Sunday, November 20, 2011

Marine Conservation - Caution: depressing!


Rio+20?
The task is so immense and the prospects, so bleak that I'm tempted to break out into yet another wail of despair.

Check out this infographic by Pew.
You can scroll horizontally with the wheel of your mouse, and then click on each field for an overview and then click again for supporting documents. It makes for tedious and never happy reading and is the disheartening storyline of big and then unfulfilled commitments, and of the seemingly unstoppable demise of Earth's biodiversity.
Still think that a couple of petitions will solve that?

The Oceans?

SOFIA 2010
State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture - 2010
  • 32% overexploited, depleted or recovering
  • 52% fully exploited
  • 15% underexploited or moderately exploited
WORLD POPULATION: 6.9 billion

Now of course we're 7.0, and counting.

Solutions?
Pew have many good recommendations which are set out in this report.
Alas, I fear that like advocating bold and decisive action to curtail Global Warming (or for the matter, the US and European deficits), it is little more than wishful thinking.
Wise plans and big words are one thing - but trying to convince the global population to renounce to growth and instead, to even accept a decrease in individual consumption and one's perceived material well-being is political hara-kiri, and the so-called Leaders know that.

Still, we got to persevere.
There's always a glimmer of hope and that's what we got to continue believing in.

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