oceans

Michael Boots, director of the Seafood Choices Alliance, answers Grist’s questions

Michael Boots. With what environmental organization are you affiliated? I am the director of the Seafood Choices Alliance, which is the largest program of the communications-based organization SeaWeb. What does your organization do? Seafood Choices Alliance is a global trade association that works on the issue of ocean-friendly seafood. The alliance helps the seafood industry […]

Oceanus is for more than just middle-schoolers

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has an online magazine, Oceanus. Over the past few years, they've published many stories (at the middle school level and up) on numerous aspects of the ocean/climate system. There's some great material there (e.g., this article on solar effects on climate or this one on the oceanic sink for carbon dioxide). Check it out here.

Sending Out an SOS

Protesters ask whalers for help in missing-persons search The bone-chilling waters of Antarctica are seeing heated conflict as the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society tangles with Japanese whalers. The protesters, upset over a 1,000-whale hunt they deem illegal — but which was OK’d by the International Whaling Commission as a scientific pursuit — have dumped […]

Gary Lagerloef, earth, space, and ocean researcher, answers questions

Gary Lagerloef. What work do you do? I work at a small nonprofit scientific research institution named Earth & Space Research, where I have several key roles. I cofounded ESR in 1995, I am the current president, I serve on the board of directors, and I am a senior research scientist. The last role occupies […]

Umbra on eco-choices

Dear Umbra, While I usually love your column, I have to take issue with encouraging people to eat sushi. This is the second “green” site I have seen that proposes the solution to overfishing is to eat different fish. Saying “of course you can continue to eat at sushi restaurants without feeling guilty” amounts to […]

Umbra on sustainable sushi

Dear Umbra, My wife and I love sushi, but we’re increasingly concerned about sustainable harvesting. Although we treat ourselves to sushi only once or twice a month, it adds up, and we can’t help but wonder about the impact. There’s no sensation in the world like letting a slab of sashimi salmon dissolve in your […]

Worldwatch releases a hopeful plan for saving the world’s fish.

There's no shortage of reasons it would really suck if present trends continued and the world's oceans stopped supporting a robust fish population.

For one, it would deal a devastating blow to human nutrition and cuisine. The sea provides us with high-quality protein and many other valuable nutrients. Poof? Gone? (Don't be smug, vegans. Fish emulsion -- ground-up fish -- is a common and valuable input for organic vegetable farming.)

As for cuisine, can anyone really bear to contemplate Southeast Asian food without fish? Then there's Italian. No spaghetti alle vongole (clams)? Or that immortal Sicilian dish, pasta con sarde (sardines)? What, the southern French won't get to make bouillabaisse, the Basques will be robbed of their cod, the coastal Mexicans can no longer do hauchinango al mojo de ajo (garlic-crusted red snapper)? What will become of Vera Cruz? Of New Orleans?

No. This is wholly unacceptable. It won't do. Such a world does not interest me. Present trends must not continue; they must end immediately.

Go veggie — a poll

With Science about the collapse of the world's fisheries, I think it's appropriate once again to examine a topic that doesn't get enough attention: our diets. Not only does eating fish exacerbate the collapse of marine ecosystems and lead to the death of millions of other creatures, including turtles, dolphins, and whales, but the energy used to catch deep-sea fish is equivalent to factory-farmed beef.

Orrin H. Pilkey, shoreline expert, answers questions

Orrin Pilkey. What work do you do? I am a retired professor in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke and am still actively engaged in research and writing. The North Carolina Coastal Federation is the only environmental organization I belong to because I want to make sure my views bear the stamp of […]