Neptune's Pasture

I just got back from a special seminar presented by Paul Greenberg about his upcoming book “Neptune’s Pasture.” Greenberg presented the audience with two readings, one from the autobiographical portion of his book and the second focusing on the introduction of the book and its central thesis. Afterwards he ended with a lively question and answer session in which the audience presented a number of terrific ideas. The prose presented was lyrical, I am greatly looking forward to ordering the book on Amazon, but alas it is not yet near publication (I will make a note here when it becomes available). I didn’t take notes so what follows is a generalization of the key points and themes to his book.

Greenberg’s central “thesis” as he called it was that humans now stand at the precipice of making critical decisions involving the future of the world’s fisheries. He pointed out that hunter gatherers narrowed down the many, many mammals that used to range our ancestral lands to four that are considered somewhat common now, sheep, goats, pigs and cattle. He then notes that humankind then turned its attention to the skies, narrowing those down to four key species chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese. He then proposes that we will likely do the same to fish, pick four that are manageable species that meet certain taste/textures requirements, and cultivate them while slowly driving other species to extinction. The factors that make this push are varied, from human kind’s desire for choice but “not too much choice” to industrial efficiency favoring only a few profitable options.

He noted that while for our ancestors the culling was not a decision but a necessity. For us, given our improved understanding of ecosystems, what we do to fisheries in the future is a decision and one that we need to consider presently.

The format of the book seems to be an autobiographical introduction, an introduction of the thesis then a discussion of four fish species within context of the thesis including sea bass, cod, something else and tuna.

The discussion that followed the reading was lively and topics ranged along the following:

• Categorizing fish as food or wildlife and how public perception of this divide drives choices.


• That human taste changes with time, and that has allowed us to move from one fish species to another very quickly, with devastating effects on the “fish of the year.”


• Is sustainable fishing really a good premise to move towards. Once a fishery is declared “sustainable” society will move towards it rapidly, making it immediately unsuistainable.


• A question was asked where shell fish fit into his thesis, and Greenburg seemed to think that it was a different issue, one that affected developing nations more than developed nations.

The idea is pretty interesting and a I thought a solid one. My fisheries friends told me that there were a lot of holes in the principle of the idea, but in my ignorance I missed them. Anyone want to cast some doubt on the theory?

Catching up...

During the period I was away working BNL, I was looking at and archiving interesting articles to blog about when I got back. Well then came the election special, and now I’m all sorts of behind.

So here are a few articles that you might find interesting, that I just don’t have proper time to discuss here:

Scientists performing research in the Amazon have discovered a species of ancient ants, that are probably the forbearers to the common ant found today. Evolutionary ecologist have long suspected that ants descended from wasps, and that ancestor ants should look something like a hybrid between the two. The results are surprising. An image at the Times website had a really neat interactive picture of the ant, with notations about unique characteristics of the ancient ant.

The Hubbel telescope is back in operation after a data router failed in late September. NASA engineers were able to activate a backup system, which had not been used in 18 years. A mission to repair the data router has been delayed, as parts are not yet ready for the mission.

The worlds fisheries are in danger of collapsing in the next few decades, as overfishing and government mis-management puts tremendous pressure on fish populations. This recent report suggests private ownership of fish stocks can improve fish populations. There appears to be a certain “Tragedy of the Commons” feel to this story, as a public, community resource has been exploited over the past 50 years, to the point of which the shared resource is nearing the point of collapse.

Researchers at Yale University are attempting to return some now extinct turtles tortoises to existence. The tortoises, from the Galapagos Islands were decimated by whaling ships hunting them to extinction. This genetic manipulation is either exciting/scary/confusing depending on your perspective of genetics research.

Meanwhile German scientists have concluded that intermediate quantities of emitted dirt and dust enhances rainfall. Evidently there is a Goldilocks syndrome with respect to rain and earthborne particles; too little dirt and too much dirt leads to little rain. You need just the right amount of dirt to get a rainstorm. The article itself is a bit tough to read and contains a couple of misnomers (i.e. implying that humans have increased the amount of terrestrial aerosols by 5000% or 50x more), but explaining aerosols is difficult, so the author gets a pass from me.

If everyone knows the tree had fallen, and then someone finds the fallen tree, is it news? Image to the right shows the so called chemical-equator, a line which pollutants do not freely cross. Image taken from Hamilton et al, from AGU journals.



And lastly, we’ve known for quite some time that the northern and southern hemispheres exchange gasses slowly. Pollutants emitted in the Northern Hemisphere rarely enter the Southern Hemisphere because they are typically removed from the atmosphere much faster than air is transported in between the two hemispheres. Anyway, a group of Aussie scientists have evidently proven this experimentally, identifying a barrier between the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. Question: if we already knew this, is it news?