According to the World Bank 2012 Little Green Data Book when it comes to the threat to the life blood of our dear Gaia and everything alive that we cherish (that includes you too), Wee-sa In Big Doo-doo.

Coincidentally this week’s topic of food choices has a curiously HUGE impact on the predicted collapse of our ocean fisheries by 2048 (strangely aligned with the start of the Nemecene epoch. Hmmm). But it’s not the fisheries and the economic impact of its downfall that really concern this Woman Not Waiting, it’s the decimation of fish communities, the extinction of species, and the willful destruction of perfection— the natural marine ecosystem.

So let’s look at each challenge highlighted by the World Bank:

  • Overfishing— 85% percent of the world’s ocean fisheries are fully exploited, over-exploited or depleted
  • Pollution— excess nitrogen runoff from fertilizers have created combined dead zones the size of Great Britain
  • Habitat loss or conversion— 35% of carbon sucking mangroves are gone, 20% of coral reefs are skeletons with another 20% degraded, 30% of carbon sucking sea grass has been smoked

A few other threats to our oceans absent for the World Bank view are:

  • Ocean acidification due to CO2— the oceans are 30% more acidic than since before the industrial revolution and getting worse by the day
  • Ocean warming due to CO2 and other greenhouse gases— fresh boiled lobster anyone?
  • Plastic— we are just realizing how much  Drinking Has Gyre Consequences
  • Oil spills, nuclear waste, industrial toxins, and more

 

Now let’s look at our food choices and see how very simple changes can help:

  • Overfishing— stop eating fish or eat only inland farmed vegetarian fish. Beans, beans the magical fruit…
  • Pollution from fertilizers— stop buying from factory farms. Buy from local organic farms, join a local community farm, borrow someones’s land for a garden, install some aquaponics in your condo, set up a green house in your home, any other ideas?
  • Habitat loss or conversion, ocean acidification, ocean warming— stop eating meat, buy local, walk to the grocery store. Beans, beans…the more you eat…
  • Plastic— don’t buy anything in plastic bottles (easy), don’t put your produce in plastic bags (you won’t die if they go straight on the scale. I do it all the time), bring your own grocery bags (super easy), don’t buy anything plastic wrapped (that’s a tough one still but do  your best)

 

Our food choices are directly related to most of these threats. Proper fishery management is an illusion (case in point: 2013 Collapse of the New England fishing industry). We are trying to manipulate an ecosystem we really do not understand. The solution is to stop factory fishing, clean up the junk, let the oceans self-regulate, let the species recover, and put in place a global consortium of Stewards who will keep corporate interests out.

Acts of genocide have no place on this Earth, whether they be on land or in water.

How we choose and what we choose to eat is completely within our control. The only thing stopping us is that our taste buds got used to certain flavours. They can easily get unused to them. The question is, do we have the will to do so?

I’m not waiting for my neighbour to choose wisely first.

A Woman Not Waiting sets the pace. Show them your sexy heels.