Enacting regulations to protect the environment, society and the economy is all well and good, but there are limits on that solution. Regulations are worthless if unenforced, or if enforced only on the marginalized. Second, enforcing regulations on a global scale is essentially impossible; every nation has to voluntarily restrict destructive activity, generally because cooperation yields benefits and non-compliance generates high costs.

The other way to change things is to change the consumer demand. Sellers will stop selling things consumers no longer buy and seek to supply what consumers want.

This is the basic idea behind think globally, act locally.

The earth's oceans are being stripmined to harvest a small slice of oceanic life with a high market value. Please read The Consequences of Oceanic Destruction (Foreign Affairs) for a summary of the situation.

One way each individual can act is to stop participating in the destructive consumption/demand. This is akin to pulling your money out of parasitic Wall Street and Too Big To Fail banks. Some will say that has no effect, but they are wrong: once the actions of individuals are aggregated, each decision to stop participating becomes consequential.

For those who like to fish, and to consume fish, the agenda is pretty clear: protect the wild fisheries so there will be a sustainable fishery to harvest, and substitute sustainable local aquaculture fish for wild-caught fish when the wild fisheries are endangered by overfishing/stripmining by trawlers.

When we visited our French family last October, we dined on locally raised organic trout. Here is the local entrepreneur who raises the trout and transports them to the local farmer's market in a truck-mounted tank to sell. Note the sign that read AB--this means the trout are raised according to the European Union's standards for organic fare: agriculture biologique.

Here are the prepared fresh trout. Very simple prep: onions and herbs, salt to taste. Delicious.

Why do I say that A healthy homecooked family meal and a home garden are revolutionary acts? In a consumer economy based on artifice, insecurity, scarcity and inauthenticity, producing and preparing real food in a communal activity is revolutionary simply because it is the real deal, i.e. it is authentic and cannot be commoditized.