You didn't want to eat them, did you?
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The world's fish and seafood could disappear by 2048 as overfishing and pollution destroy ocean ecosystems at an accelerating pace, US and Canadian researchers reported.If current global trends continue, the loss of fish and seafood will threaten humans' food supplies and the environment, according to the most exhaustive study to date on the subject, published in the November 3 issue of the US journal Science.
"Our analyzes suggest that business as usual would foreshadow serious threats to global food security, coastal water quality, and ecosystem stability, affecting current and future generations," the international team of ecologists and economists wrote in "Impact of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services."
Of course, we don't want to do anything about it, do we? After all, we don't want government regulation of free enterprise, do we?
Or should Republican pollyanna sloganeering be set aside, once and for all?
"Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world's ocean, we saw the same picture emerging," Worm said in a statement. "In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems. I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are -- beyond anything we suspected."When ocean species collapse, it makes the ocean itself weaker and less able to recover from shocks like global climate change, Worm said.
The decline in marine biodiversity is largely due to over-fishing and destruction of habitat, Worm said in a telephone interview from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Oh, but global warming is a hoax! Dick Cheney and George W. Bush said so! We don't want to be premature in our judgment, do we? Better to let the fish all die and the ice caps melt before we do anything about it — just so we're certain!
Right?
