[ExI] Shrimp (was Re: bull whoops ass)

[Kelly Anderson]

On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 3:31 PM, Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Being a shrimp lover myself, I can sympathize.  But there's a rather
> obvious solution that will allow you to stuff yourself with the little
> yummies, while sparing yourself the environmental angst: farmed
> shrimp, (of course).
>
> Anywhere from a third to a half of all shrimp harvested for blissful
> human gobbling are farmed.  So if you can find a way to distinguish
> the farmed shrimp vs the enviro-rape shrimp, then you're good to chow
> down.
>
> Yeah, yeah, I know, shrimp farming has some sort of negative
> environmental impact, as well.  Must get over it.  Where there's life,
> there's guilt.

Farmed shrimp is probably better than wild shrimp in terms of the
overall environmental impact. Almost all fish farms are close to shore
for the convenience of the workers involved, and to lower overall
expenses and cost to the consumer. The problem comes with the
concentration of waste near the shore. There isn't enough water churn
to flush it all out to sea fast enough, so you get a concentration of
nitrates in the water, which leads to an increase in algae growth
which kills mangroves, small wild fish, etc. It's a big problem, but
not a super duper big problem. As soon as you close the fish farm,
nature restores itself quickly... after all, nature is good at getting
rid of all kinds of shit.

The solution would appear simple enough... farm further out to sea...
the problem with that is that unfettered capitalism (which I am in
favor of) wants to farm in the low cost zones near shore.
Unfortunately, this impacts everyone else negatively... so in my
libertarian utopia, this would be a place for the limited government
(or better yet, a private assign of the government) to step in...
(sorry for any complete anarchists out there, but I'm sure you have
your own solutions, which I would love to hear) and impose a tax or
fine or levy that gives some other group the money necessary to clean
up the mess... the upshot of this is that the capitalistic bunch gets
to raise fish where it's cheaper, i.e. out in the middle of the ocean,
and balance is restored. Shrimp naturally assumes it's true price
INCLUDING the cost of cleaning up near shore activity, OR the cost of
farming out to sea, which ever is actually cheaper.

The unfettered capitalism of the California gold rush let people
destroy many environmentally sensitive sites in the Sierra Nevada and
other places. This is unacceptable (to me) moving forward. We know too
much about the true costs of such things. Unfettered capitalism must
not be allowed to make money at the expense of the environment we all
share, or the world will be a very dirty, smelly place, and it will be
very hard to live to be 400!

-Kelly