Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All

by Michael Shellenberger

As such, the intense media and public focus on plastic, like the intense focus on climate change, risks distracting us from other equally important—perhaps more important—threats to endangered sea life, which may be easier to address than climate change or plastic waste. For example, overfishing, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “is one of the most important non-climatic drivers affecting the sustainability of fisheries.”71 The amount of fish and fish products for human consumption has increased from 11 percent in 1976 to 27 percent in 2016, and is projected to increase an additional 20 percent by 2030. According to the FAO, “Since 1961, the average annual increase in global apparent food fish consumption (3.2 percent) has outpaced population growth (1.6 percent) and exceeded consumption of meat from all terrestrial animals, combined (2.8 percent).”72 According to the IUCN, forty-two species of sharks are critically endangered, directly threatened by fishing. And apex predators like dolphins and sharks are slow to reproduce. Their populations cannot withstand such large losses.73