People who are concerned about sustainability decry the collapse of fisheries & fish stocks, or the environmental impact of industrialized chicken farming. People who are concerned about ethics decry the destruction of pandas, orangutans, tigers, and gorillas.

None of these are good, but we don't eat pandas, so which examples of habitat destruction are used is informative.

Species extinction speaks to fundamental underlying changes to the ecosystems in which those species live.

Yes, telegenic megafauna capture hearts, but really, as apex predators or other apex species, they're the canaries in the coal mine, so to speak (and my isn't that an unsustainable metaphor...). But the waste being laid to oceans: 80% depletion of fish stocks, mass strandings of numerous cetaceans, algae and jellyfish blooms, starfish wasting diseases, and the sudden disappearances of birds, seals, and sea lions, all suggest something is going very, very wrong.

And those systems are crucial for life on Earth -- human and otherwise.

Jesus Christ, I KNOW. But which environmental issue a person chooses to talk about gives us clues to what they are thinking about. My parent's choice of orangutans suggested he was not currently worrying about long-term sustainability of ocean fisheries.

I KNOW. But, difficult as it may be to believe, sustainability still isn't what I was talking about. And, no, that doesn't mean I believe it isn't a problem.

Well, in fairness one can be concerned about the implications for the planet's health of collapsing fisheries, and also wonder by what moral authority we deprive another species that appears able to feel pain and joy of their home so we can have a diet with large amounts of concentrated vegetable oil.