The North Atlantic : Stopping Cod Stock Depletion

A clear connection can be made regarding valuing other where the killing of the grey seals can be seen as having a non-instrumental value because the harm is done directly to the seals. While cod have an instrumental value “use value” because the decline in the cod stocks directly affect fishermen/fisherwomen. Also, the concept of flourishing apply to the wellbeing of marine life and the marine ecosystem. As Pannozzo argues that the wilderness area intended to all provide a refuge to all biodiversity species and not only protect the species that favoured by humans. The government failure to protect grey seals and marine ecosystem is a clear evidence of

Throughout history there have been many examples of tragedy of the commons. Tragedy of the commons is when people in a certain area over exploit a common resource which leads toa higher problem. Tragedy of the commons normally happens when people get greedy and get more than they really need. For example, if one farmer is public grazing area were to add a cow over the limit the field can sustain it won’t do much damage but if the other farmers also add another cow to the field it could end up harming it to the point where it is no longer usable.This comes to show that if even a single person becomes greedy it could ruin so many things for other people. Ideas will be pulled out from Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons” to be used in this essay.

COD Before reading the book “Cod, the fish that changed the world’, one might think by just looking at the tittle, “how could it be possible for a single fish to have actually affected everything that has happened in our world?”. However, it actually happened and we, as humans, have to recognize the importance of this particular type of fish, as the one who let us survive throughout our most difficult times on Earth. This fish didn’t just affect us culturally, but also economically. Cod had an important role in the economy, fishermen used it as a form of commercialization given the fact that most people actually enjoyed making dishes with this fish, not only because of their exquisite flavor, but also due to its many nutrients. Mark Kolinsky explained this fact in detail when he mentioned “Cod meat has virtually no fat and more than 18 percent protein, which is unusually high even for a fish”.

      Logos is the logic, internal consistency, and clarity of the argument and it is split into claims, reasons, grounds, warrants, backing, and qualifiers. Hardin begins his essay by establishing his main claim, which is the idea that he believes is the most believable, that the world’s resources cannot be distributed equally, and any attempts to equally distribute current resources will ruin them. He does this by using the metaphor of the earth and its resources as a lifeboat. Only so many people may fit on this lifeboat, just as so many people may have access to the world’s very limited resources, and trying to fit too many people on this lifeboat will sink it. This phenomenon he calls “The Tragedy of the Commons”. He supports this claim with reasons and grounds; reasons being claims which support his initial claim, and grounds being supporting evidence that leads the audience to support the reasons. His warrant, or understood belief, is that spoiling resources and leading the world to ruin is not optimal,

Iconic Cape Cod Massachusetts is named after the Atlantic Cod. For centuries, this fish has provided food and trade for New Englanders. In this time, there have been several instances of overfishing by humans from the aboriginal era to colonial times but none so drastic as the present conditions of cod fisheries (Jackson, Kirby, Berger, and Bjorndal, 2001). Overfishing is a human induced occurrence where humans are fishing more than a body of water can sustain. In other words, humans are catching more adult fish preventing the existing population from growing to replenish the fish that were caught (Overfishing: A Global Disaster, n.d.). Worldwide, over 80% of the fish stocks are “fully- to over-exploited, depleted, or in a state of collapse” (Overfishing: A Global Disaster, n.d.). The results of this careless behavior has reduced the biodiversity in the Gulf of Maine and landed the Atlantic Cod on the endangered species list as being “vulnerable” (Cod, n.d.). In the neighboring region of Newfoundland, Canada, communities are already feeling the effects of overfishing. In 1992, at the beginning of the fishing season in the Grand Bank region, there were suddenly no more cod. The local economies collapsed and to this day, the region has not quite recovered (Brennan and Withgott, 2005).

When the words spread about the large size of fishery, fleets from all over the world joined the hunt. Every year, the size of the fleets got bigger and every year, the size of the catch increased. In the late 50s the arrival of large factor ships from other countries hailed the first onslaught to the finely balanced renewable cod fishery. These factory trawlers came from England, the U.S., the Soviet Union, East and West Germany, Portugal, Poland, and some Asia nations such as Japan and Korea. Towards the end of the 20th century, over 3

For this reason, I suggest overfishing to be a hazard. The depletion of cod has

In 2014 it was acknowledged that the mid-Atlantic stock of tilefish was rebuild. That's just another way of saying the stock has increased in size to where the tilefish are safe from the dangers of the people who keep overfishing. Tilefish are the 36th stock to have been rebuild since 2ooo this just shows how many years its takes to fix something that we humans did.This is another reason why we should really stop overfishing even if not everyone can there should be less people doing

Delgado, C. L., Wada, N., Rosegrant, M. W., Meijer, S., & Ahmed, M. (2003). Fish to 2020: supply and demand in changing global markets. Retrieved from http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/pubs/pubs/books/fish2020/oc44.pdf

Garrett Hardin was a controversial ecologist who believed that overpopulation was going to bring a downfall to a world of limited resources. Each nation was compared to a lifeboat with the rich being inside the boat and the poor in the water, drowning (Hardin, 561). He wrote the “Lifeboat Ethics” in 1974 when Ethiopia was having a starvation problem. Hardin’s opinion about the situation was that sending aid to Ethiopia was only making the problem worse and by feeding the people would aid overpopulation; the root to the problem. Hardin’s thesis developed from the notion that the rich should do nothing to help the poor. He believed that one

One of the distinct features of any common resource is that it is a “non-excludable good1”, meaning no one can be prevented from using what is available. As discussed, the consequence of this scenario is that it will produce a socially inefficient outcome. There are differing theories on how to achieve an economically feasible marginal cost and marginal social benefit equilibrium. The difficulty, of course, is to determine what the socially optimal supply level for Bluefin Tuna should be in relation to fish stock restoration and future sustainability as well as empowering the global community to act in unison. The discussion here

The classic essay Tragedy of the Commons describes the dilemma society faces when the interests of a group conflicts with the interests of individuals (Hardin, 1968). The example presented is that of a group of cattle ranchers commingling their cattle in a common pasture. At full capacity, each cattle owner still has an incentive to include additional cattle, since the slight decrease in overall yield per animal is offset by the additional animal. Unfortunately, this overgrazing inevitably leads to failure of the commons. The community goal of maximizing food production can only be achieved by placing controls on the interests of the individual cattle ranchers in favor of those of the community (Hardin, 1968). This paper is

Of course since my group “caught” all the M&M’s we did not receive any more. In the real world the same thing is happening. Fishermen are fishing violently so they can have the most for themselves and so they can benefit and they do not once think of the bigger picture, they are destroying the common and will eventually cause extinction. In Harding’s article, he mentions a quote similar to what I am saying above; ‘As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize is gain. Explicitly or implicitly, more or less consciously, he asks “What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to herd?” This utility has one negative and positive component.’ The positive component is that the herdsmen will receive more money. The negative component is that if every herdsmen were to do the same they would end up destroying the common. Only when there is ownership we can prevent destruction of the common, because when you own something and have responsibility over it, you think about its future and how to use its resources responsibly. Here’s another quote that stood up to me “The population problem cannot be solved in a technical way, any more than can the problem of winning the game of tick-tack-toe.” What Hardin is trying to say is that the population problem cannot be solved because we cannot control what people do, and if we do create laws against

In the article “ Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor”, Garrett Hardin (1974) argues that wealthy people should not be responsible for the poor and that the consequences of feeding the poor are detrimental to the environment and to the society as a whole. Hardin was a well known philosopher and ecologist. He earned his bachelor's degree in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1936 and also earned his doctorate degree in microbiology from Stanford University in 1941 (Garrett Hardin, n.d.). The main issue that he tackled was human overpopulation and one of the books that he wrote that analyzed this issue was called ‘How Global Population Growth Threatens Widespread Social Disorder’(1992). Because the author has a sufficient

A fishery by definition, is “the occupation, industry, or season of taking fish or other sea animals (shrimp, squid, clams) and selling them for profit” (Webster Dictionary). Atlantic Cod used to be considered as one of the richest fisheries in the world. Atlantic Cod, scientifically known as,Gadus morhua, are heavily bodied, blunt snouted fish that are typically brown or grayish in color with a series of spots located on their bodies along with a pale lateral line. This species of fish have a schooling behavior when feeding but remain isolated when traveling. The Atlantic Cod once densely populated the waters of the Atlantic ocean, from Greenland to North Carolina. Despite the wide range in location, Atlantic Cod are a nonmigratory species