"The end of fish" is one more reason to believe humans are powerful enough to affect the planet
The Washington Post today summarizes findings on the decline in global fish stocks from a recent World Wildlife Federation study, a situation that Daniel Pauly at the University of British Columbia has called “the end of fish”. The report documents declines in many different species on both land and sea, but the Post’s article focuses on fish. Figure 10 (page 19) in the booklet summarizing the report tells the story vividly, portraying the expansion of humanity’s ability to scour the entire ocean for fish.
There are still those who doubt that humanity is powerful enough to affect the natural environment in irreversible ways, but the WWF report is one more strong piece of evidence to the contrary.
References
Donner, Simon D. 2011. “Making the climate a part of the human world." The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. vol. 92, no. 10. October. pp. 1297-1302. [http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2011BAMS3219.1]
WWF. 2012. Living Planet Report 2012: Biodiversity, Biocapacity, and Better Choices. Washington, DC: World Wildlife Fund. [http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/living_planet_report/]
