Ocean Politics
jjacquet | January 12, 2008Japan may have given in on their hunt for humpbacks, but Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace will not rest just because the most charistmatic whales have been spared. Anti-whalers are out in Antarctic waters protesting the killing of minke and fin whales. Andrew Revkin has more on the hunt for the hunters at Dot Earth, a blog of the New York Times.
jjacquet | January 8, 2008Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org
With the rise of Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee, lots has been written about the emergence of "post-partisan" politics (see Washington Post article, or Bill Bradley's blog, to name a few). To me, the appeal of both candidates is that they are great communicators who have picked up on the fact that lots of people in this country are tired of slash and burn politics.
Even though they both have records that could easily be characterized as "extreme" by their opponents (Obama has very high "liberal" voting scores in the Senate, while Huckabee is a…
jjacquet | January 4, 2008As the result of a NRDC lawsuit, a federal judge yesterday ordered the Navy to adopt measures for protecting marine mammals during midfrequency sonar exercises off San Diego County and other parts of Southern California. I wrote about the previous decision to overturn lowfrequency sonar use by the Navy in The Skeptic in 2004 in an article titled Sonar Ban Sounded Good. Pursuing a ban on midfrequency sonar is certainly a step up from pursuing a ban on lowfrequency--almost every navy boat in the world has midfrequency sonar and uses it regularly.
The ban is great news for acoustic feeders off…
jjacquet | December 27, 2007Great news! All the hard work by the team at the Intersection and beyond is paying off and there are now two Congressmen supporting the call for a debate. From the press release:
NEW YORK - A Republican and a Democratic member of the United States Congress, who are each also scientists, are leading an effort to push for a presidential debate on science and technology policy.
Congressman Vern Ehlers, R-MI, and congressman Rush Holt, D-NJ, have agreed to co-chair the non-partisan initiative, called ScienceDebate2008.com, whose signers also include fourteen Nobel laureates, several university…
jjacquet | December 19, 2007Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org
Let me be the first one to say, "I was wrong." Jennifer asked a few weeks back whether fisheries subsidies were an issue for Ocean Champions, and I rambled on with a response about how it hasn't really been an issue since the original days of the Magnuson Act, when we over-capitalized our domestic fleets while we were kicking out the foreign ones, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah.
Well, that was true until this weekend, when the Senate passed its version of the farm bill with an outrageous provision making fishermen eligible for the Farm Service…
jjacquet | December 13, 2007Check out this summary of new findings on how sea lice from fish farms threathen wild salmon population in today's New York Times. I thought the article's title (which is not chosen by the reporter), Parasites in Fish Farms Threaten Salmon, Researchers Say, cast an interesting shadow of doubt over the findings ("researchers say"), which were published in this week's issue of Science.
The lead author on the paper is Martin Krkosek, a Ph.D. student who presented much of his research at the Fisheries Centre in October 2005. After Krkosek gently ended his talk, Daniel Pauly encouraged a…
jjacquet | December 12, 2007This is the chair of one officer in Fiji's National Fisheries Division. Dr. Daniel Pauly was one of the first scientists to address the wide divide between fisheries science in the North and the South. In a 1994 essay on this topic, he wrote, "...those working with the management of tropical resources are forced to consider rural poverty...as a key variable affecting fisheries. This often widespread poverty seriously limits the range of acceptable options for management." But as you can see by this chair, the options for management were limited anyway.
That said, Fiji seems to have a…
jjacquet | December 11, 2007Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org
All right, here's more grist for the mill on the issue of whether climate is a campaign issue, and the answer is pretty clearly "No."This story on Grist analyzed the stump speeches of the major candidates and how much time they devoted to the issue of climate change in those speeches.
The result? "Climate change remains a minor issue for the major Democratic Party contenders for president, who devoted, on average, just 15 seconds -- or 2.6 percent of their speeches -- to the problem."
Very depressing, considering that the "officially unelected…
jjacquet | December 5, 2007Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org
I have to confess, I got nothin' this week.
Oh sure, there were articles this week in the New York Times on how red tide is causing major problems for California sea lions, and plenty of gloom and doom in other areas. Although the global warming meeting in Bali, while not likely to lead to major breakthroughs, is a potential bright spot just because it's happening.
But really, I'm drawing a blank, and so is everyone else on our team, which is why you didn't see a post yesterday. So instead, I'll just pose a question:
Does the presidential race…
jjacquet | November 27, 2007Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org
When you hear the news that Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) is retiring from the Senate at the end of the year, you might not think that has anything to do with the oceans. But, oh does it.
In the first place, Sen. Lott has always been terrible on fisheries issues, carrying the water for Gulf shrimpers and anyone else who wanted to grab as much of the Gulf's marine life as they could get away with. And, that would have been fine, it was ineffective, or if he lacked credibility, but the only U.S. Senator who may have more power on fisheries issues is Sen…
jjacquet | November 22, 2007Recently, the NGO Oceana distributed subsidy snowglobes to WTO delegates from 150 nations. The subsidy globes each contain one fish, one factory fishing boat, and with a little agitation, lots of lots of coins that reign down on both. An index card of facts comes with the globe. The first fact: "Reducing fisheries subsidies is the single most significant action that can be taken to address global overfishing."
Acclaimed fisheries biologist Peter Larkin once described the government funds that keep fisheries afloat as "a long mane of hairy subsidies." Worldwide, fisheries subsidies are…
jjacquet | November 20, 2007Posted by Traci Reid, traci@oceanchampions.org
On Nov. 7 more than 58,000 gallons of oil spilled into the San Francisco Bay, killing coastal birds, closing fisheries, and making lots of 5:00 news programs. Over the last two weeks the spill has spread beyond the Bay and into coastal waters designated as National Marine Sanctuaries.
So what does it mean to have areas designated as Marine Sanctuaries if they aren't protected from disasters like this? Admittedly, I've made more than one presentation extolling the virtues of designation as a Marine Sanctuary. Unfortunately, if you strip the…
jjacquet | November 20, 2007The Japanese government has decided to go hunting for humpbacks, something they have not done since the 1960s. People here and at Deep Sea News don't seem too happy about the hunt. Some people are also discomforted by Paul Watson and his group, Sea Shepherd. In reponse to the recent decision by Japan, Sea Shepherd has launched Operation Migaloo. You can argue his tactics, you can argue his style. But what you can't do is show me someone aside from Watson and his team who is doing anything about the humpback hunt on the water.
jjacquet | November 13, 2007Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org
While many in the blogosphere celebrated the announced retirement last week of Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ), we had the opposite reaction. Ocean Champions has built a fantastic relationship with Saxton over the last few years, and he has been a staunch advocate for ocean conservation.
Indeed, we consider Rep. Saxton as one of the true success stories of Ocean Champions. For years, Mr. Saxton had been extremely responsive to a highly vocal, but not very conservation-oriented, group of recreational fishermen in his district. We knew Mr. Saxton to be a…
jjacquet | November 6, 2007Posted by Dave Wilmot, dave@oceanchampions.org
No, we won't be electing a new president today (unfortunately) and the House and Senate candidates have 12 more months of campaigning, yet there are a number of state and local elections today. New Jersey, for example, is holding elections for every single seat in the state legislature. Ocean Champions Voter Fund has teamed up with local New Jersey ocean conservation leaders to bring a bold new strategic political approach to protecting New Jersey's coastal and ocean environment.
Ocean Champions isn't alone on the ocean political front lines…
jjacquet | November 5, 2007Despite her corny conclusion, Courtney Martin's article Generation Overwhelmed does make a point: The world became too big and brutal, and we haven't figured out a way to process it all.
That is, in essence, her response to Thomas Friedman's recent Op-Ed in the New York Times. Friedman calls the twenty-somethings Generation Q...too quiet, too online, for its own good, and for the country's own good.
What about the climate? What about the deficit? What about social security? Instead of focusing our attention on studying abroad, Friedman says the younger generation needs to light a fire…
jjacquet | October 23, 2007Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org
Sunday's N.Y. Times carried a story, "Washington Feels Hollywood's Heat", about entertainment industry "eco-wives" descending on D.C. to lobby for strong climate change legislation.
Despite the inclusion of passages like this:
On Wednesday morning, Ms. Meyer and Ms. McCaw, a former model, discussed how they would handle being young grandmothers when the children from their husbands' prior marriages had children of their own.
"You'll be the hot grandma, I'll be the kind-of-hot grandma," Ms. Meyer said. [see the picture and judge for yourself]…
jjacquet | October 19, 2007This evening I met with Joaquim Tenreiro de Almeida, former Secretary of State for Fisheries in Mozambique during the 1980s. He kindly provided feedback on the Mozambique catch reconstructions and some interesting insights into a couple allegations about Mozambique's involvement with the Soviet Union.
Brief history refresher: The Portuguese colonized Mozambique in the 16th century. In 1962, anti-colonial forces formed the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) and initiated an armed campaign against Portuguese colonialism. The country gained independence in 1976, which was…
jjacquet | October 16, 2007Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org
Just when it looks like the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) might actually get through the Senate, the black helicopter crowd is at it again, claiming that ratifying the treaty would give the U.N. control over practically every activity the U.S. could ever want to undertake anywhere, at any time.
In the face of a concerted effort by the Bush Administration and the extractive industries that would benefit from the treaty to get it passed, those who fear a "one world government," are putting up a valiant effort, led by Sens. Vitter (R-La.), DeMint (…
jjacquet | October 9, 2007Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org
If you were wondering why we've been pushing red tide legislation on Capitol Hill, check out this story about Nassau County, Florida declaring a state of emergency due to a severe outbreak of red tide along the northeast Florida coast.
It got so bad that the Today Show even talked about the outbreak as an extreme weather event on October 1. Here's an excerpt from the story:
On Sept. 26, the Nassau County Health Department announced water samples had tested positive for Florida red tide, Karenia brevis, a large grouping of microscopic algae that…