Happy July!
This week was one of the most eventful, yet most uneventful weeks of my summer so far. Last Monday, I got into a bit of a bike accident that ended in a trip to the emergency room. With a sprained ankle and stitches, I spent a majority of the week confined to the couch. I am endlessly grateful to be hobbling around at this point and am hoping to make a speedy recovery so I’ll still have time to enjoy the rest of Oregon. Huge shout out to my roommates and fellow Summer Scholars, my mentors, Kaety and Kelsey, and the random strangers who have been SO helpful and understanding.
Sorry if you’re eating
Seafood can be a tricky thing to deal with. Once you’ve got it, what do you do with it? We’re trying to fix this with an eating guide for Shop at the Dock participants. It will list common species to buy off the dock, its favor/texture, how sustainable it is, and a common and delicious way to cook it.
This week, I also came across a poignant article about how the commercial fishing industry is declining due to warming waters.
“The cod isn’t just a fish to David Goethel. It’s his identity, his ticket to middle-class life, his link to a historic industry.
“I paid for my education, my wife’s education, my house, my kids’ education; my slice of America was paid for on cod,” said Goethel, a 30-year veteran of these waters that once teemed with New England’s signature fish.
But on this chilly, windy Saturday in April, after 12 hours out in the Gulf of Maine, he has caught exactly two cod, and he feels far removed from the 1990s, when he could catch 2,000 pounds in a day.”
Even having studied it, climate change is definitely one of the more intangible, abstract topics for me. And while the science is crucial, hearing the more humanistic side of climate change really brings the issue home. The article is set on the East Coast, but presents some staggering statistics about declines in catches and also really interesting opinions from fishermen about climate change.
I’m determined to get back on my bike by the end of the summer, so I’ll finish this post with a little motivational tune. Thanks for reading and have a wonderful week!
Sounds like the crash hasn’t damaged your spirits. And who knows, you might get more interest in Shop the Dock from concerned citizens…I appreciate the reminder from a commercial fisherman that climate change and resource use are tightly linked. OSG has a recent study of the west coast shellfish industry and ocean acidification that you may want to look at: http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/sgpubs/us-west-coast-shellfish-industrys-perception-and-response-ocean-acidification
In Oregon thousands of people got into the fishing business in the 1980s when the return for a small investment was extremely high! Since then though the populations have been dwindling, and the fishermen cannot make what they used to with that occupation. It is so important to look at how humans, cultures and livelihoods are affected by climate change too, not just the critters!