Crise Climática: Por Que Ter Esperança É Racional

Há muitos motivos para desesperar: a nossa terra verdejante e aprazível está seca e acastanhada, as albufeiras estão depletadas e os incêndios florestais estão a fustigar o Reino Unido, a Europa, Canadá e os EUA. Mas há muitos mais motivos para não desesperar: o desespero alimenta-se a si próprio; o desespero desarmar-nos-á; o desespero é aquilo que os sacanas querem que sintas. Mas, acima de tudo, o desespero é irracional. Deixa-me explicar porquê.

Por mais sofisticadas que sejam as nossas ferramentas de previsão, simplesmente não temos forma de saber o que vem a seguir. Tal como o clima, tal como qualquer ecossistema, a sociedade é um sistema complexo. As suas propriedades e respostas adaptativas não podem ser previstas estudando os seus componentes de forma isolada, independentemente do brilhantismo dos cientistas sociais e dos futurólogos. Acontecem coisas — coisas inesperadas —, por vezes a uma velocidade espantosa. Dito de outro modo, a sociedade tem pontos de rutura: pode passar rapidamente de um estado de equilíbrio para outro.

Veja-se a Irlanda, para dar apenas um exemplo. Até há poucas décadas, a República da Irlanda era uma teocracia católica. Tinha sido assim desde os anos 1920. Aliás, durante a maior parte do século XX, a Igreja Católica parecia estreitar cada vez mais o seu controlo. Quebrar esse controlo era algo quase inimaginável. Mas depois uma série de acontecimentos combinou-se de formas inesperadas. Uma sucessão de escândalos terríveis veio à tona: violência sexual sistemática, o rapto de mulheres e crianças, trabalho escravo e mortalidade em massa em instituições da Igreja. As viagens e os meios de comunicação social permitiram ao povo irlandês ver como era a libertação social e sexual noutros países. A comunicação social e os fóruns internacionais permitiram que ativistas corajosos, cujas vozes tinham sido suprimidas durante muito tempo, fossem ouvidos de forma mais ampla. As muralhas caíram mais depressa do que alguém poderia ter adivinhado. Em pouco tempo, tanto o casamento igualitário como o direito ao aborto foram legalmente sancionados: uma mudança que tinha sido quase inimaginável.

O mesmo se pode dizer do colapso do comunismo de Estado e do fim de quase todos os impérios e monarquias que outrora pareciam inabaláveis. O império dos combustíveis fósseis não é exceção.

O sistema complexo a que chamamos sociedade tem dois estados de equilíbrio: o impossível e o inevitável. A mudança que queremos parece sempre impossível. Voto para as mulheres? Perdeu o juízo. Independência para a Índia? A Grã-Bretanha nunca a vai largar. Direitos civis? Ridículo! Mas com pressão sustentada, um pouco de sorte e uma mudança de circunstâncias, pumba!, o impossível acontece. Depois toda a gente diz: “Pois, era inevitável, não era?”

Acho que podemos estar a aproximar-nos de um ponto de rutura no colapso climático. Durante anos disseram-nos: “Estão a pedir a Lua. Os combustíveis fósseis vieram para ficar.” Uma parte de mim acreditou nisso. Mas agora, como a reportagem do Guardian demonstrou, subitamente os combustíveis fósseis são muito mais caros do que as energias renováveis. Subitamente, são as tecnologias verdes que estão a gerar imenso emprego e rendimento. Subitamente, barreiras tecnológicas que pareciam insuperáveis ruíram. Subitamente, os políticos financiados pelos combustíveis fósseis parecem ultrapassados, ridículos, corruptos. Subitamente, estamos a acordar para a necessidade de uma ação urgente, à medida que os choques de calor reforçam a mensagem.

O problema de um ponto de rutura, seja ele positivo ou negativo, é que nunca se sabe de antemão onde ele possa estar. Só se consegue ver em retrospetiva. Se já causámos tanto aquecimento global ao ponto de o sistema de correntes do Atlântico estar destinado a colapsar, ou de um fracasso em cascata da floresta amazónica estar assegurado, ainda não sabemos. Mas, da mesma forma, se as condições necessárias para uma grande mudança social já estiverem alinhadas, não o saberemos até o sistema mudar.

Este tipo de mudança rápida exige um público informado por fontes de comunicação independentes, jornalistas comprometidos com os factos e não com interesses corporativos. O modelo aberto e financiado pelos leitores do Guardian é um antídoto claro para outros meios de comunicação — tanto a imprensa dos bilionários como os radiodifusores de serviço público — que estão ativamente a esquivar-se a este desafio, reduzindo a sua cobertura sobre o clima numa altura em que ela nunca foi tão crítica.

Por isso, no Guardian e não só, continuamos a pressionar, continuamos a expor, continuamos a demonstrar como a mudança pode acontecer. E, por razões inteiramente racionais, continuamos a ter esperança. Por favor, considera apoiar o nosso jornalismo hoje mesmo.

A maior questão com que nos confrontamos, possivelmente a maior questão que a humanidade já enfrentou, é saber se conseguimos atingir os pontos de rutura sociais antes de atingirmos os pontos de rutura ambientais.

Fonte

O fenómeno do pára-brisas limpo: a dita "viagem confortável" que esconde uma catástrofe ecológica

Durante décadas, quem conduzia pelas estradas de Portugal conhecia um pequeno incómodo inevitável. Ao fim de algumas dezenas de quilómetros, sobretudo nas noites quentes de Primavera e Verão, o pára-brisas ficava coberto de insetos esmagados. Era preciso lavar o vidro, limpar os faróis, remover aquela película de pequenos corpos que se acumulava ao longo da viagem.

Hoje, muitos automobilistas já nem se lembram disso. As viagens fazem-se com os pára-brisas quase limpos.

O fenómeno tornou-se tão banal que poucos se interrogam sobre o seu significado. Afinal, quem haveria de lamentar a ausência de insetos esmagados? E, no entanto, o que a ciência designa formalmente por "fenómeno do pára-brisas" (windshield phenomenon) é, na verdade, um dos sinais mais inquietantes da transformação ecológica do nosso tempo.

O desaparecimento dos insetos não é uma curiosidade estatística nem uma preocupação romântica. Em Portugal, o alerta deixou de ser apenas uma suspeita visual para passar a ser um facto científico incontornável. A publicação do Livro Vermelho dos Invertebrados de Portugal Continental, que contou com forte liderança e coordenação científica nacional, revelou que mais de duas centenas de espécies de invertebrados terrestres e de água doce estão ativamente ameaçadas de extinção no nosso território.

Os insetos constituem uma parte fundamental da biomassa animal terrestre. São a base alimentar de inúmeras espécies de aves, morcegos, anfíbios, répteis, peixes e pequenos mamíferos. Quando os insetos desaparecem, toda a cadeia ecológica começa a vacilar. Uma andorinha não se alimenta de teorias económicas. Um morcego não vive de discursos políticos. Um papa-moscas não sobrevive de boas intenções. Todos dependem de insetos reais, capturados todos os dias, aos milhares. Quando esses insetos escasseiam, a fome instala-se, a reprodução diminui e as extinções locais sucedem-se em absoluto silêncio.

Ao mesmo tempo, tornam-se raros os insetos que desempenham funções vitais. Os polinizadores são o exemplo mais flagrante. Abelhas selvagens, abelhões, moscas-das-flores e borboletas garantem a reprodução de grande parte das plantas silvestres e cultivadas. Para tentar travar este colapso, Portugal aprovou o plano nacional [Polinizadores em Ação]. Desenvolvido em parceria com a comunidade científica da Universidade de Coimbra e o ICNF, este roteiro define mais de uma centena de medidas urgentes para recuperar os habitats destes animais, cientes de que, sem eles, não desaparecem apenas as flores - diminuem drasticamente as colheitas e a nossa própria segurança alimentar.

Mas talvez as histórias mais elucidativas sejam aquelas que envolvem criaturas aparentemente insignificantes. Tomemos as joaninhas.

Durante milhões de anos, as joaninhas foram aliadas silenciosas da agricultura, alimentando-se de afídios e cochonilhas de forma gratuita e altamente eficaz. Depois vieram os pesticidas químicos. Investigadores portugueses ligados ao cE3c (Centro de Ecologia, Evolução e Alterações Ambientais) têm vindo a alertar para esta realidade, tendo inclusive participado em debates científicos de relevo nacional como o documentário O Apocalipse dos Insetos , focado precisamente no esforço urgente para travar esta extinção em massa provocada pelo ser humano. Ao inundarmos os campos com veneno, eliminámos os inimigos naturais das pragas. Sem as joaninhas, as cochonilhas encontraram caminho livre para se multiplicarem, restando ao ser humano a habitual e ingénua surpresa: “Como é possível haver tantas cochonilhas?”

A história dos pirilampos é ainda mais poética e, por isso, mais dolorosa. Quem cresceu no campo recorda-se das noites de Verão iluminadas pelos seus lampejos verdes. Hoje, a poluição luminosa e a destruição de habitats afastaram-nos da nossa vista. Mas há um elo invisível e químico: as larvas dos pirilampos alimentam-se de caracóis e escaravelhos. Ao aplicarmos produtos químicos nos jardins e campos, quebramos estas cadeias tróficas.

Projetos nacionais de conservação ativa, como o inovador LIFE BEETLES nos Açores - que conta com a cooperação de investigadores do próprio cE3c -, provam que o caminho tem de ser inverso: focar no restauro dos habitats e na recuperação destas espécies outrora desvalorizadas.

Os ecossistemas não são coleções de espécies independentes. São redes complexas de interdependências construídas ao longo de milhões de anos de evolução. Quando retiramos um fio, outros começam a ceder.

Por tudo isto, o pára-brisas limpo de um automóvel é hoje uma imagem profundamente cinzenta. Não representa uma viagem mais confortável. Representa um silêncio biológico crescente. Um vazio que se instala lentamente nas noites de Verão, nos campos agrícolas e nas bermas das estradas.

Quando os últimos lampejos dos pirilampos se apagarem e as joaninhas sobreviverem apenas nas ilustrações dos livros infantis, talvez compreendamos finalmente que a verdadeira praga nunca foram os insetos. A verdadeira praga foi a nossa incapacidade de perceber que tudo está ligado.

Já ouviu falar do Síndrome da Referência Móvel - Shifting Baseline Syndrome?

Do you suffer from Shifting Baseline Syndrome (SBS)? Well, the answer is that everyone probably does. While SBS is not an actual medical condition, it has been gaining traction across environmental disciplines, as well as featuring in modern environmental literature, as seen in Isabella Tree’s Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm and George Monbiot’s Feral.

What is Shifting Baseline Syndrome?

Coined by Daniel Pauly in 1995, while speaking of increasing tolerance to fish stock declines over generations, SBS also has roots in psychology, where it is referred to as ‘environmental generational amnesia’. Simply put, Shifting Baseline Syndrome is ‘a gradual change in the accepted norms for the condition of the natural environment due to a lack of experience, memory and/or knowledge of its past condition’. In this sense, what we consider to be a healthy environment now, past generations would consider to be degraded, and what we judge to be degraded now, the next generation will consider to be healthy or ‘normal’. As Soga and Gaston (2018) argue, without memory, knowledge, or experience of past environmental conditions, current generations cannot perceive how much their environment has changed because they are comparing it to their own ‘normal’ baseline and not to historical baselines.

Evidence for Shifting Baseline Syndrome in Conservation

While Shifting Baseline Syndrome is acknowledged by environmental scientists, particularly by conservationists, there is little research to support its existence that is beyond anecdotal, yet this evidence occurs globally; for example, in Eastern Indonesia, where biodiversity has declined rapidly over 30 years, younger fishers were found to recall a lower abundance of wildlife in the past, meaning they were perceiving less of a decline in the wildlife population, compared to older fishers. Similarly, in the Bolivian Amazonia, it was found that younger generations perceived the number of locally-extinct tree and fish species as lower compared to older generations. Again, a study in the Seward Peninsula in Alaska, USA, an area that is facing rapid hydrological environmental change as a result of climate change, found that younger people were less aware of changes in the quality and availability of five local water resources. While these studies are not directly about SBS, they have each recorded a difference in how older and younger generations perceive environmental change locally, which draws back to Soga and Gaston’s framework, which emphasises the importance of differences in memory, knowledge, and experience.

Despite the lack of empirical evidence, Shifting Baseline Syndrome is being given attention, perhaps because it has implications for individuals and environmental policy in fighting against climate change.

On an individual level, SBS has increased our tolerance to environmental degradation, including wildlife population decline, increased pollution and loss of natural habitats. This is because people will evaluate the severity of environmental degradation by referencing it back to their own cognitive baseline. In the UK, George Monbiot summarises the state of conservation, saying, “conservation in this country has become indistinguishable from destruction because what we’re conserving is an ecocidal system of sheep ranching. Sheep eat everything, and as a result, there’s no birds, no insects. We’ve lost almost everything, and yet we regard that as normal and natural.” In the UK people are actively conserving ecologically desolate ecosystems as they have no reference to past British wilderness.

At a societal level, this unawareness of past environmental conditions or current rates of degradation has implications for policymakers. For example, in the UK, the Environment Act of 1995 (the original legislation for National Parks was introduced in 1949) revised the legislation stating the statutory purpose for National Parks. Their main goal is to ‘conserve and enhance the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage’. Those who introduced this legislation originally had a perception of ‘natural beauty, wildlife, and cultural heritage’, and so current National Park conservation practise is driven by a static perception, despite itself studying a subject of constant dynamism. When National Parks were originally established they were characterised by traditional agriculture. While this may seem insignificant the inclusion of ‘cultural heritage’ protects agriculture as part of the landscape, despite its environmental impact. Therefore the conservation approach in these areas can be described as unambitious as they maintain what is simply there or set targets that are not inclusive of historical data and trends. However, people are satisfied because the landscape looks the same as when the legislation was introduced.

Thus, our conservation and policy efforts are becoming less effective with each generation, while we become more satisfied with our diminishing actions because our targets are weaker in terms of biodiversity and habitat heterogeneity. The result is a feedback loop, where every generation’s increasing tolerance for environmental decline results in insufficient conservation efforts that inevitably cannot forestall degradation which next generations will tolerate because they have no preconception of the state of the environment.

Despite the ‘doom and gloom’, Soga and Gaston have designed theoretical response frameworks that could help mitigate the effects of SBS. They argue that solutions to minimise the impact of SBS lie in environmental restoration, increased data collection, reducing the ‘extinction of experience’ (the decline of people interacting with nature) and education.

Environmental restoration, mainly in the form of rewilding, will be able to demonstrate historical baselines to those who are potentially affected by SBS. Data collection will help to better inform current and future generations how the environment is changing and has changed from past conditions. Soga and Gaston suggest that citizen science could play a huge role in creating ‘large-scale, long-term data sets’ as well as increasing people’s interactions with nature to reduce this extinction of experience. In addition to this, reducing the extinction of experience through the promotion of positive experiences with nature will help to increase interaction with the environment. Finally, education will help individuals to better assess the state of the environment and to accurately communicate its past and present condition.

Thus, even while we wait for the scientific study of Shifting Baseline Syndrome to begin, the acknowledgement of this concept in environmental science means that leaders in the field could take steps to help mitigate its potential effects. Soga and Gatson’s solutions, specifically rewilding and education, could increase people’s interactions with nature and promote the importance of effective conservation.

You might also like: UN Chief Urges Action For Rebuilding More Resilient Food Systems

Shifting baseline syndrome key to growing nature disconnect

Not long ago, summer in the Pacific Northwest felt seasonal. Campfires were the norm, free from bans and fears of sparking catastrophic blazes. Windshield fluid had to be replenished after a long road trip — especially on rural highways or backcountry roads. We were lucky to get a week or two of hot weather.

Now, with drought alerts, heat and fire warnings and eerily fewer insects buzzing around the road, summer feels terminal. Many of us are old enough to be amazed at how quickly “normal” environmental conditions can change. Many of us are young enough to have never known anything different.

This latter inability to recognize the true scope of environmental change is a widespread phenomenon, called “shifting baseline syndrome.” Shifting baseline syndrome is “a socio-psychological phenomenon in which historical environmental information is lost over time and people do not notice changes in biological systems.” This concept was first coined by Daniel Pauly, a marine biologist at the University of British Columbia. In 1995, he observed that fisheries scientists evaluated changes in fish stock size and composition using the quantities at the beginning of their careers as a reference. With the next generation of fishers, fish stocks typically declined. However, each generation of scientists saw this degraded state as the new baseline, as there was, and still is, a lack of knowledge transfer between fishers. Without the passage of knowledge of environmental conditions, understanding of the magnitude of environmental change is lost. This ultimately shifts the condition’s “baseline,” which continues with each generation.

Shifting baseline syndrome is mainly linked to a lack of experience, memory and knowledge of historic conditions, typically caused by a lack of intergenerational communication about past environmental conditions and historical information. Studies have shown that older generations more readily recall accurate past environmental conditions compared to younger generations, indicating a “generational amnesia.” This gap between generations is happening through three avenues: lack of awareness or difficulties in accessing historical environmental data, lack of familiarity and knowledge of natural history and declining interactions between people and the environment. This last avenue is partly caused by increased urbanization, with fewer opportunities to interact with the environment, and partly because people are more inclined to go on social media or the internet instead of spending time in nature.

Why does it matter? 

Shifting baseline syndrome is increasingly recognized as a significant barrier to implementing policies and actions that could address some of today’s environmental challenges, because we misinterpret the scale and impact of change over time. When more experienced, older fishers fail to share their expertise and stories, newer fishers often accept the present ecosystem state without question. This can lead to less-effective measures being taken to address collapsing fish stocks because the resource decline was not recognized. This tolerance of degraded environments is one of many consequences of shifting baseline syndrome. When society gets used to a degraded environment as the baseline, further degradation will not be seen as something to be concerned about. With this generational amnesia and society’s decreasing contact with nature, we may see inappropriate conservation, restoration and management targets by policy-makers and stakeholders, and pushback against necessary conservation and restoration efforts. Even more concerning is the loss of public support for conservation measures such as the establishment of terrestrial and marine protected areas, which would go some way to halting environmental loss.

Shifting baseline syndrome is difficult to combat because it acts as an accelerating feedback loop. Trying to reduce its effects would take four strategies, suggested by researchers. The most direct action would be environmental restoration, specifically through rewilding efforts. As environmental degradation accelerates, this is of utmost importance to protect biodiversity. Second is to gather more high quality and consistent environmental data. This gives future researchers and scientists an actual, holistic baseline and makes them more informed regarding environmental conservation efforts they partake in. Furthermore, the broader public should be encouraged to increase interactions with nature to gain a better understanding and relationship with the environment. Finally, through public education, we can increase people’s familiarity with nature while also providing more accurate information on historic and current environmental conditions. Indigenous knowledge is crucial to limiting the syndrome’s effects, as it pushes forward the lived experiences of communities that recognize historic baseline conditions. In this way, sharing Indigenous knowledge is a remedy against generational amnesia.

Shifting baseline syndrome has been fuelled by the lack of connection that people have with one another and between people and the environment. In the article “Integrating historical sources for long-term ecological knowledge and biodiversity conservation,” the researchers highlight the value of historical data sources for providing a baseline for species and ecosystem change over time. Since beginning this initiative, we have pored over historical images and maps and read accounts of voyages from the 1800s describing vast schools of dolphins and porpoises playing about ships and a sea that abounds with fish. How much we have lost! Over the month of March, we will compare historical records with present-day imagery and historical storytelling to represent generational change. We hope that through our exploration of shifting baseline syndrome, we can encourage communities to reflect on changes they’ve observed and encourage action and advocacy for increased environmental protection, so that we can begin to halt biodiversity decline.

What is Shifting Baseline Syndrome?

What is shifting baseline syndrome and why does it matter? Understanding this simple concept could have huge ramifications for how we approach conservation work. So let’s define shifting baseline syndrome and look at why it is important for modern conservation.

Shifting baseline syndrome with regard to nature is the gradual shifting of the accepted norm when it comes to the condition of natural places. We notice changes occurring in our lifetimes and take the status from when we were young to be the best condition. We cannot go back and see the conditions as they were when our parents and grandparents were young. This is the same for older generations who cannot see times before when they were young.

Our ‘baseline’ is how we saw nature when we were younger. Over generations, the baseline shifts. This is a problem when ecologists, conservationists and environmentalists gradually accept the deterioration of the natural world. This can have a profound impact on wildlife and conservation efforts.

Shifting Baseline Syndrome

The concept arose in landscape architect Ian McHarg's 1969 manifesto Design With Nature  in which the modern landscape is compared to that on which ancient people once lived.

The term shifting baseline syndrome was first coined by marine biologist doctor Daniel Pauly in 1995. Since 1960 the human population on the planet has risen from 3 billion to 8 billion and is still growing. We have lost 44 million farmland birds in the UK alone during this same period. The deafening sound of the birds singing and the insects in the meadow is a distant memory. Our younger students naturally don’t remember this and think that wildlife levels now are normal. Their baseline is different from our older students. Only when you go to countries with virgin habitats, such as parts of Russia, Romania, Poland, Sweden, etc., can you see what wildlife and functioning ecosystems should be like.

Governments talk about things like 2030 targets to protect at least 30% of land and sea, halt and reverse biodiversity loss and reduce pollution. Biodiversity Net Gain is coming in at the end of 2023 in England. It aims for a 10% net gain on developments and infrastructure projects. Considering the shocking losses over the last 20 years, shouldn’t we be talking about 70% or even 90% net gain to get us anywhere near what our great-grandparents knew as normal and functioning ecosystems and rich biodiversity?

Examples of Shifting Baseline Syndrome

When it comes to wildlife, shifting baseline syndrome manifests in the slow erosion of our awareness and understanding of what once thrived in the natural world. As each generation grows up with a “new normal” that deviates further from historical environmental conditions, they become disconnected from the past, unaware of the significant environmental changes that have occurred. They have not witnessed it for themselves.

More examples of shifting baseline syndrome:

1. Bugs on your bumper – splatted insects on your car when you drive along is now a rarity but 50 years ago cars were covered in insects.
2. Lapwings and curlews – used to live in the uplands such as Dartmoor in Devon but are now gone.
3. Startling flocks – vast flocks of starlings were regularly seen over cities 50 years ago, now you are lucky to see a handful of them in a flock.

One striking example is the depletion of marine life due to overfishing. Yet, older generations may recall when oceans were abundant with diverse and thriving fish populations. They might have witnessed schools of fish so vast and dense that it seemed as if the marine ecosystems were infinite and inexhaustible. However, over the years, the impacts of overfishing have taken a toll on marine life, leading to a massive decline in fish populations and the degradation of entire ecosystems.

Can we do anything about it?

While the decline of marine life is evident to those, who have witnessed the changes over time, younger generations who have grown up with depleted oceans as their baseline may perceive the current state as normal. They may never have had the opportunity to witness the once-teeming marine environments that were brimming with life. Consequently, their perception of what constitutes a healthy marine ecosystem becomes distorted, making it more challenging to understand the urgency of implementing conservation measures and reversing the damage caused by overfishing.

So this shifting baseline is a significant obstacle to effective wildlife conservation. It alters our perception of what constitutes a healthy and thriving environment, blurring our understanding of the scale of ecological changes over time. Therefore, it is crucial to raise awareness about historical baselines and the significant losses that have occurred. By recognising and acknowledging the true extent of ecological decline, we can work towards restoring and preserving ecosystems more effectively for future generations.

Bringing Fisheries Back from the Brink

Overfishing is wiping out commercial fisheries, and climate change is making certain fish species smaller. But Daniel Pauly says the world can still save endangered fisheries. Pauly is called “the ocean’s whistleblower” in a new biography, for good reason. The French-born marine biologist, who teaches at the University of British Columbia, spent much of the past quarter-century documenting the swift decline of fish within the seas. Now he says that warming waters are depleting the oceans of oxygen that fish need to grow to their full stature.

In an interview with Scientific American, Pauly addresses whether fisheries are doomed or if there is still hope for sustaining them. He speaks about how his early experiences working in Southeast Asia convinced him that fisheries sciencehad become a captive of the fishing industry, promoting industrial methods such as bottom trawling that devastated underwater ecosystems and threatened the livelihoods of small-scale artisanal fishers.

Pauly is credited with helping to develop a new kind of science, one that pays more attention to the ocean’s ecology and what fish need to thrive. He coined the term “shifting baseline syndrome” to describe how scientists and others forget the biological abundance of earlier times—thinking that today’s meager fisheries are somehow the norm. This “collective amnesia,” as he describes it, has led researchers and regulators to routinely misjudge the magnitude of the ecological disaster taking place in the seas.

In his most influential research project, Pauly assembled hundreds of scientists to create a global database to document the impact of fisheries on marine ecosystems. The team found that governments had routinely underestimated their catch and that fisheries everywhere are close to collapse. If current trends continue, Pauly warns, the world’s oceans will end up as marine junkyards dominated by jellyfish and plankton.

Nevertheless, the outspoken fisheries scientist says that solutions are readily available. If nations close the high seas to fishing and end wasteful government subsidies, fish populations would rebound, he claims. And of course, the world also ultimately needs to get climate change under control. Pauly is currently researching how global warming drives fish stocks toward the poles and makes fish smaller. The new biography of him is The Ocean’s Whistleblower: The Remarkable Life and Work of Daniel Pauly, by David Grémillet (Greystone Books). It was released on September 21.

[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]

You were born in Paris, the son of a Black American GI and a white Frenchwoman, and grew up in Switzerland, far from the ocean. Through some twists and turns, you became an employee of the German government in Indonesia in the 1970s, where you worked on a research trawler as part of a project to introduce industrial fishing to the country.

Yes, I regret that now. Trawlers in Southeast Asia devastated reefy habitat—giant sponges and soft coral that structured the habitat. [Trawling] transformed a productive, diverse ecosystem into a muddy mess. We simply didn’t know what we were doing. We didn’t even have the words to describe this kind of ecological destruction at the time. Trawlers [also] encouraged an immense waste of fish for export. There was little left over for local fishers. In Indonesia, I encountered such poverty among the fishers. They were going out with three or four men and coming back with one kilogram of fish. Introducing industrial trawling into such an environment was madness.

Trawling allowed the fishing industry to exploit places that had earlier been unreachable.

That’s right. This expansion of fisheries has eliminated all the protection that fish had naturally from us. Depth was a protection, cold was a protection, ice was a protection, rocky grounds were a protection. With successive technological developments, we can now go everywhere where the fish were protected before.

After working in Southeast Asia, you moved on to West Africa and Peru. Offshore fleets were putting small-scale fishers out of business. You’ve written that this is not just an economic problem, it is a health problem.

Up to 50 percent or more of the protein consumed in many poor regions comes from fish. In these countries, most of the calories come from carbs, from corn, cassava and rice. The only way these carbs are nutritionally efficient is by adding a little fish. Also, the micronutrients, the vitamins, the various minerals and metals such as zinc—all of this comes from fish.

Your work with a team of researchers in a group that you founded, the Sea Around Us, was critical in establishing the fact that industrial fishing was rapidly wiping out local fish stocks all over the globe. You basically created a massive data set that proved that we were fishing unsustainably. How did you pull that off?

Reconstructing the catch of every country from 1950 to 2018 was an immense job that involved about 300 researchers. We came up with a much higher catch than was being reported officially. Many countries had a completely distorted view of their own fisheries: recreational fisheries were not included in the catch totals; illegal fisheries, local artisanal fisheries were not included. We found that catches have been sharply declining globally since 1996.

Some scientists initially argued that fishing was not to blame but rather natural fluctuations in fish populations. It reminds me of the argument that climate change is a natural phenomenon, so we don’t need to worry about it.

I was about to say that!

Nations also denied that they were engaged in overfishing.

I remember talking to the minister of fisheries in Australia. She said fish in Australia are being exploited sustainably. But you look at the statistics, and the catch there is going down, down, down. So what can she possibly mean? In Canada, the fishery of cod has collapsed to 1 percent or 2 percent of its value in the 1950s. If a country can somehow maintain such a meager catch, they call it “sustainable exploitation,” but the bar is set so low that it is meaningless.

You’ve said that if human destruction of the seas continues unchecked, they will end up as marine junkyards dominated by jellyfish and plankton.

It’s already happening. Dead zones without oxygen are spreading; fish are getting smaller and smaller both because of being caught and also because of global warming.

Not only is this an ecological disaster, but in the long run, it is not in the interest of the fishing industry either.

I have described the form of fishing where you devastate one area, then move on to another, as a Ponzi scheme. As long as you find new suckers, you can go on. Bernie Madoff [a New York City–based financier who was convicted of running the largest Ponzi scheme in history] got money from investors and then paid them back with the money he got from new investors. That works so long as you find new investors, right? But ultimately you run out of investors—you run out of new areas to fish—and the whole thing collapses.

Your latest research has focused on the impact of climate change on fish size. Can you talk about that?

Our big problem for us mammals is getting enough food to maintain our temperature. Fish don’t need to maintain their own temperature, so basically they eat much less. Their problem is getting enough oxygen rather than eating enough food. Fish breathe through gills. As the fish grows, its volume grows faster than the surface of the gills. Also, as waters grow warmer, they contain less oxygen, and the fish themselves get warmer. And as fish get warmer, they need more oxygen. So you have a perfect storm—the fish are squeezed. The result is that they are getting smaller and smaller.

Fish are also moving to cooler waters.

Fish have to stay at the same temperature that they are adapted to because their enzyme system functions at a certain temperature. So as the seas warm, it means that South Carolina and North Carolina will be in conflict because the South Carolina stocks have moved to North Carolina. These migrations are occurring on a grand scale. In the tropics, the fish that leave are not replaced by anything else.

You say that we should stop fishing on the high seas to help fish stocks recover.

Fishing in the so-called high seas generates only about 5 percent or 6 percent of global catches, mostly tuna. The central part of the oceans are actually a desert. The tuna are like camels in the Sahara. They swim from one oasis to another. Tuna is not a fish that poor people in the developing world eat anyway, so limiting their catch would have no impact on food security.

If the high seas account for such a small percentage of the catch, how will closing them to fishing save fish populations?

Fisheries existed intact for hundreds of years because we couldn’t go after the last fish. But now we can. And you not only catch the fish you want but kill everything else in the process—there is a huge bycatch. If you close the high seas to fishing, you give fish a sanctuary where they can replenish themselves. Research shows that no-fishing sanctuaries help to rebuild stock, some of which then moves into coastal waters where it can be caught.

International negotiations are currently underway at the World Trade Organization about getting rid of subsidies given by most rich countries to their industrial fishing fleets. Are you hopeful?

I’m somewhat hopeful. I have researched subsidies myself. Many fishers nowadays don’t fish for fish. They fish for subsidies. They couldn’t operate without massive subsidies. So, yes, eliminating them would greatly reduce overfishing. Actually, fisheries issues are not difficult or intractable problems. We need to fish less and to create sanctuaries where fish populations can revive.

Throughout your career, you’ve done science that aims to help people. What is your advice to young scientists?

My advice is to choose problems that are global and not local. We need to attack problems that feed into policy. And we need solutions that can work throughout the world.

You have a reputation as a workaholic, as someone who has tackled ambitious scientific problems. Was there extra pressure on you to prove yourself in a way that a white scientist would not have to?

Yes. But the way that I experienced that is somewhat different. What motivated me is that I was living a privileged life and was working with colleagues in the developing world who were as smart and well educated as I was but were paid one tenth of what I was getting. I felt a responsibility to the people I was working with and the countries I was working in.

Some universities are trying to increase participation in the sciences among students from minority groups. Are they doing enough?

The problem is these kids don’t trust themselves to be scientists. The vision for minority students from poor backgrounds is to become a doctor or lawyer but not a scientist, because frankly, scientists don’t make money. What you understand when you are actually in science is that most people in the profession love what they do. They can’t believe that they are being paid to do it. Science, in its own way, is as creative as the arts. Impoverished young people don’t know that. They don’t know that science is fun and that you don’t have to be a robot or a nerd to do it.