Commuters in Ottawa and Halifax were greeted this week by an ad on buses and billboards encouraging them to cut Atlantic cod out of their diets.
The ad — which reads, “There’s probably no cod. Now let’s stop overfishing and think of the future.” — is part of Greenpeace Canada’s latest campaign to increase consumer awareness of overfishing.
The message is a play on a campaign launched by atheist organizations, including the Humanist Association of Canada and British Humanist Association, featuring the tagline “There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” The ads were banned by Ottawa’s transit authority, OC Transpo, earlier this year.
“The simple message highlights the growing and devastating problem of overfishing. Atlantic cod are a perfect case in point,” said Greenpeace in an 11 August press release. “The experience of the collapsing of Canadian cod stocks is being repeated around the world with other species such as bluefin tuna, orange roughy and sharks. Our marine resources are not renewable if we don’t allow them to renew themselves.”
Atlantic cod is among the 15 species on Greenpeace Canada’s redlist, which the organization says are harvested or farmed in an environmentally irresponsible manner. The list includes haddock, Atlantic sea scallops, swordfish, Atlantic salmon, and bluefin, bigeye and yellowfin tuna.
