July 22, 2008: Jennifer Jacquet gives the talk "A Way Forward in a Sea of Market Based Initiatives to Save Wild Fish" at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, CA.
July 19, 2008: Randy Olson's film Sizzle premieres on the West Coast at Outfest in Hollywood, CA.
July 9, 2008: Jennifer Jacquet gives the talk "Flawed Data, Reef Fisheries, And Food Security: A Close Inspection
Of Marine Fisheries Catches in Mozambique, Tanzania, Fiji, And
The Solomon Islands" at the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
Check out some research that was presented (that I unfortunately did not get to see) at the Society for Conservation Biology conference in Chattanooga, TN. Here is what the scientist did: he gave consumers the option of eating caviar from a "rare" species of sturgeon or a "common" species of sturgeon. Most consumers, even before trying it, imagined they would like the "rare" eggs best. After eating it, 70% of consumers preferred the "rare" species. But here's the kicker: all the caviar was from farmed sturgeon. This means that certain rare species that are desired in luxury markets--probably animals like sharks and seahorses-- might be forced into an "extinction vortex". It also means that consumers are again likely be very bad at self-regulating since it is not the average consumer (but the luxury one) making the demands...
SB's Randy Olson joins a conversation on NPR's Talk of the Nation to discuss his new movie Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy. Randy and folks from The Martin Group discuss how to break through "the green fog" and fight green fatigue.
In this month's issue of Search Magazine (formally Science and Spirit), Chris Hallman writes about Pleistocene Rewilding and talks to conservation luminaries Michael Soule, Paul Martin, and Dave Forman. Hallman concludes that sometimes even science needs to take a leap of faith. Soule elegantly agrees by adding, "We're damned if we do, and damned if we don't...I'd rather be damned for careful doing than for doing nothing."
As Josh just mentioned, overfishing is an underestimated problem. Furthermore, new research from UBC Fisheries Centre economist Rashid Sumaila (and one of my esteemed committee-members!) shows that rising fuel costs may not keep fishers, big or small, off the water, to the extent that governments continue to subsidize fuel costs (which account for 60 percent the cost of fishing).
At present, fuel subsidies account for roughly 20 percent of the $34 billion in annual fisheries subsidies. These subsidies are taxpayer monies redirected to fishermen often in the form of grants, loans, tax preferences, and income support programs. But fuel subsidies might get even bigger as governments around the world (e.g., France, Japan, Algeria, the Philippines) cave into fisher protests demands for handouts.
"Fishermen are a powerful lobby and there is no real counter-lobby, so when they step into the political arena they usually win," said Sumaila. "But most people don't receive a subsidy to get to work--so why should fishermen?"
The researchers found that the vast majority of fuel subsidies occur in developed nations. Of the 86 countries analyzed, developed nations subsidized fuel by around $5 billion or nearly 80 percent of the global total. Developing countries, which were more numerous, accounted for only a little more than 20 percent of the global fuel subsidies.
"Profit is one of the biggest motivators in overfishing and profits are kept artificially high with government handouts," says Sumaila. "People might talk about the freedom of the seas but certainly the oceans are not subject to free markets."
Rather than wasting public money on fossil fuels and overfishing, Sumaila suggests we should use to it retrain fishers for other jobs. Pareto optimal!
The findings will be published in the ICES Journal of Marine Science in September.
Nature reported last week about more bad news. Daniel Pauly along with SB's very own (Jennifer) and others reported on their new research that documents the underreported fishing impacts of artesianal fisheries around the world. The results are not pretty: the amount of overfishing is very often underreported, sometimes as much as three or four times. One aspect that is contributing to the problem is the fisheries agreements that high-income nations often have with low-income nations. Jennifer describes it as a Robin Hood in reverse, "Instead of stealing from the rich to give to the poor, it's stealing from the poor to give to the rich."
The authors presented their findings at 11th International Coral Reef Symposium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida - which you already heard a bit about from Jennifer. The impacts are clear - and it's becoming clear that those impacts are more often than not underestimated. Now we need some solutions.
Given that Randy Olson is not only a director but also the founder of the Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project as well as my co-blogger, you might expect that I have favorable things to say about his latest film--and I do. It was a delight to watch Sizzle and equally delightful to be privy to the evolution of the film from an idea to interview clips to a full-length feature...comedy?
Sizzle is indeed funny. But it is so much more that it becomes difficult to categorize, which is part of its strength. From serious statements by scientists to dazzling polar bear shots, from Olson's mother Muffy Moose out clubbing to a sobering finale with Katrina victims in New Orleans' Ninth Ward, Sizzle wrings a new twist in what has become a wet blanket of a topic: global warming.
Olson challenges the audience to abandon the idea of genre with a half-cast of hired actors, including Mitch Silpa (the infamous David Blaine look-alike and the garrulous Officer Phillip Pick-O), and the other half is real-life scientists and communicators (though some are more entitled to speak on the topic of global warming than others). With this recipe, there is truly something for everyone.
In this world of half-genres, the climate skeptics almost seem like actors because they are so convincing (which is part of Olson's point). The skeptics might be good communicators but, unfortunately, as Olson points out, they are of the same group of miscreants who denied the fact that smoking causes cancer and/or that CFCs damaged the atmosphere. One of the film's arch skeptics, Dr. Chilingarian, was a continued source of amusement and his facts were almost as crooked as his fuzzy mustache.
But just how were these goons given a voice on the subject of climate change? Dr. Noemi Oreskes of the University of California San Diego reminds us (in a shifting baselines moment) that, back in the 1960s, the pubic and even President Lyndon Johnson once took climate scientists seriously. Then there came the era of Reaganomics corporate strategy, and climate skepticism and...Presto!.
While there are tactical skeptics (who say things such as "nobody can predict the future"), there are also antidotes to this lingo that scientists can and do employ (e.g., the fact that climate models developed back in the 1980s have largely predicted the patterns we see today). In the end, the skeptics will be remembered only for being skeptics while scientist turned filmmaker Randy Olson will undoubtedly be remembered for his insightful commentary on science communications.
We're in the middle of the Outfest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. I've been to four of their parties now. I have to say, these are the nicest, most supportive, most polite, most fun, most open, most down home, most un-pretentious filmmakers I have ever met in nearly 20 years of going to film festivals. I had no idea. I'm thinking of all the posers and phonies I've sat and talked to at the probably 50 film festivals I've been to over the years. All the full-of-themselves, dressed in black, name dropping, insecure, snotty vacuous filmmakers I've had to stand around and chat with at film festivals, and suddenly, this entire event is completely different. And especially for me. I've spent countless evenings at film festivals enduring blank stares as I try to explain that I used to be a scientist and now I'm a filmmaker, and I can read it in their eyes, "Euwww, you're different." But with this group it is the exact opposite vibe -- "Hey, that's cool, you're different." And it really shouldn't come as any sort of surprise. This is a festival that embraces things that are different, whether they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. Why not embrace trans-professional, too.
So in honor of their friendliness, we had to bring out own special guest to the Pool Party yesterday. Can you spot him in the photo?
OUTFEST POOL PARTY: Can you spot the "Sizzle" cast member?
Barack Obama attended the 11th International Symposium on Coral Reefs and here is proof: him sandwiched between two top ocean scientists and proponents of the term 'shifting baselines': Daniel Pauly and Jeremy Jackson.
Okay, okay. So he is a cardboard cutout. I purchased him back in Ohio to ruffle the feathers in my Republican hearth and thought he might come in handy at the conference. Some in attendance had a different perspective, though, and as I walked into one of the upstairs rooms (where I had set Obama up off to side), he was being carted off by organizers who said they received complaints. I had to run after them to rescue him. I assured them Obama wouldn't say anything. I just thought it would be good to have him listening in on some of the ideas being presented: such as increased protection for the Florida Keys, stricter regulations on fishing (including spearfishing), and strong commitment to climate change mitigation.
I am here in Ft. Lauderdale at the 11th International Coral Reefs Symposium, which only happens once every four years. It's a big deal and more than 3000 scientists have gathered to discuss coral reefs for the week. The news for coral reefs, as you might suspect, is grim (one scientist described them as the living dead--the zombies of the sea). But there is good news about the scientists involved in reef research.
Given that this is my first coral reef conference, my baseline is this week. But for scientists such as Jeremy Jackson from Scripps and Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller from the UBC Fisheries Centre, who have been attending for decades, they have noticed a real shift in values among the scientists. Not too long ago, the majority of scientists were disinclined toward political activism and media attention. This week, there was resounding support for policy action, media awareness for reefs, and to form something akin to the Union of Concerned Scientists (who unified for climate change) for coral reefs. After applauding the efforts of Greenpeace, one scientist added: "I'm ready! You can chain me to an Acropora."
In terms of our own commitment to media outreach, Daniel Pauly, Dirk Zeller and I were part of a panel of speakers that also included Hawaii-based scientist Alan Friedlander to discuss the problem of underreporting coral reef fisheries catches. The story we told (including my analogy about allowing European fishing vessels to fish African waters as a reversal of the Robin Hood parable--allowing the rich to steal from the poor) was masterfully (and quickly!) recounted by several journalists in attendance, including:
1) This story from Ken Weiss, pulitzer prize winner for his series on the Altered Oceans at the L.A. Times, which highlighted some of our work and looked more specificically at the Hawaiian Islands.
If I like what I see, I'll receive 5 more issues (6 in all) for just $14.95. That's 50% off the cover price! If I'm not completely satisfied, I'll simply write "cancel" on the invoice and owe nothing. The free issue is mine to keep.
