So, you say you want a revolution? Well, you know, we all want to change the world.
Somewhere along Madison Avenue, someone got the idea that “revolution” is a marketable idea. This event must have occurred in the early 1960s, when the chemical manufacturers were trying to convince the world that it would be a good idea to dump gallons of toxic chemicals all over our food supply. Some Jim Blandings in a blue suit snapped his fingers and said, “Say fellows, why don’t we call this a Green Revolution? We’ll tell people we can wipe out hunger and starvation by dumping toxic chemicals all over the food supply.”
Thirty years later, more people are starving than ever before, farmworkers are poisoned, groundwater is contaminated, the chemical companies make obscene profits and the men in the blue suits get a nice bonus at Christmas. All of which can only mean one thing: time to sell the public a new revolution. The color of this revolution is blue. The blue revolutionaries are the usual band of suits whose hearts are spilling over with concern for feeding the exploding world population. Out of the depths of this concern, they have given the world intensive fish farming. The number one product of these intensive fish farms is shrimp. The blue revolutionaries are going to end world hunger and they’re going to start by feeding malnourished people at Red Lobster restaurants in malls all across America. Here’s what’s really happening down on the ol’ shrimp farm. Mangrove forests are cut down and replaced with multi-acre shrimp ponds. Then wild shrimp larvae are collected (in the process as much as 100 times as many fish larvae are discarded). The wild stocks of shrimp and fish have a difficult time recovering from these assaults, because the habitat in which they grow is among the roots of the mangrove forest, which has just been cut down.
Then the blue revolutionaries catch adult wild fish, grind them into meal and throw them into the ponds to feed the shrimp. After that they add – you guessed it – chemicals. Can’t have a revolution without the chemical warfare. For the next two to five years, the pond will produce prodigious amounts of shrimp, all of which will be frozen and shipped off to the wretched masses in wealthy countries. The number one destination for farmed shrimp is the U.S. Half the shrimp eaten in the U.S. comes from a shrimp farm.
After two to five years, the shrimp pond is so clogged with chemicals, uneaten fish meal and shrimp feces that it has become poisonous and is abandoned. The blue revolutionaries move down the coast, cut down more mangroves and start again. The poisoned shrimp ponds contaminate local groundwater, the loss of mangrove habitat destroys the fishery for wild shrimp and fish, the local farming and fishing families are forced to leave the country and seek work in teeming cities. If they’re lucky, they can land a job in a factory making sneakers so Americans have something to put on their feet when they go out to eat at Red Lobster.
Blue Revolution
So, you say you want a revolution? Well, you know, we all want to change the world.
Somewhere along Madison Avenue, someone got the idea that “revolution” is a marketable idea. This event must have occurred in the early 1960s, when the chemical manufacturers were trying to convince the world that it would be a good idea to dump gallons of toxic chemicals all over our food supply. Some Jim Blandings in a blue suit snapped his fingers and said, “Say fellows, why don’t we call this a Green Revolution? We’ll tell people we can wipe out hunger and starvation by dumping toxic chemicals all over the food supply.”
Thirty years later, more people are starving than ever before, farmworkers are poisoned, groundwater is contaminated, the chemical companies make obscene profits and the men in the blue suits get a nice bonus at Christmas. All of which can only mean one thing: time to sell the public a new revolution. The color of this revolution is blue. The blue revolutionaries are the usual band of suits whose hearts are spilling over with concern for feeding the exploding world population. Out of the depths of this concern, they have given the world intensive fish farming. The number one product of these intensive fish farms is shrimp. The blue revolutionaries are going to end world hunger and they’re going to start by feeding malnourished people at Red Lobster restaurants in malls all across America. Here’s what’s really happening down on the ol’ shrimp farm. Mangrove forests are cut down and replaced with multi-acre shrimp ponds. Then wild shrimp larvae are collected (in the process as much as 100 times as many fish larvae are discarded). The wild stocks of shrimp and fish have a difficult time recovering from these assaults, because the habitat in which they grow is among the roots of the mangrove forest, which has just been cut down.
Then the blue revolutionaries catch adult wild fish, grind them into meal and throw them into the ponds to feed the shrimp. After that they add – you guessed it – chemicals. Can’t have a revolution without the chemical warfare. For the next two to five years, the pond will produce prodigious amounts of shrimp, all of which will be frozen and shipped off to the wretched masses in wealthy countries. The number one destination for farmed shrimp is the U.S. Half the shrimp eaten in the U.S. comes from a shrimp farm.
After two to five years, the shrimp pond is so clogged with chemicals, uneaten fish meal and shrimp feces that it has become poisonous and is abandoned. The blue revolutionaries move down the coast, cut down more mangroves and start again. The poisoned shrimp ponds contaminate local groundwater, the loss of mangrove habitat destroys the fishery for wild shrimp and fish, the local farming and fishing families are forced to leave the country and seek work in teeming cities. If they’re lucky, they can land a job in a factory making sneakers so Americans have something to put on their feet when they go out to eat at Red Lobster.