Is the fish on your plate older than your grandmother?

The Conversation: The real cost of taking fish out of the water. This excellent piece gives a good snapshot of overfishing (the carbon footprint of fishing was something I didn't realise until reading this). It also suggests one of the ways we can be part of the solution: by eating less fish, and eating smarter, which means either checking sites like Good Fish Bad Fish (an Australian version; UK readers can use the Good Fish Guide) or asking questions of potential fish meals such as: "Are they older than your grandmother? Did catching them kill tonnes of other innocent species? How much carbon was used to get it onto your plate?"

Al Jazeera: Overpopulation is not to blame for famine. The causes are famine in the Horn of Africa are complex. Simplistic analyses that blame a single factor do not help.

Guardian: Salty rice is not so nice - rising seas, rising salt in the Mekong. Concerns about sea level rise are not limited to infrastructure damage or coastal erosion; salination is the big issue in many places and especially for the densely-populated Mekong delta.

Grist: The great oyster crash. This is where ocean acidification is starting to bite.

CP: S&P Downgrades Planet Earth and Humanity. This will only make sense if you have been following recent US economic news.

Larry Elliott: The global economy is not in good shape. The crisis from 2008 has not gone away; it has simply shifted form.

Mongabay: Conflict correlates with warm weather, at least in the tropics. This isn't good news in a warming world.

Guardian: One billion cars. "Between 2000 and 2010, the number of cars and motorcycles in China increased twentyfold. In the next 20 years it is forecast to more than double again, which means there will be more cars in China in 2030 than there were in the entire world in 2000."