GLOUCESTER, MA (March 24, 2009) – I read with interest the article describing the confirmation of Ms. Lubchenco as head of NOAA (The Times, Saturday, March 21). The article was sprinkled with the buzz-word "overfishing" — which my computer does not recognize as a word, by the way.
Is there an understandable acceptable definition of "overfishing"?
Perhaps it is like the beaten-into-submission phrase "global warming"? Global warming has been going on since the end of the recent ice age. In fact, it was global warming that ended the recent ice age. Admittedly, the ice age isn’t over as yet (there’s still a glacier on Greenland and one covering all of Antarctica). But, enough of the recent ice age ice has melted (took thousands and thousands of years — due to global warming) to have raised the level of the ocean to where it now covers the so-called "continental shelves" of the world.
Read the letter in full in the Gloucester Daily Times