[crucio]

I also strongly agree. Members of HN like to silence views like this, but it's a valid point that is growing in support.

You may not see it now, but views like yours are part of the problem. We can't keep destroying the planet. Change comes at multiple levels, whether it be from the individuals with their purchasing power or governments forcing reform.

[kuhewa]

The counterfactual to fishing isn't nothing though. People need to eat. Any calorie not coming from seafood has a footprint on land. Some seafood like whitefish, small pelagics and farmed bivalves, when sustainably managed are about the most low carbon and environmentally low footprint foods you can eat, and they are also very micronutrient dense at a time 'silent hunger' is affecting at least a billion people on earth.

[sweetheart]

Well those folks experiencing silent hunger certainly aren’t getting the fish you’re promoting that we eat, so that doesn’t seem to be a good reason to continue doing it.

Human beings already grow enough food to feed the planet. In fact we grow enough food to feed to hundreds of billions of animals we slaughter every year. We could easily give up fishing and factory farming AND eradicate hunger, but it requires significant change to folks priorities and supply chains. It’s possible though, and we should work towards it ASAP

[crucio]

Yes I appreciate that there's portion of the population in dire need of food or who have little option but to fish - I doubt any would begrudge them doing whatever they can to survive.

The rest of the world (where we have choice when walking down a supermarket or picking where to eat) should be looking to more ethically and environmentally friendly foods.

There is easily enough land on earth to support us all. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

Your diet of dead animals is killing the planet.

[sputr]

Are (pragmatic) views really a problem? I'm not so sure. Depends on what you are trying to achieve.

If you're trying to change people's values (i.e. from "who care about the environment" to "we need to protect the environment") than pragmatism isn't the way to go.

But if you want to convert values (i.e. "we need to protect the environment") into actual real world results, well in that case pragmatism is the only way to go.

Look at the whole green energy discussion. If the green movement contained its activism to fossil fuels and turned pragmatic on the topic of alternatives ... we would be living in a much cleaner world today.

But they didn't and as a result, they radically reduced their net positive effect on the world.