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Ted Danson may have, but who the fuck does he speak for? no one. Are you just pulling out things random people have said and now your claiming that they are experts? And that they speak for the scientific community?

In Ted Danson's case, he testified before Congress on behalf of an environmental group, so no, I'm not just pulling out things "random people" have said. These are people who are trying to affect socioeconomic policies by making wild statements they claim are backed by science.

FWIW, quite a bit of the fish sold in the US is mislabled already. Nobody seems to be doing much about it.

This report details how grim the situation is with non GM fish. There is probably no hope for labeling fish in general.

* 58 percent of the 81 retail outlets sampled sold mislabeled fish (three in five).
* Small markets had significantly higher fraud (40 percent) than national chain grocery stores (12 percent).
* 100 percent of the 16 sushi bars tested sold mislabeled fish.
* Tilefish, on the FDA’s do-not-eat list because of its high mercury content,1 was substituted for red snapper and halibut in a small market.
* 94 percent of the “white tuna” was not tuna at all, but escolar, a snake mackerel that has a toxin with purgative effects for people who eat more than a small amount of the fish.
* Thirteen different types of fish were sold as “red snapper,” including tilapia, white bass, goldbanded jobfish, tilefish, porgy/seabream, ocean perch and other less valuable snappers.

Remember, this is the BBC, who took a corporate decision in 2006 to pursue an alarmist reporting stance.

Technique one - ad homineum attack on the messenger. A study was done. That study was reported. Attempt to discredit the study by attacking the credibility of the entity doing the reporting. Instead considering the worth of the study itself, the hope is the integrity of the study will be smeared by smearing the entity that reported it.

Technique two- change the topic. We were talking about the effect of global warming on the oceanic food web , now we're going to start talking instead about the BBC and whether they're biased or not.

The original paper says that this is only a pilot study, and that it cannot definitely point to any disadvantage to the animals - 'they MAY suffer increased predation' is a typical comment

Technique three, misrepresent normal and appropriate scientific qualification of results as a license to dismiss the study's findings. The fact is, no single study is definitive. That's normal science. The certainty increases as each successive study is confirmed, amplified, and new studies support the same conclusions using different approaches. Each study considered individually comes with caveats; the picture of reality emerges from an aggregation of such studies. This is called "normal science" and it's how science gets to truth. This study fits into that framework.

Technique four- decontextualize the study from the larger supporting body of related evidence. Closely related to technique three above, the mass of evidence pointing to the devastating effects of oceanic acidification on the food web is incontrovertible. This study reinforces and elaborates this finding with new evidence. Seen in its proper context, this study's relevance increases because its findings are congruent with other studies showing the same disturbing trend- acidification of the oceans is assaulting the food web in the ocean.

The smallest part of the omitted scientific context:

http://www.ocean-acidification.net/FAQeco.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/10/ocean-acidification-epoca

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/opinion/acid-test-for-oceans-and-marine-life.html?_r=0

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/02/436193/science-ocean-acidifying-so-fast-it-threatens-humanity-ability-to-feed-itself/

http://oceana.org/en/our-work/climate-energy/ocean-acidification/learn-act/effects-of-ocean-acidification-on-marine-species-ecosystems

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/06/local/la-me-acidic-oceans-20121007

http://www.examiner.com/article/lethal-carbon-dioxide-and-ocean-acidification-threaten-marine-life

No! haven't you heard! It's the ozone hole sucking them up! http://community.oceana.org/story/2004/7/1/185446/ 7154 I read it on the internet; it must be true!

I feel almost like I've taken a dive on Alvin myself... I work for an ocean conservation group, and this summer one of our staff scientists got the chance to go along on a NOAA expedition that used Alvin to dive on some Alaskan seamounts (mountains at the bottom of the ocean).

Before he left for the trip, I talked him into keeping a journal of it for our organizational blog. Each time he made a new entry, he would e-mail it to me from Alvin's mother ship in the Gulf of Alaska, and then I would post it to the site in as close to real-time as possible. (He wanted to post the entries directly, but we were lucky to get e-mail access for him aboard ship, much less a reliable Web connection.)

You can read the archived journal here: Jon's Journal

(The software defaults to showing the journal entries in reverse chronological order, so the one on top is the last one. Scroll to the bottom and read up to start from the beginning.)

We both just kind of figured it would be something interesting to try, but the result was really cool -- he did a great job describing what it's like to be on an Alvin expedition.

It was actually near the end of his trip that I first heard that Alvin was slated for retirement. From a mechanical perspective, it makes sense; she's seen a lot of wear under some of the most demanding conditions imaginable. It's that very history that makes it hard to imagine seeing her put to pasture, I guess. Here's hoping that we as a people have the vision and commitment to keep exploring the paths down which Alvin took those first tentative steps.

I feel almost like I've taken a dive on Alvin myself... I work for an ocean conservation group, and this summer one of our staff scientists got the chance to go along on a NOAA expedition that used Alvin to dive on some Alaskan seamounts (mountains at the bottom of the ocean).

Before he left for the trip, I talked him into keeping a journal of it for our organizational blog. Each time he made a new entry, he would e-mail it to me from Alvin's mother ship in the Gulf of Alaska, and then I would post it to the site in as close to real-time as possible. (He wanted to post the entries directly, but we were lucky to get e-mail access for him aboard ship, much less a reliable Web connection.)

You can read the archived journal here: Jon's Journal

(The software defaults to showing the journal entries in reverse chronological order, so the one on top is the last one. Scroll to the bottom and read up to start from the beginning.)

We both just kind of figured it would be something interesting to try, but the result was really cool -- he did a great job describing what it's like to be on an Alvin expedition.

It was actually near the end of his trip that I first heard that Alvin was slated for retirement. From a mechanical perspective, it makes sense; she's seen a lot of wear under some of the most demanding conditions imaginable. It's that very history that makes it hard to imagine seeing her put to pasture, I guess. Here's hoping that we as a people have the vision and commitment to keep exploring the paths down which Alvin took those first tentative steps.

I feel almost like I've taken a dive on Alvin myself... I work for an ocean conservation group, and this summer one of our staff scientists got the chance to go along on a NOAA expedition that used Alvin to dive on some Alaskan seamounts (mountains at the bottom of the ocean).

Before he left for the trip, I talked him into keeping a journal of it for our organizational blog. Each time he made a new entry, he would e-mail it to me from Alvin's mother ship in the Gulf of Alaska, and then I would post it to the site in as close to real-time as possible. (He wanted to post the entries directly, but we were lucky to get e-mail access for him aboard ship, much less a reliable Web connection.)

You can read the archived journal here: Jon's Journal

(The software defaults to showing the journal entries in reverse chronological order, so the one on top is the last one. Scroll to the bottom and read up to start from the beginning.)

We both just kind of figured it would be something interesting to try, but the result was really cool -- he did a great job describing what it's like to be on an Alvin expedition.

It was actually near the end of his trip that I first heard that Alvin was slated for retirement. From a mechanical perspective, it makes sense; she's seen a lot of wear under some of the most demanding conditions imaginable. It's that very history that makes it hard to imagine seeing her put to pasture, I guess. Here's hoping that we as a people have the vision and commitment to keep exploring the paths down which Alvin took those first tentative steps.

They're not considered because for personal blogs they are probably more trouble than they're worth. I manage The Oceana Network, a group blog on global efforts to defend the oceans, for my employer, Oceana. (Disclaimer: the opinions expressed here are mine alone and not those of Oceana, yadda yadda.) The Network is based on Scoop.

For a blog like ours, that handles posts from a large group of authors and that needs to be able to support very long discussions, Scoop is fantastic. Give it an inexpensive Linux/BSD box all to itself and it is a very, very nice and flexible online community platform.

However, if you fit the profile of the typical single-author blog author, installing Scoop probably isn't for you. It's a tricky process, requiring "now edit your httpd.conf"-type steps that are just not realistic to expect from someone on a virtual hosting setup. (Not to say that it can't be done -- just that it's not realistic to expect many people to do it.)

And Scoop's primary benefit -- its very nice moderated comment system -- is wasted on a personal blog, where no post will ever get more than a few comments. (I know that ours doesn't have that many yet either, but we've only been up and running for a couple of weeks... give us time :-) )

For those users, MT, WordPress, etc. are much better solutions -- easier installs, and just enough features to be useful without overcomplicating things.

If your blogging ambitions are grander than a simple personal site, though, Scoop is great -- definitely check it out if you haven't already.

They're not considered because for personal blogs they are probably more trouble than they're worth. I manage The Oceana Network, a group blog on global efforts to defend the oceans, for my employer, Oceana. (Disclaimer: the opinions expressed here are mine alone and not those of Oceana, yadda yadda.) The Network is based on Scoop.

For a blog like ours, that handles posts from a large group of authors and that needs to be able to support very long discussions, Scoop is fantastic. Give it an inexpensive Linux/BSD box all to itself and it is a very, very nice and flexible online community platform.

However, if you fit the profile of the typical single-author blog author, installing Scoop probably isn't for you. It's a tricky process, requiring "now edit your httpd.conf"-type steps that are just not realistic to expect from someone on a virtual hosting setup. (Not to say that it can't be done -- just that it's not realistic to expect many people to do it.)

And Scoop's primary benefit -- its very nice moderated comment system -- is wasted on a personal blog, where no post will ever get more than a few comments. (I know that ours doesn't have that many yet either, but we've only been up and running for a couple of weeks... give us time :-) )

For those users, MT, WordPress, etc. are much better solutions -- easier installs, and just enough features to be useful without overcomplicating things.

If your blogging ambitions are grander than a simple personal site, though, Scoop is great -- definitely check it out if you haven't already.

It was a tough call for me whether to mod you up, or add to your idea. Bycatch is a horrible problem that gets almost no notice. IMO, fishing in general is brutal and ugly, but I understand that not everyone is vegetarian (as I am). Anything that can be done to minimize the harm brought by the fishing industry to the the ocean environment (on the large scale) and to the individual sea creatures (on the small scale) is a step in the right direction.

If you eat fish you bear some of the responsibility for the bycatch problem by creating the demand. If the price of fish goes up a bit to pay for this equipment, that seems reasonable.

Not to go overboard (heh) on the topic, it's just responsible stewardship to minimize the negative impact of the fishing industry by fishing as cleanly and sustainably as possible.