A system where people still consume as much fish as they please, and our technological and governmental structures lead to downstream processes that mitigate the environmental impact of that situation may not be a globally maximal solution compared to a world where we end fish consumption. But it does have one nice attribute: it may actually be possible to achieve. Personally, I do hold out hope for an even better solution, where we get to consume the foods we love but they are created without the need for animals to live and die to give it to us.
https://shows.pippa.io/leadership-and-the-environment/episod...
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https://shows.pippa.io/leadership-and-the-environment/episod...
https://shows.pippa.io/leadership-and-the-environment/episod...
Many people misinterpret to think I'm saying this strategy will solve everything by itself.
Note that at the root, it's helping people live by their values. Polluting less doesn't create a worse life, however much people who haven't seriously tried fear it will. Nearly all of my guests who act report preferring acting, saving time and money, improving relationships, self-awareness, etc.
The fetish of constraint seems to be popular among environmentalists, but it's certainly not the only way or even most preferable path forward.
And yet, every single time, now for hundreds of years, the crisis is solved not through a culture change but through a mixture of regulation and technological progress.
Pollution hurts other people. Do you want no constraints on dioxin, PCBs, and mercury emissions?
It’s not complicated. Tax the behaviors you want to discourage. Subsidize the behaviors you want to encourage.
You can’t solve all problems that way, because of black markets and other “non-linear” effects, but in this case it is a perfectly reasonable approach.
Make plant based alternatives cheaper than the real thing. I would definitely buy impossible meat if it were cheaper than real beef. As it stands it is several times more expensive than real beef. Same for impossible fish (if such a thing were to exist).
If impossible fish sticks taste nearly identical to real fish sticks, but it's cheaper and plant-based, why wouldn't your average consumer buy impossible fish sticks for their kids?
Case in point: farmed fish doesn’t require fishing nets.* Adjust it again, “don’t eat wild fish.” Until they release a new type of hemp net that is bio degradable, or a new type of fyke that doesn’t tear. Now you need to update it again. Meanwhile you’re always behind, and the real polluters will remain one step ahead. You’re playing a never ending game of whack-a-mole that money has been designed to solve.
* edit: Reading some sibling comments this comes with many caveats. Which, in a way, further proves the point.
Sustainable, low emission recirculating aquaculture comes at a price. It is not yet clear whether customers are willing to pay the premium for products from a good solution.
The goal is to reduce it to a minimum.
Not all fishmeal is unsustainable. The slaughtering residue from wild catch and from aquaculture as well as the bycatch are ressources for fish feed that we should not waste.
One of the other differences that most of the line caught tuna brands cook the raw tuna directly in the can, rather than cooking first and then canning. This results in much better texture. Other than price, it's a superior product in almost every way.
In general, advices to reduce consumption of anything to solve environmental problems are missing the point. Goal is not to get back to the stone age and thus clear up the environment (even that won't work: stone age people destroyed environment even worse than us, they eradicated whole lot of species of big animals and destroyed the tundro-steppe by disturbing the nitrogen cycle - however destructive we are now we didn't manage to destroy a single whole biome, yet). Goal is to make more with less. Increase consumption of everything, while fixing environmental issues. This is what will happen anyway: majority of the world is still poor and they are catching up. It will be absolutely awful and elitist to say them: no you can't catch up pals, you will ruin the environment if you try! They want and they will catch up with the Western world. And the Western world also can't go back to their level: someone has to move technologies ahead...
Getting the world population to start eat food which is not actively harming the environment is not going to easy.
Fish don't damage the environment. Fishing nets do, when thrown into the ocean by irresponsible fishermen. Eating less fish would punish all fishermen, including the environmentally-responsible ones. What we need instead is a better enforcement of existing laws against env. pollution.
Fishing does not require that fishing nets be abandonned in the sea. I suspect it would take not a lot of innovation nor a lot of costs to cut this pollution dramatically.
So apply what I wrote and you get: eat less fish.
Since this is HN, people will talk about pros and cons of eating fish, but there's only one reason people create fishing nets. If people consume less of things that damage the environment, we will produce less of it and therefore damage less of it. If some populations have to eat it, most can still eat less. I last ate fish in 1990.