debitage

11.11.06

Moving Trout

I'm not quite sure what to think about this, but it's an interesting story:

Montana trout moved because of wildfire

About 1,000 Yellowstone cutthroat trout, feared in jeopardy from the aftereffects of a major Montana wildfire, are being captured and moved temporarily to streams not threatened by fire damage.

The cutthroat could vanish from two Yellowstone River tributaries at risk from last summer's Derby Mountain fire, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks said. It anticipates that melting snow, rushing down slopes denuded by fire, will carry too much ash and soil into the streams next spring, perhaps smothering cutthroat, clogging gravel where they spawn and reducing the flies and aquatic insects they eat.

Stentor Danielson, 00:40, |

8.11.06

Sustainability for Animals

Jason Scorse asks whether environmentalism should separate itself from the animal welfare movement and just focus on sustainability. The question implies that the two movements are distinct but may enter into an alliance because of the similarity of their ends, like blacks and Native Americans working together to fight racism. But I don't believe the two can be separate. If you believe that animal welfare must be defended, then it has to be pursued conjointly with environmentalism.

Any morally defensible view of sustainability includes some idea of welfare. That requires us to ask: whose welfare? Thus, even before beginning to work on sustainability, one has to settle the question of the boundaries of moral considerability. Scorse's question implicitly defines sustainability as sustainability of human welfare. A movement focusing only on human welfare implicitly demotes the animal rights movement to the status of a cultural phenomenon, on a par with the local historial society or LARPers (and to be clear, I have nothing against either of those groups). There's no room for recognizing animal rights as a morally righteous quest for justice. People fighting for religious freedom, or immigrants' rights, can remain separate from (and agnostic toward) the question of animal rights, because their issues are irrelevant to animals' welfare. Other movements (such as workers' rights/anti-capitalism) have to answer the animal rights question because the oppression they fight, and the possible solutions to it, are causally linked to animals' welfare. Environmentalism is one step farther -- if animals count, then they are in the same boat (or at least the same kind of boat) as humans.

Stentor Danielson, 17:42, |

Ask Mr. Answer Man

I've been getting some interesting search results this election night. I unfortunately forgot to mention my polling place (right next door to my house, conveniently enough), so I wasn't of much help to the people searching where to vote. (Speaking of my polling place, the voting booths here were really poorly designed. The ballot was this giant sheet of light card, which was half again as long as the little table part of the booth -- but the table had an inch-high rim all around it.) On the other hand, I was hopefully of some help to the many people searching for information on Arizona's various ballot propositions (though apparently not enough help, since at the moment most of the important ones besides the minimum wage raise are going the wrong way. ¡Qué lástima!)

Tougher questions are raised by the folks looking for Bob Casey and Ned Lamont's views on animal rights. I don't actually know what either man thinks on this issue, but perhaps we should call up Lamont HQ and suggest that as a new career move for him.

Someone found this blog looking for "utilitarianism versus feminism." As someone with utilitarian and (pro)feminist sympathies, I wouldn't really describe it as a "versus" situation.

Finally, one searcher observes that ""when you hate someone"- God does not like it." Amen.

Stentor Danielson, 00:05, |

6.11.06

Predictions

I stand by my earlier (can't be bothered to find the link right now) prediction: the Democrats will retake neither house of Congress. Specifically, I'm expecting about a 12 seat gain in the House and 3 seats in the Senate.

Stentor Danielson, 18:26, |

God Is Evil?

You don't often see Christians responding to the Problem of Evil by saying "actually, God is an unjust, cruel, sadistic bastard."

Stentor Danielson, 00:38, |

5.11.06

A Grain of Salt With Your Tradeable Fishing Quotas

There's a lot of talk about a recent study showing the significant collapse of many of the world's fisheries, and its predictions of more of the same if we don't do something about it. The go-to policy recommendation on the center and the right is Individual Transferrable Quotas. ITQs are basically an attempt to bring the magic of the free market to bear on a classic "tragedy of the commons" situation. We can't fence wild fish in (and anyway most fish farming depends on wild-caught fish for food), but we can give out a limited number of rights to bring fish to market.

I'm not against ITQs as part of a broader fisheries management strategy, but I think we need to take a bit of caution in extolling their virtues and viewing them as the solution to overfishing. There are two key shortcomings of ITQs from an environmental perspective: they don't privatize everything, and they're only as good as the quotas they're based on.

Let's discuss the adequacy of the quotas first. Scientists are increasingly realizing that ocean ecosystems are far more complex than we once thought. This makes it even more difficult to what level of fishing would be sustainable, and hence how many ITQs to issue. In theory a precautionary approach could be taken, but that would be politically unfeasible, as fishers who stand to lose out would demand proof that a higher quota would be detrimental. And even with a quota established, there are enforcement issues -- e.g. sneaking fish to market, or "highgrading" (catching more fish than you can keep, then throwing back all but the best however-many).

ITQs create an approximate privatization of the target species. However, many of the environmental impacts of fishing go beyond catching too many of the target species. For example, bycatch -- the useless fish and other sea creatures swept up by a fishing net -- can have big impacts on the marine ecosystem (including indirect harm to the target species). But because (unlike fencing off land) only the target species, not the ecosystem that produces it, is privatized, the impacts of decisions about taking steps to minimize bycatch are spread across the community of ITQ-holders for that fishery, retaining the tragedy of the commons. After all, in Hardin's original illustration, the sheep were privatized but the ecosystem (the pasture) was not.

ITQs are a comparatively recent invention. Looking at how other cultures (who lack the kind of population modeling that enables us to set quotas) have dealt with fisheries can give us ideas for additional measures that can offset the problems with ITQs. Around the world, societies have employed two major strategies for limiting overfishing -- reserves and technology limits.

Reserves are simply places where or times when nobody can fish. This creates a sheltered portion of the ecosystem, from which fish spill over into the fishable portions. Reserves thus play on the very fluidity of population movements that make fisheries impossible to privatize on the pasture-fencing model.

Technology limits constrain the ability of fishers to overexploit or to catch in ecologically detrimental ways. For example, traditional societies have net size rules that are callibrated to let fish of certain ages through, preserving future generations. An important advantage of technology limits is that they are more easily enforced.

Stentor Danielson, 22:45, |

This Blog Has The Meaning Of Life

Not only am I the top search result for "What constitutes a meaningful and worthwhile life?," I'm the only result when you put that phrase in quotes.

Stentor Danielson, 21:32, |