[Closed] its ok t'eat fish cos they.....

Seaspiracy

I’m just mad they didn’t go with ‘Conspirasea’

"Meat is murder but fish are stupid"

They're not very cute, so they're fair game

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56593198

Skipjack tuna sighted off the coast of west Wales for the first time in years, and the response is 'let's catch 'em'.

I watched it and wasn't surprised by anything in it. More so the link between "heroes" and "villains" maybe.

It went a bit gamechangers and started to sound like vegan propaganda which wouldn't help it's cause.

There will be someone along in a minute saying that some minor detail is wrong in the film and we should ignore it.... Unfortunately, the reality is commercial fishing is destroying ocean life at a terrifying rate. Killing everything in the ocean has an inevitable effect on everything that lives on the land including us. Future generations will ask us why nothing was done.

On Scottish BBC last night they had a "debate" between an ex-MP cum fish farm owner and one of the Seaspiracy activists. The farmer denied any allegations, many of which have been separately reported for years which immediately registered my mistrust for him. All he could do was keep saying "these extreme activists...". I haven't watched Seaspiracy but can imagine the content. The only good point made by the fish farmer was that it doesn't contain any balanced opinion. Maybe that's needed, maybe in truth there isn't any balance and it's just another man made disaster.

Can I raise a practical question at this point?

Is this going to threaten the availability of fish finger butties?

I think my position on this will depend entirely on the ethics of eating mackerel tbh

availability - no, not in your lifetime
morality - if you previously held a moral view of FFBs, this may change.

morality – if you previously held a moral view of FFBs, this may change.

Adding a cheese slice to them is pretty immoral, IMO...

Future generations will ask us why nothing was done.

They’ll be too busy fighting over other things to care. Not as if a lot of care exists even now. Consumerism is endgame, both in attitude and effect.

It may be politically incorrect to state, but the average consumer is as uneducated about the living world in which they live as they are careless/brazen about what they are doing to it.

Is this going to threaten the availability of fish finger butties?

[img] [/img]

😁

i follow a few marine conservation types on twitter. they aren't very complimentary about it.

Cheese on fish finger butties?

Any views on ketchup?

I think both are essential but I'm generally met with revulsion

they aren’t very complimentary about it.

Any links to what they have said or reasoning as to why they weren't?

I have a good number of otherwise straight-laced conservative with a small c animal eating friends who found it disturbing and potentially significantly attitude changing to watch. Not watched it myself yet but as a weirdo vegan already I'm not expecting to be hugely shocked sadly.

These are working fine for me..

I once made the mistake of buying fishless fingers, the brand escapes me, but lordy were they awful. Like someone whose only experience of fish fingers was at school in the 80s decided to try and make a copy of their 30 year old memories then flavour them, not of fish, but of harbour.

It'd be like making a "meatless pie" based on a vague memory of a pound shop steak and kidney fray bentos clone.

Thats fine, I dinna like fish anyhows.

Gie me a slice of cow anyday. Keep a farmer in a joab.

Gie me a slice of cow anyday.

His previous documentary was on that.

they aren’t very complimentary about it.

im not surprised.

the one FACT that stuck with me, related the number of US Army deaths serving in Iraq over 15yrs compared to the number of Fisheries workers killed in a year. typical "look at this big number, its big isnt it.... but its nowhere near as big as this HUGE number, now thats a really HUGE number, so its given you something to think about, planet killer."

multiple facts from the programme have been disputed/clarified since, essentially not a 100% professional analysis of the situation

I'm aware of the issue and broadly in agreement but I hate 'documentaries' like this.

I’ve got nothing to watch tonight so I’ll give this a go.

@grum, surely thats the point? I didnt think it was inflamatory, just told the truth. Kinda solidified what i had thought. Weve gone from eating loads of fish to trying to avoid it and having it once a week now.

I've not watched it yet. But then I'm a fully paid up vegan freak. Lots of organisations say one of the best things you can do to save the planet is go vegan, see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49238749 for example.

I appreciate that not everyone feels that way which is fine, each to their own. But it seems pretty clear cut that intense farming of animals and/or factory fishing vessels can't end well for any of us.

There's a massive difference between the food industry than you or me grabbing a spear or fishing rod and trying to get some wild boar or salmon for dinner.

I'll get off my sanctimonious high horse now 😄

I didnt think it was inflamatory, just told the truth.

From what I've read, there are some questionable truths in Seaspiracy, such as picking scaremonger-ey numbers from studies which were subsequently rolled back after peer review.

I'm broadly in agreement that we should eat less animal products, but there are thousands of people who work in this industry. If fishing stopped tomorrow, how would we a) employ them and b) feed all the people that they feed?

I’ve not watched it yet. But then I’m a fully paid up vegan freak.

So what? Be more informed?

I agree with Monbiot where he says:

The central premise of neoliberalism is that the locus of decision-making can be shifted from democratic government to the individual, working through “the market”. Rather than using politics to change the world for the better, we can do it through our purchases. If neoliberals even half-believed this nonsense, you’d expect them to ensure we were as knowledgable as possible, so that we could exercise effective decision-making in their great consumer democracy.

@soobalias

multiple facts from the programme have been disputed/clarified since, essentially not a 100% professional analysis of the situation

That’s unfortunate. But unsurprisingly more unfortunate than it warrants.

Monbiot again:

So why the silence? Perhaps because some fisheries scientists, as the great biologist Ransom Myers pointed out, have come to identify with the industry on which their livelihoods depend. While they seem happy for outrageous distortions that favour industrial fishing to pass, they go berserk about much smaller mistakes that disfavour it.

To me, the problem is symbolised by two words I keep stumbling across in scientific and official papers: “underfished” and “underexploited”. These are the terms fisheries scientists use for populations that are not “fully fished”. The words people use expose the way they think, and what powerful, illuminating, horrible words these are. They seem to belong to another era, when we believed in the doctrine of dominion: humans have a sacred duty to conquer and exploit the Earth. I suspect some people are so angry because it’s not just malpractice Seaspiracy exposes, but an entire worldview.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/07/seaspiracy-earth-oceans-destruction-industrial-fishing

If fishing stopped tomorrow

It’s about overfishing not fishing per se. And anyway, very few human activities ‘just stop tomorrow’, even should there be/has there been a clear requirement.

dangeourbrain
Full Member

I once made the mistake of buying fishless fingers

Would that not just be literally a box of fingers? Now that's ethically challenging

What about poor Kevin the carrot and his family..... vegi-saurus-rex... ?

Would that not just be literally a box of fingers? Now that’s ethically challenging

A) they'd likely taste better though probably gristley.
B) so long as they're free range organic fingers I see no problem.

What about poor Kevin the carrot and his family….. vegi-saurus-rex… ?

?

Almost 80% of the world's marine fish stocks are now fully exploited, overexploited or depleted. The implications for food security and global economies are enormous...

...The oceans are the world’s largest ecosystem, home to 80% of the planet’s biodiversity, and account for more than 97% of its water. They produce nearly half the planet’s oxygen too. Lose the oceans and we lose everything. https://time.com/collection/davos-2019/5502588/oceans-in-peril/

Same goes for insects. We are also losing them. Fast.

My sense of humour probably needs adjustment because I’m not getting the carrot joke. Time for booze...🙃

Free range organic fingers ... I'll not be eating them. Who knows where they've been!

"Shock-you-mentary" is a bit of a crass genre preying on peoples' naivety. I tend to avoid them. I don't do commercial TV so haven't seen this, but there was something back in about 2009 that no doubt said similar things (End of the Line?)

It would be nice if we could do everything in moderation as is suggested and learn how to manage ecosystems sustainably.

Anyway we're all doomed anyway as we won't be able to reproduce soon ( https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/28/shanna-swan-fertility-reproduction-count-down)
... so 'perhaps' we'll be replaced as Earth's dominant species by fish once there's too few of us left to kill them all?

TL;CBA – dont eat bluefin tuna, dont eat “”””sustainable””””” tuna, actually dont eat cod, haddock, prawns, clams, salmon, farmed salmon

I learned this 13 years ago when I started my Marine Biology degree, unfortunately it's next to impossible to persuade any politicians to actually care about.

It was an interesting watch, I didn't really warm to Ali but he is very passionate about raising awareness of the issue. The Sea Shepard’s involvement was a given and my view of them is slightly tainted by the reality show they did years back, I can’t fault their intentions rather question their methods.

More so the link between “heroes” and “villains” maybe.

This was probably the most enlightening bit for me, the overall content was nothing new except highlighting these relationships.

The BBC have just done a fact checking piece on this which addresses some of the claims.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/56660823

If I weren’t already vegetarian it would have given me cause to think about my eating habits.

Another fact-checking piece by a marine fisheries ecologist/biologist.

https://www.inverse.com/science/seaspiracy-fact-check-debunked-interview

Problem with these shock documentaries is that they leave people with a sense of panic and guilt and often we are not able or empowered to do anything about it. OK us in the UK can stop eating fish and seafood if we're worried about the problem of overfishing, but we are not making any impact whatsoever. We in the UK eat sweet FA fish, we're relative fish haters. We consume less than one third of one percent of the global fish tonnage every year. We just don't consume enough to be part of the problem or the solution, so just crack on and do what you can about sourcing what fish you eat from sustainable sources. It for other nations to sort out. It may come as a shock to some people but Britain is not the cause of every single global issue, often we're not significant contributors, and we're not able to fix every single issue. We should do our part of course, but we need a sense of perspective about our actual impact.

Another fact-checking piece by a marine fisheries ecologist/biologist.

https://www.inverse.com/science/seaspiracy-fact-check-debunked-interview/blockquote >

A mate of mine who's a well respected marine scientist based in Scotland also recommended the article. The author Bryce Stewart states in a follow-up tweet:
https://twitter.com/BD_Stew/status/1380823631308132355
and in a further reply mentions The End Of The Line (available to rent on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/theendoftheline2).

 

Is this going to threaten the availability of fish finger butties?

We’ve switched to the ‘fishless fingers” for butties. Not veggie, just don’t think it’s worth stripping oceans for heavily processed meals.

This documentary doesn’t look worth the bother, does it. Well worth reading what Greenpeace are campaigning for in this area though.

https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/challenges/sustainable-fishing/

I watched it and thought it was such BS. So much confirmation bias.

Yes I get that industrialised fishing is impactful (throwing dead fish back because of quotas is horrendous and hate whaling with a passion), but there weren’t any thoughts on the alternative.

Let’s say you convince the entire audience to stop eating fish, then what? They all need to eat something else. Even if that something else is tofu, it means more deforestation. What’s better?

Sure it will convince a lot of people. Not sure if that’s good or bad.

I feel a classical music reference coming on...

No chowder for you! Cos clams have feelings too
Well actually they don't have central nervousness
No manhatten style, clams have the right to smile
Come to think about it they don't have a face

The fishless fingers in sandwiches are alright. Have some cheese singles and ketchup on them. They're not bad. Cheese singles ymmv!