Sushinomics: How Bluefin Tuna Became a Million-Dollar Fish | Hacker News Reader

Sushinomics: How Bluefin Tuna Became a Million-Dollar Fish

theatlantic.com

It's hilarious that people believe there was an actual, unstaged market transaction selling a fish for $3k/pound.

Sure there was, it just sold a lot of publicity and prestige along with the fish.

"Staged" to me implies that the price was not actually paid, and if you have any information that indicates this was the case, please cite it.

They were paying for the honor (and publicity) that comes with buying the first fish of the season. Seems pretty routine to me.

So, with rising demand you'd expect rising prices which would in turn suppress demand. Unless the object in question becomes a luxury good, in which case rising prices would in turn contribute to an increase in demand due to conspicuous consumption (can't be sure of the net effect but I'd speculate it'd be an increase or flattening of demand at worst).

What would be the economic solution to this problem? One way would be a moratorium but that seems politically unpalatable. One could hope that a previously sidelined fish makes a comeback and replaces Bluefin as the sushi staple; controlling tastes seems hard if not impossible so that would be unlikely as well. Maybe convince a celebrity chef to endorse a cheaper (and less endangered) fish?

Quite tragic the way that Tuna and other fish are being overfished. Tuna are like the tigers of the sea, they are at the top of the food chain. I just don't see a way that we're going to stop before an environmental catastrophe.

Problem is, even if we stop fishing and decide to not touch a single fish in an ocean, our pollution and the global warming, will turn oceans into an acidic (as in as acidic as regular rain gets) cesspit of jellies.

I don't mean - go on and farm every last one of them, just that it will soon become an extinct creature, simply because we fucked up its environment beyond repair already.

Sorry, but could you back up your statements with facts? This sounds to me as a rather generic statement.

I have no idea about the adaptive capabilities of tuna, nor do I know the actual change in pH values, or levels of chemical pollution.

Overfishing and the collapse of ecosymstems in the ocean is major factor (see also whales, sharks, etc).

Of course.

Problem is that ocean acidification (low pH) gives jellies advantages

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121231180617.ht... http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/65/3/414.full http://www.spc.int/oceanfish/en/publications/doc_download/72...

Though some analysis point that there are no benefits to jelly fish. http://aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_53/issue_5/2040.pdf

Generally, from what I've heard, the global warming is already straining the metabolisms of the existing sea creatures to a breaking point.

Problem is we need to a super sharp CO2 reduction right now, to just keep the climate as it is now (i.e. patterns of extreme weather) and hope to restore balance within 50 years. This is ofc based on simulation so God knows, how accurate it is...

Hi,

thanks for the papers! I will have a look on them.

230kg?!

Jeez, I never fully realised how big those suckers are.

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