I go on vacation for a week and suddenly there will be no more fish in the sea

It is amazing how disconnect from the news I have become while on my week's vacation. It's odd, because I work for a newspaper and news pervades my normal environment. Not this week, though. I have been unaware.
Apparently, Sen. John Kerry made some remark about getting "stuck in Iraq" if students don't study. It made big news, but I didn't really pay that much attention.
A woman set a fire in a residential hotel in Reno, Nev., killing six people and I only heard about it because my mom and step-dad are visiting from "The Biggest Little City on Earth."
Then, after a vacation day spent hanging out at Dubuque's National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium, I come home to hear the first substantial news reports I have heard in days and guess what I hear? The world's ocean fish will all be dead in 50 years.
What?!?!
When did they decide to do that?
I feel like Rip Van Winkle. I never heard a thing about it.