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May 14, 2003

Exhausting the Ocean

It's hard to believe, but the world is exhausting the ocean's fish supplies:

Every single species of large wild fish from the tropics to the poles has been fished so systematically over the past 50 years that just 10 per cent of each type remains, according to the first scientific study to assess the fish left in the global ocean.

And those left in the sea are roughly half the size they were before industrialized fishing began in about 1950, says the study which appears on the cover of Thursday's issue of the scientific journal Nature.

I am generally on the anti-alarmist end of the spectrum on population issues, but this kind of news makes you recognize that the world has to deal with resource exhaustion as more of the world develops.

Cheap oil that discourages investments in the technology for renewable energy is just part of the same recklessness that is emptying the oceans. I'm generally confident that we can deal with the billions of people who will make increasing energy demands on the world in coming decades, but only if we stop living off the earth's past capital (oceans and oil) and begin looking to alternative sources of both food and energy. Otherwise, we can expect resource conflicts that will make present military tensions look minor.

Posted by Nathan at May 14, 2003 05:19 PM

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