[HN Gopher] As ocean oxygen levels dip, fish face an uncertain f... ___________________________________________________________________ As ocean oxygen levels dip, fish face an uncertain future Author : myshpa Score : 55 points Date : 2023-08-03 21:31 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (e360.yale.edu) (TXT) w3m dump (e360.yale.edu) | ChatGTP wrote: | Looks like we are the paper clip optimising narrow AI we've all | been afraid of after all... | | We don't make paper clips though, we've optimised to make money | and turn everything into it. | | So ashamed to be part of of it, | throwanem wrote: | Many science fiction authors have made surprisingly incisive | contemporary critiques in the forms of allegory and metaphor. | Bostrom is unusual mainly in that he doesn't seem to know when | he is doing it. | ASalazarMX wrote: | We've optimized so hard we can make money out of negative | money. | cwkoss wrote: | I think a (dis)info campaign touting the toxins and pollutants in | fish could be a major environmental win. Humans have destroyed | huge amounts of ocean life, and with fish populations already | devastated, climate change is going to push many species over the | brink to extinct. | | I feel like - even if requires pseudoscientific explanations or | bald-faced lies - it would be a net good for the world if people | thought there is a chance eating fish could kill them. Alarmism | over heavy metal accumulation happening at increasing rates, fish | absorbing pesticides and poisoning people, stuff like that. Idk | if it's happening, but I feel like it would be good for the | environment if people believed that. | | (disclaimer: i don't enjoy the flavor of fish anyways, so my | cost-benefit of this is different than most peoples.) | myshpa wrote: | No disinformation campaigns are necessary. | | Fish do indeed often contain heavy metals (mercury, lead, | cadmium, arsenic, copper), PCBs, dioxins, and furans, as well | as microplastics. | | Young dolphins are dying because the mother's milk may be | poisonous for the same reason. | | https://phys.org/news/2018-12-toxins-mother-young-european-d... | | Banned toxins passed from mother to young in European dolphins | | https://www.poisoningchildren.com/blog/2014/02/05/bioaccumul... | | Bioaccumulation and Dead Baby Dolphins | | "Because female dolphins off-load most of their toxic exposure | to their first-born calf, their levels after sexual maturity | are lower than males; but a very high percentage of first-borns | die" | | "It is not astonishing that native women in the Arctic Circle, | who eat high levels of marine mammals, pass these chemicals on | to their babies with dire effects" | | "Childbirth and breastfeeding are some of the few ways the body | can rid itself of persistent chemicals. It is usually still | best to breastfeed, but children who are breastfed continue to | inherit the mother's exposures, as shown in a study of | testicular cancer in Denmark and Finland" | | Btw, human and cow milk has similar problems. | cwkoss wrote: | Ah, so just needs an awareness campaign! Even more of a clear | moral win then if it doesn't require deception. | | (also, yikes and tragic) | skeaker wrote: | At that point it would be better to supply the demand for fish | with fish farms where they are bred to be eaten rather than | pulling fish from the ocean. You could (truthfully) advertise | as environmentally friendly, you would probably turn a profit, | you actually would have fewer toxins than ocean fish, and ocean | fish would be proportionally fished less. Much more | straightforward of a process than conspiring/bribing countless | people to spread disinformation and giving credit to conspiracy | theorists. | myshpa wrote: | Still few problems with this. | | - intensive fish farming can lead to environmental issues, | such as water pollution from fish waste, excessive use of | antibiotics and chemicals, and the depletion of wild fish | stocks used for fish feed | | - some farmed fish species require a substantial amount of | wild-caught fish to produce a relatively small amount of | farmed fish | | - the conversion of natural habitats like mangroves and | wetlands into fish farms can lead to habitat destruction and | loss of critical ecosystems that support various species | | - in densely packed fish farms, diseases spread rapidly among | fish populations, leading to mass mortality events. The use | of antibiotics to control diseases can also contribute to | antibiotic resistance, posing risks to human health | | - introducing non-native or genetically modified fish into | local ecosystems can disrupt the balance of the ecosystem and | lead to unintended consequences | | We have to switch to plant based diets. | | It seems to me that nothing else will stop the environmental | destruction, in this case overfishing, which alone threatens | us with empty oceans in 2040's. | | And it would solve the problem with warming oceans too. | | Rapid phase-out of fossil fuels, together with a switch to a | plant-based diet, would free up a land area the size of | Africa. When reforested, this area would store so much carbon | that we'd be able to store our entire 1.5C carbon budget in | those forests and initiate a new "little ice age." | breakyerself wrote: | I tried to get newspapers to report on it and they kept telling | me they already covered ocean acidification. | Apofis wrote: | Aside from Ocean Acidification, uncontrollable Algae Blooms, and | Melting Sea Ice, we now have Ocean Deoxygenation on our plates. | We also have unprecedented droughts on land as well. Humans | really will be the next mass extinction event on this planet. So | incredibly selfish. | throwanem wrote: | "Will be?" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction | jauntywundrkind wrote: | Acidification is the unavailability to carry hydrogen | molecules. | | The primary hydrogen carrier in water is oxygen. | | Are deoxygenation & acidification different problem, or | different slants on the same problem? | nashashmi wrote: | > The oxygen drop is driven by a few factors. First, the laws of | physics dictate that warmer water can hold less dissolved gas | than cooler water (this is why a warm soda is less fizzy than a | cold one). | | > Melting ice adds fresh, less-dense water that resists downward | mixing in key regions, and the high rate of atmospheric warming | at the poles, as compared to the equator, also dampens winds that | drive ocean currents. | | > Finally, bacteria living in the water, which feed off | phytoplankton and other organic gunk as it falls to the seafloor, | consume oxygen. This effect can be massive along coastlines, | where fertilizer runoff feeds algae blooms, which in turn feed | oxygen-gobbling bacteria | thriftwy wrote: | How is that solar shade coming along?[10] | ChrisArchitect wrote: | Weird this was syndicated onto BBC also | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36236444 | saagarjha wrote: | Good. They should tough it out and grow a pair--of lungs, that | is. Living in an aquatic environment has made all the fish grow | soft. Time to evolve like the rest of us did. | | (More seriously, warm ocean dead spots affect more than just | fish: I suspect we'll see a further decline in marine mammals | too, for example.) | jfghi wrote: | Free market solves it /s | peteradio wrote: | One day man will evolve fishy limbs then we can eat them | instead. Yawn.. wake me up when I should become concerned. | nine_zeros wrote: | Why should I have to pay for fish habitat? Bunch of moochers /s | swsdsailor wrote: | I am very interested in using tech to help the ocean. Does anyone | have ideas for technical solutions to this? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-08-03 23:00 UTC)