**A COMPLETELY UNASKED-FOR SEASPIRACY THREAD** Sam here. Since we have nothing else to talk about for a bit, I thought I’d hijack our platform to give you my personal take on *that* documentary, since it’s doing the rounds

As some of you might know, I work for a big enviro NGO (one of the ones called out in the film in fact), & I have a bit of expertise in some of the issues raised. What’s my topline? It kicks off some crucial conversations, but is occasionally unrepentantly stupid & unhelpful

Good bits: Our oceans are in crisis. Industrial fishing is causing rapid environmental & ecological breakdown at a catastrophic scale. These facts can’t be disputed, and need to be more widely understood. This doc doesn't shy away from some v uncomfortable truths

There is a *big* problem with on-pack labelling and NGOs being far to close to industry for comfort, or industry setting up NGOs to retroactively justify environmental damage & extraction. Their dunking on people was cringe, but hey, maybe necessary!

If this grabs people emotionally, and gets them engaged & active in what can often feel a completely, disempoweringly huge problem, that is a Very Good Thing

And now for the BIG but: there are also aspects of the documentary that I would argue actively undermine the ability of campaigners around the world to create change

There’s also truth-bending on their part about big NGOs e.g. Oceana, who they actively dunk on, do great work on bottom-trawling & marine protected areas!

And then, the big kahuna- their solution. You don’t need me to tell you that veganism, on it’s own, is a completely silly answer to the very tough questions they pose.

Wealthy people need to eat less meat & fish, no question. But this personal solution basically manages to, ironically, completely remove the power of people to influence companies & governments. It’s a completely personal solution to a systemic problem borne from political choice

Industrial fishing won't be beaten by waiting for demand for fish to reduce, we can stop it right now! Shameless plug, but Greenpeace is actually running a campaign about this very issue as we speak https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/live-greenpeace-boulders-brighton-fishing/

Also, just speaking personally, the sniffiness about campaign on plastic pollution really galled me. These guys didn’t seem to want to tell you that the plastics industry is the oil & petrochemical industry!! There’s a bigger target here babz

E.g. to help their narrative, they referred to the plastic measures proposed by the EU as ‘extreme’, which literally made me lmao because of how untrue it is. Plastic pollution isn't just turtles, it's children in Malaysia ingesting carcinogens from burning our exported shite

Lastly, many people more qualified than me have written eloquently on the blindness in the doc to communities who rely on the ocean to sustain themselves e.g https://www.hakaimagazine.com/article-short/seaspiracy-harms-more-than-it-educates/

The contributors were overwhelmingly white, most were men and the nuance around environmental justice was just not there. They were *so close* to getting it when they were talking about W African fishers, but missed the mark

Finally: the format cringes me out beyond belief, it’s activism by influencer documentary, but if that get’s people to listen, I’ll yell at a different cloud. Hope this was useful in some way! /thread