Random thought:
The Alberta government will pay you $30 extra each month if you file for employment income, if you're breastfeeding. $110 if you suffer chronic renal failure.
-
I was reading up on salmon biology a little earlier tonight for some unexplainable reason(ok, that's not the cool part yet). Apparently, according to multiple sources the worlds salmon numbers have dropped considerably in the last few decades:
"Consider the case of salmon in the Pacific Northwest. The seven species of salmon and seagoing trout in this region share a similar life history strategy: as young fish (smolt), they leave their natal rivers and head to the sea where, aided by the productivity of the ocean, they increase tremendously in size and weight. After a year or two at sea, they return to their natal rivers to spawn, whereupon they die. By migrating upstream, spawning, and dying, they transfer nutrients from the ocean to the rivers. A portion of the nutrients is delivered in the form of feces, sperm, and eggs from the living fish; much more comes from the decaying carcasses of the adults. Phosphorus and nitrogen from salmon carcasses enhance the growth of phytoplankton and zooplankton in the rivers, which provide food for smaller fish, including young salmon.
Thus, salmon fry are literally sustained by their parents.
Prior to European settlement, 160–226 million kilograms of salmon migrated each year up the rivers of Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and California. Today, after decades of dam construction, overfishing, water withdrawals for irrigation, logging, and streamside grazing by livestock, salmon populations have plummeted. The total biomass of spawning salmon in the Pacific Northwest is now estimated to be only 12 million."
So, first of all I can safely say I didn't need to actually know one of the reasons salmon tastes so good is literally because they're covered during their youth in their fathers sperm. I could have definitely gone without that life knowledge. Otherwise (whether or not it happens during out lifetimes) experts theorize if the fish populations aren't protected or isn't made a primary concern one day they could become extinct.
I think the late, great magnificent George Carlin said it best in one of his stand ups..
"We're so self-important. So self-important. Everybody's going to save something now. "Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails." And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the fucking planet?
I'm getting tired of that shit. I'm tired of fucking Earth Day, I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world safe for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a shit about the planet. They don't care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They're worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced.
Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't impress me.
Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun?
The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages... and we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference?!"
I admit I don't always separate paper and plastic or aluminum but that's not to say I don't try to do my part -- it's not like I'm hurling non-biodegradable substances by the truckload into open landfills and setting them on fire so they can release as much toxins as possible every time I take out the garbage or anything here. The bitter irony though is our generation is most likely not going to be the generation who suffers from our direct ignorance when it comes to energy and wildlife conservation. Chances are high our children will one day experience the direct impacts of our stupidity.
And it's going to be sweet.
I mean, yeah, I feel for our future children as much as the next person does in believing they shouldn't have to take the blunt of the blow of the problems we're dealing with now. I wouldn't be too happy if my parents and grandparents destroyed the o-zone layer so badly before I was born that from the minute I was born I would have had to live the rest of my life sealed within a plastic bubble the pollution levels were so alarming and deadly, but.. if under the assumption one day all the salmon do become (over)farmed and extinct; our kids will be left with eating species below the mesopelagic zone (or, 200-1000 meters deep to those who don't like deep sea fish as much as I do.)
Namely, these guys, the blobfish:
Ugly is a compliment. He's probably the direct attempted failure of that "turn that frown upside down!" phrase parents used to shout when we were kids -- and what has to be the saddest lookin' by nature animal within the animal kingdom. Although you'd probably look sad too if you had the light yellow parasite bursting out of your mouth -- "(copepod parasite)" which apparently feeds off the blobfish. Their exterior is of a jelly-like substance which is just a little lighter than water but what's extremely cool about these guys is their strategical eating habits. Apparently, they sit all incognito somewhere seclusive and wait for food substances to drift by. If the food drifts close enough.. they eat it! If it doesn't.. and here's the awesome part: They do nothing. Yup. Absolutely nothing at all. They then just sit and .... wait for more food to pass by.
They're quite possibly the best deep sea fish in existence.
And as much as I want the world to still be in a somewhat livable form for my future kids long after I'm gone, God, I'm calling out to you here; PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE.
Make the blobfish the new salmon.
PLEASE.
The Alberta government will pay you $30 extra each month if you file for employment income, if you're breastfeeding. $110 if you suffer chronic renal failure.
-
I was reading up on salmon biology a little earlier tonight for some unexplainable reason
"Consider the case of salmon in the Pacific Northwest. The seven species of salmon and seagoing trout in this region share a similar life history strategy: as young fish (smolt), they leave their natal rivers and head to the sea where, aided by the productivity of the ocean, they increase tremendously in size and weight. After a year or two at sea, they return to their natal rivers to spawn, whereupon they die. By migrating upstream, spawning, and dying, they transfer nutrients from the ocean to the rivers. A portion of the nutrients is delivered in the form of feces, sperm, and eggs from the living fish; much more comes from the decaying carcasses of the adults. Phosphorus and nitrogen from salmon carcasses enhance the growth of phytoplankton and zooplankton in the rivers, which provide food for smaller fish, including young salmon.
Thus, salmon fry are literally sustained by their parents.
Prior to European settlement, 160–226 million kilograms of salmon migrated each year up the rivers of Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and California. Today, after decades of dam construction, overfishing, water withdrawals for irrigation, logging, and streamside grazing by livestock, salmon populations have plummeted. The total biomass of spawning salmon in the Pacific Northwest is now estimated to be only 12 million."
So, first of all I can safely say I didn't need to actually know one of the reasons salmon tastes so good is literally because they're covered during their youth in their fathers sperm. I could have definitely gone without that life knowledge. Otherwise (whether or not it happens during out lifetimes) experts theorize if the fish populations aren't protected or isn't made a primary concern one day they could become extinct.
I think the late, great magnificent George Carlin said it best in one of his stand ups..
"We're so self-important. So self-important. Everybody's going to save something now. "Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails." And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the fucking planet?
I'm getting tired of that shit. I'm tired of fucking Earth Day, I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world safe for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a shit about the planet. They don't care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They're worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced.
Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't impress me.
Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun?
The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages... and we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference?!"
I admit I don't always separate paper and plastic or aluminum but that's not to say I don't try to do my part -- it's not like I'm hurling non-biodegradable substances by the truckload into open landfills and setting them on fire so they can release as much toxins as possible every time I take out the garbage or anything here. The bitter irony though is our generation is most likely not going to be the generation who suffers from our direct ignorance when it comes to energy and wildlife conservation. Chances are high our children will one day experience the direct impacts of our stupidity.
And it's going to be sweet.
I mean, yeah, I feel for our future children as much as the next person does in believing they shouldn't have to take the blunt of the blow of the problems we're dealing with now. I wouldn't be too happy if my parents and grandparents destroyed the o-zone layer so badly before I was born that from the minute I was born I would have had to live the rest of my life sealed within a plastic bubble the pollution levels were so alarming and deadly, but.. if under the assumption one day all the salmon do become (over)farmed and extinct; our kids will be left with eating species below the mesopelagic zone (or, 200-1000 meters deep to those who don't like deep sea fish as much as I do.)
Namely, these guys, the blobfish:
Ugly is a compliment. He's probably the direct attempted failure of that "turn that frown upside down!" phrase parents used to shout when we were kids -- and what has to be the saddest lookin' by nature animal within the animal kingdom. Although you'd probably look sad too if you had the light yellow parasite bursting out of your mouth -- "(copepod parasite)" which apparently feeds off the blobfish. Their exterior is of a jelly-like substance which is just a little lighter than water but what's extremely cool about these guys is their strategical eating habits. Apparently, they sit all incognito somewhere seclusive and wait for food substances to drift by. If the food drifts close enough.. they eat it! If it doesn't.. and here's the awesome part: They do nothing. Yup. Absolutely nothing at all. They then just sit and .... wait for more food to pass by.
They're quite possibly the best deep sea fish in existence.
And as much as I want the world to still be in a somewhat livable form for my future kids long after I'm gone, God, I'm calling out to you here; PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE.
Make the blobfish the new salmon.
PLEASE.
Comments
Over 99% of species that ever lived are now extinct, but extinction occurs at an uneven rate. (wikipedia :D)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event#Major_extinction_events
i have a feeling we will be clensed soon. the earth will be uninhabatable(spelling?) we will die then the earth will heal and then life will prosper again!
HORAAY FOR HOMO SAPIENS!
well thats uh.. my theory about our doom :)
you should still knit it a hat anyway.