Think over fishing is a problem now?

From the Washington Post

NOAA chief floats removing ‘climate’ from mission statement and focusing on trade deficit

A recent presentation by the acting head of the United States’ top weather and oceans agency suggested removing the study of “climate” from its official mission statement, focusing the agency’s work instead on economic goals and “homeland and national security.”
 
Critics say this would upend the mission of the $5.9 billion National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But the administration disputes that interpretation, saying the presentation did not intend to create a change of direction at a vast agency that tracks hurricanes and atmospheric carbon dioxide, operates weather satellites, manages marine reserves and protects endangered ocean species, among other functions.
 
NOAA’s mission, the agency says, is “to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts, to share that knowledge and information with others, and to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources.”
 
But in a presentation at a Commerce Department “Vision Setting Summit” this month, Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet, the agency’s acting administrator, suggested a change to that mission statement, as well as a new emphasis on tripling the size of the U.S. aquaculture industry within a decade and moving to “reduce the seafood trade deficit.”
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The mind boggles!
David Trammel's picture

The Adminisrations desire to expand the fishing industry may have come just at the time that there is no "unlimited growth" to pursue.

https://widerimage.reuters.com/story/as-stocks-deplete-greek-fishermen-send-boats-to-scrap

"Panagiotis Pagonis (left) sits on the deck of his fishing boat off Asprovalta in northern Greece, grimacing at another empty catch. "It's all gone to hell," the 72-year-old mutters as the early glimmer of dawn lights up the waters. Ten days later, he looks on as the mechanical arm of a bulldozer rips through his vessel, the Katerina, crushing a lifetime of memories. He has been at sea since he was a child. But the scrap yard takes just minutes.

Hundreds of fishermen like him are turning in their boats and their licences, partly because catches are down, partly because the EU and the Greek government are offering them cash to leave the trade, under a scheme to protect fish stocks. Europe's environment agency says those stocks have reached a critical level in the Mediterranean, with serious implications for the people living on its shores who have found their food there for centuries."