Sustainable Seafood Rankings: 4 Supermarket Chains Pass Greenpeace’s Review

Yo Adrian, I hope your being sarcastic, I think Mark is wrong

Troublesome diversity? God made the Earth diverse for a reason. I'm sick of Christians badmouthing environmentalists. I'm a Christian and I happen to care about the Earth a lot,just like God does. God loves all creatures great and small. The only material gift God gave us was the Earth, and now we are destroying it. Christians should be the biggest environmentalist of any people group.

Dan of WA @ Dec 20, 2008 02:11:05 AM

Human Life is HIghest Value

Mark,

You are so correct. Therre is no doubt that a truly rational economy will emerge when the biosphere is finally exhausted of it's troublesome diversity. I eagerly await that sweet gray day when all life that matters is human and we base our nutrition and recreation on our utility and trade of the convenient lower order 'slime species'. Life will be so much richer for having eliminated the other pesky players of the ecosystem who really don't 'produce' anything at all do they.

Humanity will forget it's tiresome attachments between diversity of habitiat and life forms as some handle of value.

Bring on the 'good life' I say.

Adrain Bruyn of CA @ Dec 16, 2008 09:47:08 AM

You Shouldn't Take Genesis So Literally

Dear Mark of CA,

It is frustrating to me that you fail to see the connection between protecting our oceans and human well being. Your continued access to fish is greatly jeopardized by destructive fishing practices and dangerously high catch limits. Exhibit A: the collapse of the cod-fishery in the North Atlantic, which put 40,000 people out of work. http://www.emagazine.com/view/?507

Moreover, large scale fishing enterprises have, in numerous examples, destroyed the close-to-shore fisheries that traditional fishing communities rely on for their primary source of protein. "'The fishermen are getting insufficient food even for their families,' a social worker [near Karnataka, India] told me in 1986. 'Any fish that is caught has to be sold to buy filling foods like rice, and the infants are showing clear signs of protein deficiency.'" - The Growth Illusion, Richard Douthwaite, 1999.

90% of the planet's large fish including tuna, marlin, swordfish, sharks and cod are gone. http://ram.biology.dal.ca/~myers/depletion/ Do I care more about humans than I care about fish? Yes, obviously. Do I think it is morally acceptable for humans to consume seafood? Yes, or I wouldn't do it. Do I think that it is acceptable to destroy entire ecosystems through overfishing and bottom trawling all so that you can have cheap access to 18 different kinds of fish at Costco? No. If we're going to measure the impact on human life, lets measure it on all of human life and not just on the benefit to myopic middle class Americans. There is a difference between "anti-human" and "anti-Marc's $3 Atlantic salmon filet."

Jamie of VA @ Dec 16, 2008 04:46:57 AM

Human Life is Highest Value

I'm glad to see Costco, my favorite company, near the middle of the pack. If only they were lower. I say this because I consider human life as the value, not "the ocean" by Greenpeace's definition. Affordable, healthy foods will trump some abstract, anti-human notion of the good any day.

Mark of CA @ Dec 10, 2008 15:39:46 PM

This list may be useful in embarrassing these grocery stores to try to urge them to change their policies. It's not, however, a good consumer guide for those looking to make informed purchases. A major criteria used in the rankings is whether a market sells a "red list" species such as Chilean sea bass, whose numbers are in decline. For instance, a market's score may be brought down by the fact that they offer Chilean sea bass, but they might get shrimp from a sustainable provider. As a consumer, I wouldn't know based on GP's rankings that this market is a great place to buy shrimp.

Christy of MD @ Dec 09, 2008 16:58:04 PM