next message in archive
no next message in thread
previous message in archive
Index of Subjects
Tip: Your message to SUST-MAR must be html-free. So, BEFORE you hit SEND, please go to your "Format" pull-down menu and select "Plain text." Thanks! ____________________________________________________________________________ My access to newspapers is limited to the cast-off ones I scrounge from work at my part time job, so these two news stories from the November 21st HERALD might seem a little dated to most of you. I hope the connection I weave between them isn't... The first story, on page C3, dealt with a November 20th press conference called by people worried about the effects on marine life from proposed seismic testing for petroleum off the west coast of Cape Breton. The Petroleum industry, in turn, denied any possibility of harm. Nothing really new there, I thought,I'v heard both sides on this before. I went on reading the rest of the paper. There on page A15 was another story about fish - the release of the report 'The Future of the Fisheries' , with its grim timeline of worldwide near depletion by 2050. Buried deep in this article from Canadian Press, was the claim that "..for the first time (the report's team of scientists) have linked the availability of cheap oil to the expansion of the world's fisheries." My first reaction was 'Dah', what took them so long? But then I saw the irony connecting the two news items pages apart. Let us accept, for the moment, the petroleum industry position that they can safely -and yet cheaply - explore,test,drill, and transport marine petroleum ashore without harming any fish. What happens then? What happens then is that fish really start dying in serious numbers: in species-threatening numbers, thanks to these safe and cheap efforts of the petroleum industry. Modern progress has assured that Man can kill far more marine life DELIBERATELY in the commercial fishery than he does through mis-advertence via other industrial activities. Cheap oil and low interest rates, those two 'Glories' of the last few decades, have fueled the purchases of ever-larger offshore vessels (and feller-bunchers and ATVs and SUVs) to track down the schools of fish once safe in deeper water. Sigh! Too bad the petroleum industry wasn't unsafe and inefficient and as a result only produced expensive oil. At least the deep sea fleets would be out of business and some fish would have a bit of breathing room. The Petroleum Industry is killing the world's fish: whether they do it now by seismic testing or later when a dragger fills its big tanks with cheap fuel and heads out to sea, matters not. michael marshall, coordinator, gpcns-news@chebucto.ns.ca listserv. ____________________________________________________________________________ Did a friend forward this to you? Join sust-mar yourself! Just send 'subscribe sust-mar' to mailto:majordomo@chebucto.ca
next message in archive
no next message in thread
previous message in archive
Index of Subjects