21st May 2021. Nuclear | Aquaculture

The nuclear sector? Be an artist instead; the aquaculture boom.

Welcome to Just Two Things, which I try to publish daily, five days a week. Some links may also appear on my blog from time to time. Links to the main articles are in cross-heads as well as the story.

#1: The nuclear sector? Be an artist instead.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has refreshingly irreverent view of the world, and so when I saw a piece that set out to compare careers in the nuclear sector with those in the art world I misread the headline. The article isn’t about social purpose or social value: it compares terms and conditions—starting from the perspective that pay and conditions in the art sector were better:

Pursuing a career as a nuclear weapons policy analyst is no easier than trying to make it in the arts. In fact, becoming an artist might actually be the smarter career choice... Sure, working as an independent artist doesn’t bring a steady, secure income, but unpaid internships in the nuclear field typically bring no income. And yes, art school can be exorbitantly expensive, but so can master’s programs in political science or international relations.

It turns out—according to Molly Hurley’s snapshot—that the differences in income aren’t that great (and art may be on the upper side of the balance here). And there’s always the small chance of becoming a superstar artist, which doesn’t really happen in the nuclear field. 

And because funding for nuclear weapons deproliferation research isn’t at the top of most government funding lists, it’s a hard sector to get into. The nuclear sector has got a bit better at paying for entry-level interns, but there’s still a fair bit of exploitation going on. The industry talks about the need for more diversity, but it’s business model excludes people who can’t afford to work for peanuts.

The arts sector is also a better bet when it comes to grant funding through foundations:

According to a funding map from the Peace and Security Funders Group, 101 funders gave out a total of $121.7 million to 446 recipients last year for peace and security efforts. Arts funding in the United States dwarfs what’s available for nuclear issues. A cursory glance at the size of available funding in arts shows that the National Endowment for the Arts alone allocated $162.25 million in 2020—more than all grant money available for nuclear security issues. And there are thousands of other grant makers for the arts. 

Pedro Reyes, ‘Atomic Amnesia’, Mexico City. Image: Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

As it happens, it turns out that Hurley is talking about an actual personal career choice. She is an artist who works for a de-proliferation NGO, so she rounds this out by tying the two stories together: artists who are concerned about de-proliferation.

Lovely Umayam is a writer, nuclear nonproliferation expert, and nonresident fellow at the Stimson Center, where she is researching technologies like blockchain—but also the founder of Bombshelltoe Policy and Arts Collective. A single glance at her project Illuminating Radioactivity can show you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to nuclear weapons and she can do it in a way that is aesthetically satisfying.

It’s worth following the link to Illuminating Radioactivity, and to the Bulletin’s Arts Science Initative to take a look at the work.  

#2: The acquaculture boom

This is probably a chart of the week, or similar, but the world’s acquaculture production, which has accelerated rapidly over the last two decades, has now overtaken the size of the wild catch, which has plateaued. 

As the article in IEE Spectrum notes,

Aquaculture’s share of total fish consumption has risen from a rounding error to a majority in a relatively short time.

In fact the sector has grown 36-fold in fifty years, which is huge (meat production grew 3.5 times in the same period). The biggest acquaculture market is in China, accounting for more than half of global production. 

Besides carp, the most commonly cultured fish are Nile tilapia, catfish, and Atlantic salmon (now grown not only in European and Eastern Canadian coastal waters, but also in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, Chile, and New Zealand). Whiteleg shrimp and red swamp crayfish are the most commonly cultured crustaceans; cupped oysters, Japanese carpet shells, and scallops lead in the mollusk category.

Outside of Asia, consumer demand for fish is for carnivorous species such as salmon, cod and tuna, which need to be fed on smaller fish—converted into fish feed—and on fish oils. (Carp are plant-eating). 

There are also some familiar problems with aquaculture: 

Densely stocked ponds and pens cause environmental problems, notably the release of organic materials, which promote algal blooms and the introduction of salmon that have been genetically modified to grow faster and use food more efficiently. 

But it’s already worth $250 billion a year, perhaps more, and isn’t going to get smaller.

j2t#102

If you are enjoying Just Two Things, please do send it on to a friend or colleague.