The Emperor Has No Clothes A Practical Guide for Environmental and Social Transformation (14 page)

45. With respect to carrying out this type
of research, I think it holds great promise but should be limited
to just research which could be tested in something like the
biosphere and not released into the environment. Our understanding
is simply too limited at the present time to implement it.
Therapeutic applications also have a great beneficial potential and
should be investigated vigorously and implemented after through
clinical trials. This type of application of biotechnology does not
carry the same types of risks as GMO crops but needs improved
controls to prevent problems like EMS which was mentioned above. It
may be a better approach to limit GMO research to government
sponsored efforts instead of businesses whose sole purpose of
existence is to make quick profits for their owners and where
ethics at best is a tertiary consideration.

46. At the present time citizen ballot
initiatives are being worked on in Oregon and Colorado for GMO
labeling.

Deforestation
: As we have already seen
in the previous chapter deforestation is one of the key factors in
the impoverishment and decline of societies. At the present time
the same type of deforestation is taking place but on a colossal
global scale. A large amount of these forest products are being
used to provide materials to support the production of disposable
types of products and packaging that underpins the current large
scale global economic system. At the present time approximately ¾
of the original world forest resources have been cut, and in the
United states 95% of this type of forest is gone.xxxvi According to
the EPA it is estimated that approximately 45% of waste paper per
year is recovered by recycling. If this percentage were increased,
a reduction of one million acres of cut forest would occur as a
result of every 10% increase in the amount of paper recycled. What
we hear from the industry is that these denuded areas can be
replanted with tree farms to provide future needs. Unfortunately
the amount of deforested area being replanted with trees are far
less than the amount being harvested, the net rate of forest loss
was 5.2 million hectares (12.8 million acres) / year from 2000 –
2010, a significant improvement over 1990 – 2000 when it was 8.3
million hectares (20.5 million acres)/ year but still a huge
amount.xxxvii The other problem is that after three successive tree
crops [47], the fertility of the land is diminished and trees will
no longer grow in these areas. In the United States reforestation
has been a success. Since 1990 – 2010 an additional 7.7 million
hectares (19 million acres) has been established [48]. However,
much of the older tree cropped areas in the United States are now
second generation, so we can only expect one more crop of trees
from these areas. Perhaps it may be a good idea to replant some of
these areas with a diverse type of forest that would mimic natural
forests and let this land “be fallow” in this state for a while to
restore the soil before it becomes useless. Of course the time
horizons for this kind of program would be in the multiple hundreds
of years. What is the alternative though, to end up like the Middle
East which was once heavily forested and now largely desert or
follow the Easter Islanders?

47. When replanting logged areas with trees,
the tree species are generally comprised of a limited number of
species and varieties that have the greatest commercial value. In
essence most of these areas are monocrops with little biological
diversity.

48. It should be noted though that imported
forest products are commonly used in the US, thereby, externalizing
a significant amount of US domestic consumption.

Fisheries:
The exhaustion of the
various oceanic fisheries have been well documented and tracked. In
1935 Michael Graham of Lowestoft laboratory an expert in the north
sea cod fishery published a paper indicating that fish stocks were
being over exploited. He formulated a “law” from experience which
he named the “Great Law of Fishing”. The Great Law of Fishing
states that as long as the level of fisheries exploitation are
unrestricted they will become commercially exhausted. Thus, to
maintain the productivity of a fishery exploitation must be
limited. Was Graham listened to? NO! At the present time only 2 of
the major fisheries in the world are not completely exhausted as a
result of over exploitation. Over exploitation is a consequence of
destructive fishing technologies, poor understanding of marine
ecology, and misguided politically motivated regulatory
choices.

To illustrate the factors producing fishery
declines the following case study of the North Atlantic Cod fishery
will be presented. Rosenberg et al., produced a recent study on the
historical decline of the cod fishery. This study used records of
landings from 1855 to 2005. In 1855 Rosenberg estimated that 1.39
million tonnes of cod were living on the Scotia Bank.

After 150 years of fishing the amount of cod
had been reduced to an estimated 55,000 tonnes a 96%
decrease.xxxviii Most of us have an idealized impression of fishing
as it was conducted in the past when rugged fishermen in their
sou’wester went out in their dories or schooners and jigged with
hand lines. Or the shell fish fishermen who went out in the bays to
tong for clams or capture some lobsters from small boats.
Unfortunately this form of fishing has been overtaken by industrial
progress which employes evermore powerful methods of fish capture
and location. Not only are the new methods much more effective at
finding and catching fish but they also have become much more
destructive to fish habitat and wasteful.

The advent of steam powered vessels, and
later by large diesel motor ships with their great horse power have
the ability to tow gigantic nets with mouth openings greater than
39,000 square meters (43,000 square yards) for mid water trawling.
For bottom dwelling fish dragger trawl nets are used. These nets
have large heavy rollers outfitted with “tickler chains” that beat
against the sea bottom as it rolls along scaring up the fish into
the net opening. Not only do these rollers and tickler chains scare
fish but at the same time they also destroy the underwater habitat
that is needed to support future generations of fish. You are
probably wondering about hook and line fishing? It's still being
practiced but on a gigantic scale. For example, the tuna fishermen
use what are called long lines that are 130 km (80 mi) long with
thousands of hooks! These powerful fish harvesting technologies are
supported by matching location technologies. Highly effective fish
finder sonars that are capable of identifying fish from a single
large individual all the way up to huge schools are being used.
These devices are also capable of providing a precise location of
the fish by using global positioning that has an accuracy within a
few meters. The nets also have positioning sensors that allow their
deployment at exactly the right location established by the fish
finder sonar and global positioning system.

Of course as the fish and shell fish
populations have declined it requires greater effort to capture
fish. Until recently the response to declining fish populations was
for governments to provide subsidies to enable the fishing industry
to upgrade their equipment to become more effective. Recently
though, it is starting to be recognized that the available fish
catching capability far exceeds the capacity of the fish to
reproduce. Many of the governments have started to discuss this
problem at the international level and also address it at the
national level where action can be taken in a more timely fashion.
Unfortunately progress in reducing fish capturing capability has
lagged far behind what should have been done. The underlying
problem is that the fishing industry and the communities where they
are based suffer economic hardships as a result of cut backs in
fishing effort that results in lower amounts of landings. The
fishing communities and industry are feeling the pinch, thus they
invest significant resources in lobbying and providing political
support to politicians to promote their interests. In many cases
the politicians simply produce regulations that appear to do
something but in reality provides loopholes to continue with
business as usual. For example, they will allow older obsolete
equipment to have levels of “maintenance” performed that basically
produces upgrades to a state of the art status instead of being
retired. Another dodge is to simply provide no funding for
enforcement of existing regulations and/or give it a PR gloss. For
example, the NOAA catch limits for 2013-2014 based upon a
“fisheries disaster” that occurred in 2012 “reduces quotas for
ground fish” that is cod, haddock, and flounder. The actual quotas
for over half of these stocks are greater than the actual amount of
fish landed in 2012 and in the case of winter flounder it was
increased 150%. Furthermore, the authorities are also allowing
uncaught quota from last year to be carried forward and added to
this years quota. The legal size of fish that can be kept has also
been reduced as well in addition to the “requirements for
reporting, monitoring, and on small hand gear operations.” The
problem with allowing reductions in the size of keepers is that
small fish have less reproductive capability than the older adult
fish. The effect of lowering the size limit is to impair the future
growth of the fishing stock (this is a desperation measure and very
unwise). They did continue to maintain the closure of fishing areas
where the fish spawn in the western Gulf of Main and Cashes Ledge
which is a very good practice, although the amount of area devoted
to the closed fishing grounds are inadequate. The amount of area
where fishing should be prohibited by designating them as marine
sanctuaries should be a minimum of 1/3 up to around 1/2 of the
ocean area, according to some experts. Returning to the 2013-2014
NOAA quotas, basically for cod and many of the other species they
are still being knowingly over fished to relieve the economic
pressure on the fishing communities. Once again the authorities
have sacrificed the greater long term good for a much smaller short
term gain. [49]

One of the deficiencies in the process used
for evaluation of the amount of fish and shell fish that can be
sustainably caught is that the quotas have been set by measuring
the amount of a specific species that are caught while ignoring the
ecological system that is essential for providing a particular
species needs. [50] Some other big problems are that at least 1/3
of the fish catch is discarded being comprised of untargeted fish
species and juveniles (referred to as by-catch).xxxix According to
(Pauly, et al.) much of the catch goes unreported, for the 6 major
commercial species (Red Fish, Mackerel, Haddock, Flounder, and
Hake) under reporting for all of these exceeded 20% and for most of
them by 50% [51]. Typically the mostly dead by-catch is dumped
overboard into the ocean not only is it a tremendous waste but it
also deprives the remaining uncaught fish of a significant source
of food. Because of the lack of selectivity of commercial fishing
techniques the by-catch often contains threatened or endangered
species. For example, the long line fishing method frequently
attracts and catches sea birds such as the endangered albatross who
dive down to eat, get hooked and dragged under. Dolphins and
endangered turtles which need to surface to breath air drown and
are also common part of the by-catch. [52] Of course the result of
under reporting catches and discarding by-catch is to introduce
incorrect information for use in setting the levels for fish catch
quotas and the formulation of other management strategies. Another
big problem is the great influence these large industries have on
governments. For example, if the length of governmental time
horizons are considered, they have contracted to the sort of short
term planning that characterize the unsustainable extractive
practices commonly employed by businesses. This kind of outlook in
the regulatory community is not appropriate for the sustainable
management of marine or other resources.

49. Even though the measures that are being
taken in the United States are far from being adequate, the United
States at least is making a few feeble attempts at fisheries
management. Many of the other nations such as those that comprise
the European Union are where the United States was 20 or 30 years
ago. A few nations such as Cuba and Iceland have done a superior
job in managing their fisheries.Recently researchers have developed
models that are capable of providing the type of broad resource
assessment of much of the North Atlantic Ocean basin, hopefully,
this type approach will be used to restore the marine
ecosystem.

50. Recently researchers have developed
models that are capable of providing the type of broad resource
assessment of much of the North Atlantic Ocean basin, hopefully,
this type approach will be used to restore the marine
ecosystem.

51. Some nations such as Norway employ
retired ship captains as observers who are placed on fishing
vessels working in their waters to insure compliance.

52. There has been some reduction in this
type of by-catch in the United States TAD's (turtle exclusion
devices) are required as well as similar devices for dolphins.
However, not all fishing vessels are outfitted with this type of
equipment since it is dependent on individual nations requirements
and also the willingness of a nation to provide effective
regulatory efforts.

Concentrated animal feeding operations
(CAFO's) are industrial animal, poultry, and fish production
facilities ( I shan't call them farms since their methods of
operation bear only a faint resemblance to what is generally
considered the activities carried out on a traditional farm). In
these operations vast numbers of live stock are packed into the
smallest possible area. It is not uncommon for the animals not to
have room to lie down to rest or carry out activities that are
normal types of behavior. Since these conditions severely stress
the animals they often display psychotic behavior, for example,
pigs bite the tails off other pigs confined in their area, poultry
peck nearby birds to death. The vast quantities of manure that are
produced in these facilities are far beyond the capacity for the
environment to absorb. To deal with the huge quantities of manure
retention ponds are created that produce severe odor, fly, and
other environmental problems such as the production of the green
house gas methane. There has been instances where these ponds have
failed causing the surrounding areas to be inundated with manure,
not only producing huge problems for people living near to these
facilities, but also draining into rivers and streams resulting in
catastrophic collapses of aquatic ecosystems. In some locations
these types of spills have been almost routine during heavy
rainfall events that cause ponds that are filled too near their
tops to overflow. Of course the people who are unlucky enough to
have one of these facilities built near them find that their
property values plummet, and in many cases are extremely difficult
or can not be sold at all.