In 2010 I want to live the change I want to see in the world. And it doesn’t have to be a huge, earth-chattering announcement. Just a simple resolution: To continue minimizing my carbon footprint on our Planet Earth so children born in 2009 have something left for then to enjoy. That shouldn’t be too much asking but when it involves any sort of change to my lifestyle, it usually involves some sacrifices.
Looking at a 2009 calendar I have at home, I can see that 2009 was not as green as I wished it had. There were lots of airplane carbon miles taken and with the low price of gasoline, the road trips were not as efficient as they could have been either.
On the food front, I am afraid that I still need to do a lot better than I have. A few days ago, I was listening to an interview with Sylvia Earle –the renowned oceanographer and environmentalist. Where she reminded us that fishing, and eating fish, is not what it once was back in the 1950s. We have all seen the pictures of the proud fishermen showing their truck-full of fish caught on their fishing trips back in the day, compared to the dwindling displays of fish caught by their counterparts in this century. The evidence is clear that our appetite for seafood has hugely decimated some species of fish and that we need to do something to conserve some species or we will not leave anything to our youngsters. One of the points that she mentioned was that overfishing happens when the diminishing yields pushes fishermen to use technology that simply wipes out whole schools of fish together with anything else that gets caught in their nets.
One example is the harvesting of fish to extract the “fish oil” that we now push on everyone to increase our Omega 3-fatty acids. It is supposedly good for us but the fish populations where it comes from are suffering the consequences. Instead of promoting fish oil, why don’t we promote other, more sustainable, sources of Omega-3s? It’s usually a matter of economics, but also a very short-sighted view of the world. It’s a ‘lets-use-what-we-have-now, we’ll-worry-about-the future-later’ philosophy. Except that when “the future” finally comes around, it will be too late to salvage anything. Look what happened to the bisons in North America, at one point in time they were thought to be a limitless supply of food and hide. A few years later, human ingenuity managed to decimate the bison population to the point that they are now treated as museum pieces. Could we do that to the big, pelagic fish (tuna, marlin, swordfish) of our oceans? Well, the bison’s at least had the advantage (or disadvantage) of being visible to hunters and consumers. Someone should have realized that there was an end to the “infinite cloud” of animals on our Western prairies. I’m afraid the fish are less visible and as long as one country is competing with another for those “free resources” out in the wide, blue ocean, the fish will always be seeing as an infinite resource.
So, back to my changes for 2010. As soon as I’m done with the bottle of those cheap Sam’s brandname, nasty, environmentally-atrocious, old Fish Oil softgels, I’m switching to sustainable, environmentally-friendly, algae-based Omega-3 source. This could almost be considered a ‘a-small-step-for-man’ kind of thing, which could cost me a little more, but if more people would do that it could save a few more fish for Ethan and all the others born 2009 and beyond.
Posts
