OGIS
03-15-2017, 08:58 AM
This long piece jumps around a bit, from the story of an organized crime "Codfather" to an overview of the regulations that hamper/help/stifle/encourage the fishing industry. (There will be partisans here who will agree with all those hot-button words.) I think it is necessary to mention the "Codfather" when talking about the industry regulation, and it is a clever way of "wrapping" a dry and difficult subject within the story of organized crime, but I think the subject transitions could have been better handled.
There is a lot of food for thought here, and a lot of facts to fuel arguments. Here's a big one:
I think that unregulated commercial fishing is a perfect example of "the tragedy of the commons." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons. Catch limits preserve the fish populations from extinction. The article gives an overview of that entire rationale and how the regulation systems operate.
I'll let the other points develop in the conversation (if anyone is actually interested in this).
Serious posters should, however, RTEFA and then think about it a while. I have. Before you spout off partisan derp, you should too. Here are a three paragraphs from different parts of the article that should start the ball rolling.
The Deliciously Fishy Case of the "Codfather"New England’s seafood industry is in deep trouble—thanks in no small part to one mogul’s seriously shady business.
Text by Ben Goldfarb; Photographs by Tristan Spinski Mar/Apr 2017 Issue (http://www.motherjones.com/toc/2017/03)
"The Codfather's lair is a green and white building with a peaked roof, fishing gear strewn across a fenced-in backyard, and the words "Carlos Seafood" stamped above the door. The distant gray line of the Atlantic Ocean is visible behind a towering garbage heap. In the 19th century, New Bedford's sons voyaged aboard triple-masted ships in pursuit of sperm whales; now they chase cod, haddock, and scallops. Every year, more than $350 million worth of seafood passes through this waterfront, a significant slice of which is controlled by the Codfather, the most powerful fisherman in America's most valuable seafood port."
....
"For centuries, unchecked overfishing had devastated the schools of cod that once teemed in the northwest Atlantic, and various rules had failed to stem the crisis. So in 2009, desperate officials voted to instate a new form of regulation, called catch shares. Under catch-share systems, biologists determine the "total allowable catch," an inviolable limit to how many pounds of, say, flounder can be extracted annually from New England waters. Managers then divvy up slices of that pie to local fishermen, who are typically free to catch their slice—or sell it or rent it out to competitors—whenever they see fit. (Think cap and trade for fish.) When each fisherman owns a stake, the rationale goes, he has an incentive to conserve: The more fish in the sea, the bigger the pie and its slices."
....
"A Trump administration proposal to slash NOAA's budget by 17 percent (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/03/03/white-house-proposes-steep-budget-cut-to-leading-climate-science-agency/?utm_term=.4ef565a00e9e)—including a 5 percent cut to its subdivision, the National Marine Fisheries Service—could make fishermen's lives more difficult by impairing the agency's ability to provide satellite weather forecasts and reliable fish population assessments."
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/03/codfather-carlos-rafael-fish-fraud-catchshares
Note: This is a tPH thread, in the Current Events room. Assuming that my post op pain allows me to follow the thread in detail, ALL of the Rules - http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/31827-The-Political-Forums-Rules-and-Regulations - will be rigorously enforced. This includes things like posts consisting/including face palm or other derogatory smilies (implied personal insult with zero contributory content) and non-contributory drive-by BS posts from certain Oblivious people. Personal attacks on anyone will be ruthlessly TBed. Speak to the subject matter, NOT the person.
Thanks so much for following the rules.
There is a lot of food for thought here, and a lot of facts to fuel arguments. Here's a big one:
I think that unregulated commercial fishing is a perfect example of "the tragedy of the commons." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons. Catch limits preserve the fish populations from extinction. The article gives an overview of that entire rationale and how the regulation systems operate.
I'll let the other points develop in the conversation (if anyone is actually interested in this).
Serious posters should, however, RTEFA and then think about it a while. I have. Before you spout off partisan derp, you should too. Here are a three paragraphs from different parts of the article that should start the ball rolling.
The Deliciously Fishy Case of the "Codfather"New England’s seafood industry is in deep trouble—thanks in no small part to one mogul’s seriously shady business.
Text by Ben Goldfarb; Photographs by Tristan Spinski Mar/Apr 2017 Issue (http://www.motherjones.com/toc/2017/03)
"The Codfather's lair is a green and white building with a peaked roof, fishing gear strewn across a fenced-in backyard, and the words "Carlos Seafood" stamped above the door. The distant gray line of the Atlantic Ocean is visible behind a towering garbage heap. In the 19th century, New Bedford's sons voyaged aboard triple-masted ships in pursuit of sperm whales; now they chase cod, haddock, and scallops. Every year, more than $350 million worth of seafood passes through this waterfront, a significant slice of which is controlled by the Codfather, the most powerful fisherman in America's most valuable seafood port."
....
"For centuries, unchecked overfishing had devastated the schools of cod that once teemed in the northwest Atlantic, and various rules had failed to stem the crisis. So in 2009, desperate officials voted to instate a new form of regulation, called catch shares. Under catch-share systems, biologists determine the "total allowable catch," an inviolable limit to how many pounds of, say, flounder can be extracted annually from New England waters. Managers then divvy up slices of that pie to local fishermen, who are typically free to catch their slice—or sell it or rent it out to competitors—whenever they see fit. (Think cap and trade for fish.) When each fisherman owns a stake, the rationale goes, he has an incentive to conserve: The more fish in the sea, the bigger the pie and its slices."
....
"A Trump administration proposal to slash NOAA's budget by 17 percent (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/03/03/white-house-proposes-steep-budget-cut-to-leading-climate-science-agency/?utm_term=.4ef565a00e9e)—including a 5 percent cut to its subdivision, the National Marine Fisheries Service—could make fishermen's lives more difficult by impairing the agency's ability to provide satellite weather forecasts and reliable fish population assessments."
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/03/codfather-carlos-rafael-fish-fraud-catchshares
Note: This is a tPH thread, in the Current Events room. Assuming that my post op pain allows me to follow the thread in detail, ALL of the Rules - http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/31827-The-Political-Forums-Rules-and-Regulations - will be rigorously enforced. This includes things like posts consisting/including face palm or other derogatory smilies (implied personal insult with zero contributory content) and non-contributory drive-by BS posts from certain Oblivious people. Personal attacks on anyone will be ruthlessly TBed. Speak to the subject matter, NOT the person.
Thanks so much for following the rules.