Oh look. Another article based on "a non profit journalist group" with a provocative name, and "a local microbiologist says" that something apocalyptic happened. Something makes me think that local microbiologists from Gabon or Gambia might need their math checked, but that is just me. Isn't it? And make sure we use all the hyperbole we can because... new science and the new journalism.

Can we stop with this fake journalism one of these days? Not even Greta is 13 years old anymore. Can we get environmental groups to form a Voltron and do actual, repeatable, verifiable work rather than letting the likes of Greenpeace Nazca kickers represent the pinnacle of ambulance chasing and extortion du jour of some capitalists? Mashed potatoes at famous paintings? Makes SENSE!

Why the vitriol? Because this article is analogous to "backburning" and "fire-breaking." Someone who REALLY wants to study this issue now has to climb a wall of panicky disinformation spread by amateurs and local microbiologists who had to exaggerate something to get a headline in Yahoo News. This wrong way of doing things is counterproductive. Greenpeace spends its time speaking against recycling and nuclear power, and winds up boosting coal and beef. They spin in circles and then cheer on the mashed potato terrorists.

So that is out of the way.

You know what would really help this? Higher gasoline prices.

Who knows if what the article describes really happened. It doesn't matter. That is an anecdote. What definitely happened is that Chinese fishing boats can somehow operate profitably in the coastal waters of West Africa and anywhere else they feel like it because... they can.

If gasoline prices were high enough, there would be a lot less tragedy of the commons and a lot more careful development of national coastal areas, with managed fishery areas, stocked fisheries, etc.. Higher gasoline prices would "force" the development of cheaper and more sustainable terrestrial or at least local protein sources for fish, which is a win, and do the same for protein sources for humans, which is another win. There is a point where the answer to eating will not be simply, "consume all wildlife everywhere."

Rather than using "fish meal from fish to feed fish," maybe we could be breeding crickets or locusts or meal worms or other larvae. Giving that initiative a head start is a great idea. Besides, everyone knows fish love bugs.

And you know what? Let's say that fishing boats figure out ways to cut fuel costs using solar and wind power. They might "get around" high fuel prices and just go back to raping the environment. Well. It will take them money and time to do so. Maybe by then, the oceans and fish will have a little time to recover, and even cheaper alternatives will have been developed.

Why isn't Greenpeace just doing ONE THING it could do? Protest and agitate for higher fuel prices. All the time. Every time. It is the ONE THING that would solve every problem it lobbies against.