The decline of the fisheries--much more immediate than global warming
Wednesday, December 24, 2008 at 1:52AM
Thomas P.M. Barnett

WEEK IN REVIEW: "On the Farm: A Seafood Snob Ponders the Future of Fish," by Mark Bittman, New York Times, 16 November 2008.

Cool but disturbing chart on jump page shows "underexploited" fish at 80+-percent of world's fishers in 1950 and at 0% now. "Fully exploited" was the rest in 1950 and it's about 30% now (limit of sustainability). "Overexploited" starts as sliver in 1950 and grows to 39% now. "Crashed" starts more in 1960s and is just under one-third today.

So if 1950 was 80+ percent underexploited and rest fully exploited, today it's one-third crashed, move than one-third overexploited and just under one-third maxed out.

As for farming? It is very resource intensive and hard on the environment.

Little wonder that when we played "Survivor" in the NewRuleSets.Project work with Cantor Fitzgerald back in 2001, this was #2 most important issue after clean water.

Global warming came in dead last, by contrast.

Article originally appeared on Thomas P.M. Barnett (https://thomaspmbarnett.com/).
See website for complete article licensing information.