Get out of the sushi business soon

I’ve often wondered how sustainable our fisheries are, and yesterday Canadian scientists came up with an answer: if we keep going the way we are, the oceans will be depleted of wild fish by 2050.

It’s strange to image Baby G not being able to feast on a wild salmon, or enjoy a nice black cod dinner when he is just a little older than I am now. But with the current sushi craze in North America and the rest of the world fishing like mad, I can understand why the oceans are becoming less and less bountiful.

As a new parent, I want to figure out a way to do something to stem the tide of the environment degradation to give Baby G a healthy world to live in, yet we are still guilty of using disposable diapers. We try and shop sustainably, and we do a pretty good job of reducing waste, but as a working stiff making just enough to survive, I find I don’t have the energy and drive to do much more.

I know these are lame excuses and I start thinking I should try harder. But then I look around me and wonder if I can do anything. There seems to be little will to reduce our consumption in North America. People are still driving Hummers and gorging themselves at all-you-can-eat sushi bars. The idea of changing everything becomes a pretty demoralizing and daunting task when you sit down to think about it.

I guess all we can do is try and raise our son to be conscious of these things, while we try reduce our negative waste and consumption. Right now I take transit to work, drink my moring coffee out of a travel mug and bring my lunch to work, rather than buying take out. We’ve also gone down to one car and we use cloth grocery bags, so we are doing OK, but not fantastic.

Hopefully others will do the same and we’ll see real change in the next 10 or 20 years.