On the Eating of Seafood

"We are fighting a war against fish, and we are . . . winning."

The End of the Line opens (limited release) next week. That brief trailer could be a gift in the disguise of paradoxical message about how we can still kill and eat fish, yet not be at war with them. I guess war is defined by death count.

It might be a gift because those pescetarian holdouts we all know who are convinced that for some strange reason eating animals from the sea is not as bad as eating those who live on land, might be convinced that their decision is a bit misguided.

As a way of taking the situation into your own hands and not being a part of the problem, the film's site offers you this widget:

Now, I haven't seen the film, but here's the message: There's something rotten in the state of the fishing industry. We are overfishing, over-trawling, and mutilating and slaughtering bycatch by the millions of tons (17-39 million tons/year, not including marine mammals, sea bids and some invertebrates). Oh, and this is a war we've declared and we're winning.

To then present a widget that helps you eat seafood is strange. That tells me that we're still at war, as we are going to continue to kill fish because we can and we want to. That tells me that, yeah, it's bad that our behavior can actually lead to "the end of seafood by 2048" (and notice how they don't say the end of fish), but that's because it'll lead to the end of somebody we want to eat, and we can't have that!

What about that most obvious of solutions, that requires no cognitive dissonance at all. What about the way to end the war we've waged and save the fish and the oceans is to stop the war! Stop eating fish and other sea dwellers and this problem goes away (and yes, I am over-simplifying). If you don't want to be complicit in the war, don't be complicit in the war.

You don't need a widget to do the right thing.

Go vegan.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Call for 20-year fishing ban in a third of oceans (guardian.co.uk)
• An Inconvenient Truth for Fish (telegraph.co.uk)
• World Oceans Day: Imagine a World Without Fish (greenskeptic.blogspot.com)

Comments

[Bea Elliott]

Yes, this widget does sent a mixed message - but one people desire to hear... that they may still eat fish. And I guess people will still be eating fish long after some species are extinct... As in the blue fin tuna because conglomerates are taking twice the limit and expanding their freezers to corner the market when there are no more.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/06/03-3

I've heard that 40% or so of "waste fish" are processed for farmed animal feed. So really, if one truly wants to save the oceans - they would be consistent in removing all animals from their plates.

You are right again Mary, to do the right thing- they need to go vegan.

[Nick]

The impending collapse of the ocean ecosystems is one of the most depressing prospects ever. Not to mention the atrocity of murdering billions of sentient beings every day.