True, but I can claim to have been born in the year of the monkey, which I do beleive is the only animal on the list which could steal stuff with one foot and throw fecal matter with the other while hanging from a tree.
An international group of ecologists and economists warned yesterday that the world will run out of seafood by 2048 if steep declines in marine species continue at current rates, based on a four-year study of catch data and the effects of fisheries collapses.
The paper, published in the journal Science, concludes that overfishing, pollution and other environmental factors are wiping out important species around the globe, hampering the ocean's ability to produce seafood, filter nutrients and resist the spread of disease.
"We really see the end of the line now," said lead author Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Canada's Dalhousie University. "It's within our lifetime. Our children will see a world without seafood if we don't change things."
The 14 researchers from Canada, Panama, Sweden, Britain and the United States spent four years analyzing fish populations, catch records and ocean ecosystems to reach their conclusion. They found that by 2003 -- the last year for which data on global commercial fish catches are available -- 29 percent of all fished species had collapsed, meaning they are now at least 90 percent below their historic maximum catch levels.
The rate of population collapses has accelerated in recent years. As of 1980, just 13.5 percent of fished species had collapsed, even though fishing vessels were pursuing 1,736 fewer species then. Today, the fishing industry harvests 7,784 species commercially.
"It's like hitting the gas pedal and holding it down at a constant level," Worm said in a telephone interview. "The rate accelerates over time."
Some American fishery management officials, industry representatives and academics questioned the team's dire predictions, however, saying countries such as the United States and New Zealand have taken steps in recent years to halt the depletion of their commercial fisheries.
"The projection is way too pessimistic, at least for the United States," said Steven Murawski, chief scientist for the National Marine Fisheries Service, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "We've got the message. We will continue to reverse this trend."
The National Fisheries Institute, a trade group representing seafood producers as well as suppliers, restaurants and grocery chains, said in a statement that most wild marine stocks remain sustainable.
The group's spokeswoman, Stacey Viera, added that because the global demand for seafood has already outstripped the amount of wild fish available in the sea, her group's members are meeting the need in part by relying on farmed fish. "To meet the gap between what wild capture can provide sustainably and the growing demand for seafood, aquaculture is filling that need," she said.
But several scientists challenged that prediction and questioned why humanity should pay for a resource that the ocean had long provided for free. "It's like turning on the air conditioning rather than opening the window," said Stanford University marine sciences professor Stephen R. Palumbi, one of the paper's authors.
Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco said the study makes clear that fish stocks are in trouble, even though consumers appear to have a cornucopia of seafood choices.
In other news, one of the guys in this article has the last name Worm. That's funny.
That is kinda odd. Either way, I could live without seafood. This doesn't seem to apply to the fish in the lakes though, so I'm probably good yet. Ice fishing season is up and coming, too. Mmmmm. Now I'm looking forward to some fresh, tasty fishes.
If fish levels start to get dangerously low, then there will be a greater effort necessary to catch fish. Fishermen will naturally charge more for their smaller hauls in order to maintain their natural level of income. Prices for fish will rise, and people will eat less fish, opting for cheaper foods. Furthermore, many fishermen will just get out of the business if it gets to be too difficult or risky.
We'll possibly approach a very dangerously low level of fish, but we're not going to run out. As the price fishermen need for their efforts outweighs the demand for eating fish, alternative foods will replace them.
Then these idiots will start raving about how we're running out of cows.
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) -- About 1 percent of Web sites indexed by Google and Microsoft are sexually explicit, according to a U.S. government-commissioned study.
Government lawyers introduced the study in court this month as the Justice Department seeks to revive the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, which required commercial Web sites to collect a credit card number or other proof of age before allowing Internet users to view material deemed "harmful to minors."
The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the law in 2004, ruling it also would cramp the free speech rights of adults to see and buy what they want on the Internet. The court said technology such as filtering software may work better than such laws.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged the law on behalf of a broad range of Web publishers, said the study supports its argument that filters work well.
The study concludes that the strictest filter tested, AOL's Mature Teen, blocked 91 percent of the sexually explicit Web sites in indexes maintained by Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN.
Filters with less restrictive settings blocked at least 40 percent of sexually explicit sites, according to the study of random Web sites by Philip B. Stark, a statistics professor at University of California, Berkeley.
"Filters are more than 90 percent effective, according to Stark," ACLU attorney Chris Hansen said Tuesday during a break in the trial. "Also, with filters, it's up to the parents how to use it, whereas COPA requires a one-solution-fits-all (approach)."
COPA follows Congress' unsuccessful 1996 effort to ban online pornography. The Supreme Court in 1997 deemed key portions of that law unconstitutional because it was too vague and trampled on adults' rights. It would have criminalized putting adult-oriented material online where children can find it.
The 1998 law narrowed the restrictions to commercial Web sites and defined indecency more specifically.
In 2000, Congress also passed a law requiring schools and libraries to block porn using software filters if they receive certain federal funds. The high court upheld that law in 2003.
Justice Department lawyers Theodore Hirt and Raphael Gomez declined to comment Tuesday on Stark's findings.
Stark prepared the report based on information the Justice Department obtained through subpoenas sent to search engine companies and Internet service providers.
Google refused one such subpoena for 1 million sample queries and 1 million Web addresses in its database, citing trade secrets. A judge limited the amount of information the company had to provide.
Stark also examined a random sample of search-engine queries. He estimated that 1.7 percent of search results at Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, MSN and Yahoo Inc. are sexually explicit and 1.1 percent of Web sites cataloged at Google and MSN fall in that category.
About 6 percent of searches yield at least one explicit Web site, he said, and the most popular queries return a sexually explicit site nearly 40 percent of the time.
But filters blocked 87 percent to 98 percent of the explicit results from the most popular searches on the Web, Stark found.
Stark also said that about half the sexually explicit Web sites found in the Google and MSN indexes are foreign, making them beyond the reach of U.S. law. But he agreed with government assertions that the most popular sites are domestic.
"COPA -- right out of the bat -- doesn't block the 50 percent (posted) overseas," Hansen said. "So COPA is substantially less than 50 percent effective."
Closing arguments in the four-week, non-jury trial before Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr. are expected Monday.
The law, signed by then-President Clinton, requires Web sites to get credit card information or some other proof of age from adults who want to view material that may be considered harmful to children. It would impose a $50,000 fine and six-month prison term on commercial Web site operators that allow minors to view such content, which is to be defined by "contemporary community standards."
The law has yet to be enforced. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a preliminary injunction, ruling in June 2004 that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail.
The plaintiffs, including Salon.com, say they would fear prosecution under the law for publishing material as varied as erotic literature to photos of naked inmates at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
Comments
Yeah, you're right. god wins.
Snake's a dirty perv!!!!!11OMGLOL!!11one.
THE WORLD'S SUPPLY OF SEAFOOD WILL RUN OUT BY 2048!!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/02/AR2006110200913.html?nav=rss_nation/science In other news, one of the guys in this article has the last name Worm. That's funny.
If fish levels start to get dangerously low, then there will be a greater effort necessary to catch fish. Fishermen will naturally charge more for their smaller hauls in order to maintain their natural level of income. Prices for fish will rise, and people will eat less fish, opting for cheaper foods. Furthermore, many fishermen will just get out of the business if it gets to be too difficult or risky.
We'll possibly approach a very dangerously low level of fish, but we're not going to run out. As the price fishermen need for their efforts outweighs the demand for eating fish, alternative foods will replace them.
Then these idiots will start raving about how we're running out of cows.
It's math-tastic!
(500 post'd!)