Marine life reduced by 50% since 1970

[LAOLONG]

http://news.yahoo.com/global-marine-populations-slashed-half-since-1970-wwf-003519398.html

[voidisyinyang]

http://www.pbs.org/earth-a-new-wild/episode-oceans/

 

This is a good overview on some of the ocean crisis.

 

But the global warming is much more dramatic in the oceans in the poles.

 

http://innersoundqigong.blogspot.com/2015/09/entering-age-of-dinosaurs-again-post.html

 

I blogged on this.

[Marblehead]

Little will change though because there are not enough people who care.

 

And we continue to over-populate the planet with humans.

[Karl]

There is a simple solution to the main problem-that of tragedy of the commons-in which the ocean is treated as common land which prevents private ownership and responsible fish farming and conservation.

 

Here is a good piece describing that problem and what can fix it:

 

 

https://mises.org/library/save-bluefin-tuna-through-property-rights

 

 

Increases in temperature-or not, so far we haven't had any warming at all for 17 years-are not things we can do much about. The problem seems to be related to over fishing, dragging and pollution/destruction of the environment necessary to sustain marine life.

Edited September 16, 2015 by Karl

[thelerner]

There is a simple solution to the main problem-that of tragedy of the commons-in which the ocean is treated as common land which prevents private ownership and responsible fish farming and conservation.

 

Here is a good piece describing that problem and what can fix it:

https://mises.org/library/save-bluefin-tuna-through-property-rights

Cutting up the ocean into 10,000's of pieces and letting owners do whatever they want with there piece has many problems starting with enforcing boundaries, ending with mass polluters and lots in between.

 

I'd go in the other direction.  Nations getting together and declaring massive no fishing zones in several areas.  Going beyond that and installing specific structures that would help fish, ie artificial reefs as designed by ocean experts.

 

This would not be a substitute to intelligent global fishing regulations.   Maybe we'd want year long or multi-year sabbaticals on catching some species.  Hard since they swim together, but its a plan that should be looked into.  Public awareness and shaming can play a major role.   Given time and space nature can bounce back pretty quickly. 

 

This is a very serious problem.  Mankind is destroying the oceans diversity with a fork. 

Edited September 16, 2015 by thelerner

[Karl]

Cutting up the ocean into 10,000's of pieces and letting owners do whatever they want with there piece has many problems starting with enforcing boundaries, ending with mass polluters and lots in between.

 

I'd go in the other direction. Nations getting together and declaring massive no fishing zones in several areas. Going beyond that and installing specific structures that would help fish, ie artificial reefs as designed by ocean experts.

 

This would not be a substitute to intelligent global fishing regulations. Maybe we'd want year long or multi-year sabbaticals on catching some species. Hard since they swim together, but its a plan that should be looked into. Public awareness and shaming can play a major role. Given time and space nature can bounce back pretty quickly.

 

This is a very serious problem. Mankind is destroying the oceans diversity with a fork.

Privatising the oceans has already been partially done in the water surrounding Iceland. It has begun to regenerate the depleted fish stocks. Modern technology could be employed via satellite, SOSUS, patrol vessels and buoys to make it work.

 

Quotas and other methods have failed to produce results and have created unforeseen consequences with even more damage. Trawlers operate in relatively shallow waters, fairly close to shore so it's not as big a problem as one might think to privatise the ocean.

Edited September 16, 2015 by Karl

[thelerner]

I wouldn't mind plans of stewardship which you see in Iceland, but willy nilly selling ocean plots to the highest bidder.  That would be problematic.  Policing the ocean, can be next to impossible.  Course your idea is no policing or regulation let people catch (or pollute?) whatever they will in the hopes it'll turn out right.   I don't think it would. 

 

Some business's would kill, catch and profit off anything that swims into there region.  It may not be an intelligent long term plan, maybe at some point they'd go out of business, or more likely use the profits to buy up another region to exploit. 

[Karl]

I wouldn't mind plans of stewardship which you see in Iceland, but willy nilly selling ocean plots to the highest bidder.  That would be problematic.  Policing the ocean, can be next to impossible.  Course your idea is no policing or regulation let people catch (or pollute?) whatever they will in the hopes it'll turn out right.   I don't think it would. 

 

Some business's would kill, catch and profit off anything that swims into there region.  It may not be an intelligent long term plan, maybe at some point they'd go out of business, or more likely use the profits to buy up another region to exploit. 

 

Well it's homesteading rather than simply selling off the oceans. No one owns them yet. Somebody sets up and pays for the 'fencing' security etc. They run it as a business and it's the profit and loss dynamics-just like any farm-which determines success. If they fish the ocean out, then their investment is destroyed by unsustainable operation.

 

There isn't anything but the market and trespass laws/policing to prevent bad actors, but, as we already have bad actors destroying the commons, it's kind of a moot point. We are trying to get from here to a better place and this is one suggestion that has already produced results.

 

Who knows what technology would be released once the seas are private property. An entire marine aquaculture industry would be set up with innovative methods of farming. Some areas might well be bought up by people who wished to have tourism on a reef area. They would be able to prosecute those that damaged their property by chemicals or other things.

 

We can do the same with the skies and rivers. It would make polluters directly responsible. If fossil fuel fumes were not acceptable then producers would have to find better, cleaner ways of providing transport/energy/chemicals etc.

[canacan]

1970s, huh ? Well, that is before the end of the Cold War. Since then marines have been on many more battlefields, not a surprise then their average lifespan lowered... But 50% is still an impressive number...

 

Wait... What ?

 

Oh, sorry guys.

Edited September 16, 2015 by canacan

[thelerner]

Well it's homesteading rather than simply selling off the oceans. No one owns them yet. Somebody sets up and pays for the 'fencing' security etc. They run it as a business and it's the profit and loss dynamics-just like any farm-which determines success.

It ain't going to be homesteading if its $10 million per square mile.  The 'security' is going to be extraordinarily expensive too.  Ma and Pa won't be the main buyers, only people with big pockets will be owners.   You assume the people who are causing the problem will almost magically go away if things are privatized.  I don't follow that.   Not only will the new boss, be the old boss, but he'll have no regulations or laws to keep them from the worst offenses.   

 

In this instance I see catastrophe.  Small boaters, small fishing boats are screwed.  The sea itself is filled with (invisible) no trespassing signs.  Traveling the coast in a boat becomes a legalistic nightmare, maybe the skies above it too.  People with very deep pockets own the coastal waters and can do with it what they want.   With no laws or regulation its a polluters dream.   

 

Don't be so eager for change that you go from here to worse. 

[Karl]

It ain't going to be homesteading if its $10 million per square mile.  The 'security' is going to be extraordinarily expensive too.  Ma and Pa won't be the main buyers, only people with big pockets will be owners.   You assume the people who are causing the problem will almost magically go away if things are privatized.  I don't follow that.   Not only will the new boss, be the old boss, but he'll have no regulations or laws to keep them from the worst offenses.   

 

In this instance I see catastrophe.  Small boaters, small fishing boats are screwed.  The sea itself is filled with (invisible) no trespassing signs.  Traveling the coast in a boat becomes a legalistic nightmare, maybe the skies above it too.  People with very deep pockets own the coastal waters and can do with it what they want.   With no laws or regulation its a polluters dream.   

 

Don't be so eager for change that you go from here to worse. 

 

Not at all. There could be all kinds of setups, from big business to cooperatives. At the end of the day someone has to work the sea and people will have to paid to do it. The result will be more fish, more production, more opportunity for businesses and cheaper fish for us all.

 

How can it be a polluters dream ? At present companies can just dump chemicals, rubbish, destroy ocean beds, over fishing, have oil spills. All that would be reduced by private ownership.

 

Having deep pockets is irrelevant. Wether someone has very little, or a lot, there capital represents the amount they have decided is important to them, they don't arbitrarily invest without a good return on risk.

[thelerner]

At present its illegal to dump chemicals.  Under your system it wouldn't even be .  You think its done now, wait til it can done without impunity, then you'll see what real disaster looks like.  Cause right now most companies pay big bucks to get rid of nasty waste, when its legal to dump it in the ocean, you'll see it climb 100 fold. 

 

You want to put the ocean up for sale and think deep pockets is irrelevant.  You think a company with billions isn't going to buy up as much real estate as possible. 

 

You jump from someone has to work the sea and people have to get paid To more fish, more production, cheaper fish.  I'm not sure how you get from a to b.  Why more?  How much will you have to pay to drive your boat to a few miles?   You'll be moving through several people private ocean.  How much will do you pay every couple miles, $30, $100's?   Someone owns good property they can set up tolls anyway they want.  Its not a free ocean anymore.  Its private property.  You want to play, you pay, every single person who's water you go through. 

 

I think corporations will want a big taste of it.  Owning a patch 5 miles out means nothing if you can't get to it.  As a kid I lived on a boat for 6 weeks.  Its great.  Yes there are taxes and regulations, but once your out there the ocean was free.  Not under your system, its all privatized.  Huge swatches you have to go around, and pay tolls (electrically through gps?) every few miles.   It'd be awful.  I don't know about better fishing, but there'd be a hell of a lot of craziness if people truly owned and put tolls on there piece of water. 

 

I think privately owned housing is very good.  People do take better care of what they own.  The Ocean, the sea shore is different; I'd hate to live in a world where its all owned privately. 

[Karl]

At present its illegal to dump chemicals.  Under your system it wouldn't even be .  You think its done now, wait til it can done without impunity, then you'll see what real disaster looks like.  Cause right now most companies pay big bucks to get rid of nasty waste, when its legal to dump it in the ocean, you'll see it climb 100 fold. 

 

You want to put the ocean up for sale and think deep pockets is irrelevant.  You think a company with billions isn't going to buy up as much real estate as possible. 

 

You jump from someone has to work the sea and people have to get paid To more fish, more production, cheaper fish.  I'm not sure how you get from a to b.  Why more?  How much will you have to pay to drive your boat to a few miles?   You'll be moving through several people private ocean.  How much will do you pay every couple miles, $30, $100's?   Someone owns good property they can set up tolls anyway they want.  Its not a free ocean anymore.  Its private property.  You want to play, you pay, every single person who's water you go through. 

 

I think corporations will want a big taste of it.  Owning a patch 5 miles out means nothing if you can't get to it.  As a kid I lived on a boat for 6 weeks.  Its great.  Yes there are taxes and regulations, but once your out there the ocean was free.  Not under your system, its all privatized.  Huge swatches you have to go around, and pay tolls (electrically through gps?) every few miles.   It'd be awful.  I don't know about better fishing, but there'd be a hell of a lot of craziness if people truly owned and put tolls on there piece of water. 

 

I think privately owned housing is very good.  People do take better care of what they own.  The Ocean, the sea shore is different; I'd hate to live in a world where its all owned privately. 

 

If they can already dump then those owning the private sea will make that far more difficult. Those sailing through their ocean with dangerous cargoes could be prevented from going anywhere.

 

They wouldn't be buying, they would have to homesteaded. Buying a big chunk of ocean which you don't utilise wouldn't work. It would be a huge financial risk. There are all sorts of land deals that investors won't touch, never mind the raw ocean.

 

Fish farming on private property would produce exactly the same kind of productive wealth that private ownership of farms achieved. Wealth is always in production. The more production the greater the wealth. It's a simple formula.

 

Some might ask for tolls, but they would be in competition with other patches of sea lanes just as it was with the opening of the sea canals created competition for sea ports. The free market would operate to ensure a balance.

[voidisyinyang]

The idea of the "free market" ensuring a balance is hilarious.

 

Free market fundamentalism is totally idiotic.

 

I wrote a college paper for my environmental economics class called the "incorrect supply and demand model."

 

It's incorrect because it assumes selfish greed as the main incentive for markets and it also assumes a linear logarithmic math model while ecology relies more on symbiosis and cooperative than competition and ecology is non-linear so the supply and demand model is inherently incorrect.

 

The fact is Western "free markets" are based on pillage and plunder - as simple as that.

 

 

 

The problem, say some scientists, is that the science underpinning the quotas is faulty, leading to excessively conservative allocations as a precaution against error. Those precautions in turn have been forcing most Northeast groundfish boats off the water.

This

has led to the call for more cooperative research with fishermen and non-governmental scientists, to do better surveys so that overcaution doesn't forfeit millions of pounds of fish every year.

Dr. Brian Rothschild, professor emeritus of marine biology at UMass Dartmouth's School for Marine Science and Technology, told The Standard-Times that "we should do better science and implement what makes scientific sense rather than do things politically." The conflict occurs because the environmental non-profit organizations view any relaxation of rebuilding timelines as politically inspired.

James Odlin of Maine, a fisherman, boat owner and regular at New England Fisheries Management Council meetings, wrote in rebuttal to Seafood News about the existing Magnuson-Stevens Act regulations, "The rigid arbitrary rebuilding timelines and unrealistic rebuilding targets that almost no one thinks are realistically achievable, do not reflect the current ecological conditions, along with very thin survey data that some would argue is not statistically valid, constitute a recipe for failure."

 

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20150518/NEWS/150519411

 

So here we have regulations considered too strict while the science says the fisheries are collapsing.

 

I studied this in ecology class at the University - the science is too complex to make any kind of linear deterministic prediction of the "market."

 

http://conservationmagazine.org/2008/07/the-courage-of-prediction/

 

So here you have an article citing a whole book arguing the same point that I made back in the early 90s at the University - Nature is too complex for the simplistic linear deterministic models of supple and demand.

 

Still that article argues with more complex modeling we can get the proper results.

 

Such was also the argument of the book:

 

http://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-wealth-of-nature/9780231127981

 

The Wealth of Nature - prof. Robert Nadeau.

 

How Mainstream Economics Has Failed the Environment

Robert L. Nadeau

 

Looks like it's been reissued.

 

The problem with these more sophisticated computer models is that they inherently rely on the computer iterations to determine the quality policy choices.

 

And get this - computers don't care about the future of Nature or Humanity.

 

Think I'm making some kind of strange logical fallacy - ?

 

Quantum chaos mathematician, Steve Strogatz, states that with the extension of quantum chaos math:

 

 

"We'll be stuck in an age of authoritarianism, except it'll no longer be coming from politics or religious dogma, but from science itself".

 

 (Steven Strogatz, "The End of Insight", The Edge World Question Center 2006, "What Is Your Dangerous Idea?")

 

Yeah so automation is the number one cause of job loss.

 

Automation is also how the oceans are being raped.

 

Didn't you notice yesterday the BBC covered the Somali Pirates in action again - why?

 

To protect their fisheries - from illegal trawlers.

 

And are the trawlers in shallow water? Nope they are deep water trawlers for lobster.

 

So the claim that trawlers are in just shallow water is wrong.

 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22522.htm

 

 

When huge foreign trawlers suddenly began appearing, the local fishermen who plied their trade with simple nets and small fiberglass boats were wiped out, Eid said.

"They fished everything - sharks, lobsters, eggs," he recalled. "They collided with our boats. They came with giant nets and swept everything out of the sea."

At the outset, fishermen in the ramshackle ports of Puntland, Somaliland's rowdy neighbor, re-branded themselves as "coast guards." The first hijackings that Eid remembered came in 1997, when pirates from the port of Hobyo seized a Chinese fishing vessel and then held a Kenyan ship for a $500,000 ransom.

 

I guess you can say the Somalis are reclaiming the free trade rights to profit.

 

Like the new TPP - secret 14 country corporate-controlled rights to profit agreement. Any threats to the rights to maximize profit means the corporations in secret tribunals can over-rule any regulatory laws of a nation - this is also true with the WTO.

 

The free market is slavery for the masses and the right to plunder and pillage for a secret elite.

 

Anybody promoting the free market is just kissing up to the elite - meanwhile the elite keep raping the planet.

 

This problem goes back to Plato - it's built into the logarithmic mathematics.

 

 

This is a very good short video that exposes how idiotic people are about logarithmic mathematics.

[Karl]

If it was the case that the elite wanted free markets they would have them. They don't. The reason is that they fear free markets and will engage in any kind of subterfuge to prevent them operating. The problem now is that most of the general population are dependent on cronyism for their living and therefore they don't want to support it. They are also believe the same thing you do-that it benefits the elite. Therefore we have an ever decreasing amount of free market and an ever increasing amount of war, corruption, falling living standards and poor use of resources that cause unnecessary damage to it.

 

Adding maths models and chaos therory to economics doesn't work. It's a social science not physics.

 

Your solution appears to be to do nothing at all, or add yet more government which is the cause of the damage in the first place.

 

Calling it free market 'fundamentalism' is just an appeal to emotion. The free market just means that people trade with whoever they like on a voluntary basis. It's totally natural and therefore Tao. Indeed I came to the free market approach through spiritual practice. Before that I was of the same mind as you.

 

The problem for you will come if your own government turns on you, or creates a war that destroys your way of life, or blows the economy up like Greece. Then your maths and theories collapse.

Edited September 16, 2015 by Karl

[voidisyinyang]

Iceland is not some model to follow for fisheries. Sorry.

 

http://fishingnewsinternational.com/iceland-troubled-industry/

 

The term "free market fundamentalism" is used by Professor Naomi Oreskes in her expose of the scientists following such ideology in their quest to cover-up the global warming crisis. So when you say it's an appeal to emotionalism - actually the opposite is true - it is the "free market fundamentalists" who rely on emotional appeal to cover-up the ecological science on the crisis.

 

Global Warming Deniers and Their Proven Strategy of Doubt

e360.yale.edu/feature/global_warming.../2285/

Yale University

Jun 10, 2010 - For years, free-market fundamentalists opposed to government regulation have sought to create doubt ... by naomi oreskes and erik m. conway

Merchants of Doubt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt

Wikipedia

Oreskes and Conway write that a handful of politically conservative scientists ... the draconian measures that conservatives and market fundamentalists most fear. ... Philip Kitcher in Science says that Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway are "two ...

Merchants of Doubt - Home

www.merchantsofdoubt.org/

In their new book, Merchants of Doubt, historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik ... how the ideology of free market fundamentalism, aided by a too-compliant media, ...

End Times: Oreskes and Conway's Collapse of Western ...

ncse.com/.../end-times-oreskes-con...

National Center for Science Education

Jun 26, 2014 - Historians of science Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, authors of .... the magical thinking of what they term “free market fundamentalism,” the ...

Manufactured Ignorance » American Scientist

www.americanscientist.org/.../manufactured-ignorance

American Scientist

by R Proctor - ‎Cited by 1 - ‎Related articles

Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway give us some very good—if ... All of which helps explain why these free-market fundamentalists, steeped in Cold War ...

Living on Earth: The Collapse of Western Civilization

loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=14...

PRI: Living on Earth

Jul 25, 2014 - Science historians Naomi Oreskes of Harvard and Erik Conway of CalTech's new ... the free market and science are all failing humanity and the planet. ... as an ideology, the ideology that we call 'free market fundamentalism'.

Must-Read 'The Collapse of Western Civilization' -- A View ...

thinkprogress.org/.../collapse-of-western-civilization-oresk...

ThinkProgress

Jul 16, 2014 - That's the question answered by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway in their ... They blame a rigid adherence to “free-market fundamentalism” ...

Handful of scientists behind climate manipulation ...

universitypost.dk/article/handful-scientists-behind-climate-manipulation

So claims Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at the University of ... namely the belief in something Naomi Oreskes calls Free Market Fundamentalism.

[thelerner]

Sure, why not.. the elites fear free markets. 

 

Back on track.. Karl you were saying Iceland has had success cleaning up there Ocean.  I'm a pragmatist and on the outlook for what works.  So.. what exactly have they been doing?  

 

 

 

Can we have a few posts on possible solutions.  On a personal level not eating endangered fish seems to be a good idea- http://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-recommendations/seafood-a-z  and  http://seafood.edf.org/guide/worst

Edited September 16, 2015 by thelerner

[voidisyinyang]

Sure, why not.. the elites fear free markets. 

 

Back on track.. Karl you were saying Iceland has had success cleaning up there Ocean.  I'm a pragmatist and on the outlook for what works.  So.. what exactly have they been doing?  

 

 

 

Can we have a few posts on possible solutions.  On a personal level not eating endangered fish seems to be a good idea- http://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-recommendations/seafood-a-z  and  http://seafood.edf.org/guide/worst

 

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QjRmmy81QysJ:www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/07/selling-sea-how-our-fish-lost-their-freedom-market-forces+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

 

It isn’t just Iceland. All around the world, fishing-rights markets have led to dispossession.

[voidisyinyang]

How the introduction of Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) are linked with speculation, ‘fish bubbles’ and the downfall of an entire country’s economy.

Karl Benediktsson and Anna Karlsdóttir, In European Urban and Regional Studies 2011 18: 228

Abstract

In this commentary, the crisis that hit Iceland in late 2008 and involved the collapse of the country’s entire banking system is discussed briefly and its impact on regional employment levels is outlined. Currently, unemployment is highest in south-west Iceland, including Reykjavík. Fisheries-dependent communities have performed better, but fisheries management is yet again a major issue in the political arena. We trace the origins of the Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) system and speculate about its role in the series of events that eventually led to the downfall of the banks. Ongoing attempts to reform the fisheries management system are discussed. These include the re-establishment of open-access coastal fishing and the gradual recall of ITQs by the state. Finally, some issues regarding the future of Iceland’s economy are discussed briefly.

Keywords: banking crisis, fisheries, Iceland, ITQs, regional development

 

 

http://reclaimthesea.org/iceland-thanks-for-all-the-fish/

[johndoe2012]

Free market fundamentalism is just people disliking government and wanting anarchy.

 

Anarchy is not possible yet due to low consciousness level of the average human.

 

I predict it could happen in about 8000 years but who knows.

 

First we need to get rid of fundamentalism like Christianity is practiced today and also Islam.

[Karl]

Free market fundamentalism is just people disliking government and wanting anarchy.

Anarchy is not possible yet due to low consciousness level of the average human.

I predict it could happen in about 8000 years but who knows.

First we need to get rid of fundamentalism like Christianity is practiced today and also Islam.

 

Free markets can exist with Government as long as they don't intervene.

 

I say it's the Government itself that is directly interfering with expansion of consciousness. Isn't the idea of 'control' the very thing that is abhorred by all spiritual practised that are intended to expand consciousness. If people are ruled by tyrants and oppressed physically, in the case of poorer States, and psychologically in the West then it is the state that is spoiling the party.

 

Neither Christianity or The Muslim faith are 'fundamentalism'. There are people who use it as an excuse for violence, just as they use the idea of democracy to promote violence. We should end government fundamentalism which is a far more dangerous type of fundamentalism than any traditional religious faith.

[Karl]

http://reclaimthesea.org/iceland-thanks-for-all-the-fish/

 

I've never had such a laugh. It's right up there with the 'danger' of having deflation, ZIRP is normal and QE is good.

 

The problem with Iceland is exactly the same problem as elsewhere. Profligate banks supported by Government cronyism. The result in Iceland was to turn fishermen into investment bankers. This is a different thing from the ITQ. Icelands main exports went from fish to banking. It's a frankly amazing claim to suggest that it was the fishing industry that caused the banking industry to crash. That can only be written by 'friends of bankers'.

[Karl]

Sure, why not.. the elites fear free markets. 

 

Back on track.. Karl you were saying Iceland has had success cleaning up there Ocean.  I'm a pragmatist and on the outlook for what works.  So.. what exactly have they been doing?  

 

 

 

Can we have a few posts on possible solutions.  On a personal level not eating endangered fish seems to be a good idea- http://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-recommendations/seafood-a-z  and  http://seafood.edf.org/guide/worst

 

ITQ. It's not a privatised, but it's closer. Still a state controlled 'command and control' system. The next step should be to privatise the sea as quota systems aren't ideal, but have restored fish stocks.

[Karl]

@ Lerner

 

The opening few paragraphs of this book will explain what has happened to the fishing industry since the banking boom/crash

 

 

http://www.hayek.sk/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/deep_freeze.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad

[thelerner]

@ Lerner The opening few paragraphs of this book will explain what has happened to the fishing industry since the banking boom/crash http://www.hayek.sk/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/deep_freeze.pdf Sent from my iPad

 

&

The next step should be to privatise the sea as quota systems aren't ideal, but have restored fish stocks.

 

 

The banking collapse was bad for the fishing industry.  Got it, not very surprising.  Your assumption is that when there's no government oversight or regulations banks will be safer!?  If that's what you think, there are lots of nonbanks that exist right now that'll take your money without persky FDIC insurances. 

 

Glad you found quota systems helped restore Icelandic fish stocks.  I still believe privatizing the ocean would be disastrous.  Would fisherman be able to put there boats in the water, if someone else owned it?  You'd need to pay, get permission or be banned from moving every few miles.   You can only fish on water that you specifically owned.   I doubt a fishing vessel could exist like that.  I assume they troll dozens of miles a day.  Only fishing the same small area every day, while fighting off any boats that make incursions into your fiefdom.  Somalia-like indeed.

 

In the paper it mentions how the boat owners are up to there eyeballs in debt.  Wait til they have to literally buy spots in the sea itself.  That'll be great for them.  More debt, more restrictions, a dozen negotiations every time they go out and cross into other people's ocean.  Cause in you vision, the ocean is no longer free.   

Edited September 17, 2015 by thelerner