Thanks for your work and travel weariness, Andrew.

One gets the impression that subsidies to fishers are just a negotiating chip.  They will be removed, only if something else of a positive nature can be promised in recompense.  There is not yet any absolute sense that the way the fisheries work today is evil.  Or even fairly evil; or minorly evil.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

I'm always hearing free marketers singing the praises of ITQ schemes as a way to get the magic of the market to halt overfishing. But I'd never heard any of them mention the problem of government subsidies. You'd think they'd want to start there, since it's much simpler to shrink the government and get it to stop interfering in the market, than to expand the government into an overseer and enforcer of an ITQ system.

I've been a constant voice of ending natural resource subsidies on this site and this is great stuff- another reason that the WTO's mandate should be strengthened, not weakened, as many environmentalists misguidedly believe.

J.S.

J.S. htt://voicesofreason.info

Hey, all:

Hey, BioD:

It frustrates me when I ask a question and the cyber room apparently instantly empties (the questions aren't that tough), so I'll try and answer yours.  Ahem, "Be the change...."

The Big Answer is political reform.  Governments more and more are extensions of business, and this has to stop.  Greed and graft, corporate and government corruption have largely blended together and taken over.  Lobbyists and CEOs and representatives are one and the same.  Just in Washington D.C., the ratio of lobbyists to elected representatives should tell us volumes.  And the overlap should tell us more.  But the system has built-in self-preservation: campaign finance, lobbying, and elections all need significant reforms.  (By the way, since BushCo. has come to power the term 'reform' has lost all its meaning and importance, but I still use it in the classic real sense.)  So until we have elected officials at at least a threshold level who care about people more than corporate cronies.  

Subsidies by themselves though are often needed.  As you mention, though, it is the destination, impact, or result that puts things at risk.  We do need subsidies to decentralize electricity generation, for R&D to find real transportation solutions, for mass transit infrastructure, etc., to lead us to sustainability. If there were real subsidies for residential PV, residential solar water heat, wind and other sustainable energy sources and applications, subsidies that are startups and not eternal, that would go a long way.   Similar subsidies for transportation are also needed, then sustainable agriculture.    

Like I have said we need an informed responsible populist revolt.  We need to elect representatives who will listen and act on behalf of the people.    

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable enegrgy, with Wind and Sun!

The sooner the subdidies stop the better. Let consumers pay the full price for their sushi. If they had to do that, most would probably end up choosing the vegetarian sushi.