprinted at The Guardian, June 29, 2013).
Most of the essay supports the contention that human overshoot on this planet is creating some serious problems. There's lots of stuff like this—
We are going to have to triple – at least – energy production by the end
of this century to meet expected demand. To meet that demand, we will
need to build, roughly speaking, something like: 1,800 of the world's
largest dams, or 23,000 nuclear power stations, 14m wind turbines, 36bn
solar panels, or just keep going with predominantly oil, coal and gas –
and build the 36,000 new power stations that means we will need. Our
existing oil, coal and gas reserves alone are worth trillions of
dollars. Are governments and the world's major oil, coal and gas
companies – some of the most influential corporations on Earth – really
going to decide to leave the money in the ground, as demand for energy
increases relentlessly? I doubt it.
Although Emmott can not bring himself to say it, the only possible conclusion we can come to after reading this is that the "expected demand" will never come to pass because there are almost certainly limits to growth in energy production. As for leaving fossil fuels in the ground, that will not happen, but it doesn't matter either way if you're thinking we could triple energy production by 2100. That's not gonna happen.
So forget about that. The interesting part starts here, a little over halfway through.
Every which way you look at it, a planet of 10 billion looks like a nightmare.
What, then, are our options?
Now the serious confusion begins.
The only solution left to us is to change our behaviour, radically
and globally, on every level.
In short, we urgently need to consume
less. A lot less. Radically less. And we need to conserve more. A lot
more. To accomplish such a radical change in behaviour would also need
radical government action. But as far as this kind of change is
concerned, politicians are currently part of the problem, not part of
the solution, because the decisions that need to be taken to implement
significant behaviour change inevitably make politicians very unpopular –
as they are all too aware.
So what politicians have opted for
instead is failed diplomacy. For example: The UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change, whose job it has been for 20 years to ensure the
stabilisation of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere: Failed. The
UN Convention to Combat Desertification, whose job it's been for 20
years to stop land degrading and becoming desert: Failed. The Convention
on Biological Diversity, whose job it's been for 20 years to reduce the
rate of biodiversity loss: Failed.
Those are only three examples of
failed global initiatives. The list is a depressingly long one...
Emmott's premise—humans need to change their behavior at every level—is certainly correct. But now this computational scientist adds 2 + 2 and gets 5. He separates the politicians from The People and then blames the former.
And the way governments justify this level of inaction is by
exploiting public opinion and scientific uncertainty. It used to be a
case of, "We need to wait for science to prove climate change is
happening". This is now beyond doubt. So now it's, "We need to wait for
scientists to be able to tell us what the impact will be and the costs".
And, "We need to wait for public opinion to get behind action". But
climate models will never be free from uncertainties. And as for public
opinion, politicians feel remarkably free to ignore it when it suits
them – wars, bankers' bonuses and healthcare reforms, to give just three
examples.
What politicians and governments say about their
commitment to tackling climate change is completely different from what
they are doing about it.
Let's sort this confusion out. On the one hand, Emmott says politicians don't make decisions to enforce behavioral changes because doing so would "inevitably make politicians very unpopular." Damn right, because ultimately, at bottom, politicians do not want to make significant changes in their own behavior and neither do The People. Thus the best policy is to do nothing. Wisely heeding the example of Marie Antoinette, politicans get to keep their heads. Win-win!
On the other hand, contradicting himself, Embeth says that "politicians feel remarkably free to ignore [popular opinion] when it suits them." This is also correct, but "wars, banker's bonuses and healthcare reforms" do not require The People (or the politicians whose palms have been greased) to change their behavior.
In short, there's nothing new about fucking other people over. What would be new, a genuine novelty, in the Human Condition would be if people stopped fucking other people over. "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun," said the unknown author of Ecclesiastes.
So, what's the key here? It's very simple. It's not that humans don't want to change their behavior. Emmott is confused on this point, and this muddle is ultimately the source of all his confusion.
The behavioural changes that are required of us are so fundamental that
no one wants to make them. What are they? We need to consume less. A lot
less. Less food, less energy, less stuff. Fewer cars, electric cars,
cotton T-shirts, laptops, mobile phone upgrades. Far fewer. And here it
is worth pointing out that "we" refers to the people who live in the
west and the north of the globe...
No, humans can not change their fundamental behaviors. I've made this simple point over and over again on DOTE but humans generally are not willing to acknowledge their animal (deterministic) nature. Neither is Emmott willing to face it head on. All wisdom starts there. Here is what I said recently on this point in Psychotherapy For Homo Sapiens.
Psychotherapy was an excellent idea—actually, the best idea humankind
ever had—but generally it was a failure because humans simply can not
or refuse to bring their characteristic behavior patterns (like 1,2,3
above) into consciousness, regardless of whether those behaviors are
idiosyncratic or instinctual. Hell, humans can not or refuse to
acknowledge the very existence of the unconscious mind. Humans think that tiny, feckless awareness of theirs (the overrated Ego) is running the show!
Viewed that way, DOTE can also be seen as psychotherapy for Homo sapiens. Again, that is not
what I've been trying to do on this blog because that's an impossible
task. I have described that impossibility generally by saying Homo sapiens is a species—what you see is what you get. That also implies that past human behavior is a reliable guide to future human behavior.
All of Emmott's confusion would disappear if he would acknowledge the painful, depressing fact that humans are what they are, and therefore are going to do what they do (and have always done) in these large, fundamental matters (e.g. growth and consumption). But if Emmott had acknowledged this painful fact, The Guardian would not have printed a summary of his recent book Ten Billion. So we get ridiculous stuff like this.
I confess I used to find it amusing, but I am now sick of reading in the
weekend papers about some celebrity saying, "I gave up my 4×4 and now
I've bought a Prius. Aren't I doing my bit for the environment?" They
are not doing their bit for the environment.
But it's not their fault.
The fact is that they – we – are not being well informed. And that's
part of the problem. We're not getting the information we need. The
scale and the nature of the problem is simply not being communicated to
us. And when we are advised to do something, it barely makes a dent in
the problem.
Oh, my! People are not making the necessary behavioral changes because they are not being well informed?
I hope you can see just how silly this diagnosis of our "problem" is in light of what Emmott himself and I have said here.
And by the way, DOTE readers are among the best informed people on Earth. That is an obligation I took on when I started this blog.
Now watch this short film on Homo sapiens. At least the Human Condition has entertainment value. That's something.
This splendid video starts after 16 seconds and continues until about the 3:15 mark.
Swimming around and around in a 20,000 gallon tank at the University of
Rhode Island's Bay Campus are several large yellowfin tuna captured last
fall about 100 miles off the Rhode Island coast. The fish are part of
the first effort in the United States to breed tuna in a land-based
aquaculture facility to meet the growing demand for one of the ocean's
top predators.
"Worldwide demand for tuna increases yearly, even as tuna stocks are
dwindling precipitously," said Terry Bradley, a URI professor of
fisheries and aquaculture. "What we're trying to do is produce fish in
captivity and take the pressure off the wild stocks."
Bradley and Peter Mottur, director of Rhode Island-based Greenfins,
are taking the first steps in developing the techniques to raise tuna
from egg to harvest size while creating a new sustainable industry in
Rhode Island.
According to Bradley, some in Australia, Mexico and several
Mediterranean countries are doing what he calls "tuna ranching" by
capturing wild tuna, putting them in pens and raising them to harvest
size.
"All they're doing is taking wild fish and fattening them up," he
said. "It's still depleting the wild population and has had a long-term
impact on tuna stocks."
Endangered bluefin and yellowfin tuna are large predators which range far and wide in the world's oceans. A 20,000 gallon tank?
Bradley and Mottur are starting the process by trying to get a few
wild-caught tuna to spawn in the URI tank, but it is a challenging
undertaking. Tuna are long-distance migrants that swim at great speeds,
so acclimating them to a 20-foot diameter tank has been difficult. Once
the fish spawn and the eggs hatch, the microscopic larvae must be fed
live food raised on site. Then they must be weaned from live food to a
dry, formulated feed.
Bradley and Mottur believe that construction of a larger tank, which
will be built at the URI Bay Campus later this year, will markedly
increase the project's likelihood of success.
"Tuna are open ocean fish that require a lot of space and need very
good water quality," Bradley said. "If you put too many fish in a tank,
they get stressed and the water quality begins to degrade. The less you
stress them, the more likely they are to spawn in a reasonable time
frame."
Yes, that's the ticket—build a larger tank! How big should that tank be? I think something the size of Rhode Island itself would do very nicely
Let us move beyond the absurdity of raising tuna in a tank. How does this project reflect the human relationship with the natural world?
♦ What is the best way to "take pressure off wild stocks" of tuna?
That's an easy one—humans need to stop catching tuna in all the world's oceans right now. But banning tuna fishing is impossible for humans to achieve. Thus the obvious behavioral change required to save these magnificent animals is off the table.
♦ What will humans do instead?
Well, what do humans always do? Start a business! Make some money!
According to Bradley and Mottur, it's the ideal time for a tuna aquaculture venture.
"Japan can't produce all the tuna it needs for the country's own
purposes, and the U.S. is a net importer of fish, including tuna,"
Bradley said. "So there is tremendous potential for us to produce fish
that could easily be sold in the U.S., especially if it's a sustainable
product in an environmentally responsible manner."
It's an ideal time for tuna aquaculture because the world's tuna stocks are declining precipitously. Clearly this project is going to be a money-maker, both before and after the wild tuna are gone.
♦ Aside from being profitable, what kind of business will it be?
That's an easy one too—it will be a green, environmentally friendly, sustainable business. It's not called "Greenfins" for nothing. This project is so god-damned green that it will be sustainable long after the wild tuna have been killed off, assuming—you guessed it!—the right technology can be brought to bear.
The early stages of the project are all about research — learning
about the early life cycle of these fish and developing the techniques
to raise them," Bradley said.
"But we also think there is a lot of
commercial potential."
Bradley and Mottur envision local entrepreneurs using the techniques
they develop to produce juvenile tuna that could then be sold to others
who want to grow them further. In Japan, an eight-inch juvenile tuna
raised in captivity can be sold for $100 to $125.
"It's a sustainable project that we hope will create green technology
jobs here in Rhode Island to leverage the great intellectual capital we
have in the state," said Mottur.
You can't have a green business using green technology unless you promise to create green jobs too.
♦ Will this new green venture actually alleviate the pressure on wild tuna stocks in the world's oceans?
No. Hell, no. To take pressure off wild tuna populations, there would have to be a fixed level of demand for these tasty fish. If you raise captive tuna and then sell them to others who will "fatten them up," you will likely lower the price for all kinds of tuna because nobody cares where their tuna comes from, and thus you will likely increase the demand for all kinds of tuna, including wild yellowfins and bluefins. If there weren't great latent demand for tuna, wild tuna species wouldn't be traveling down the unhappy road toward commercial, if not total, extinction.
Thus we see in this seemingly innocuous tuna breeding story all the elements which define the perverse human relationship with the natural world. The details vary from story to story but in the end it is always the same story—the manipulation, appropriation and obliteration of Nature to further human purposes.
I don't have to tell you that this story will not end well.
