112 replies to this topic

[bartusderidder]

> claiming that poor people would have less empathy with whales than rich people is in my opinion a derogatory remark.

Derogatory: tending to lessen the merit or reputation of a person or thing; disparaging; depreciatory: a derogatory remark.

Do I sense some hostility for one of my previous remarks
You are taking things (poor/rich) too literally, see below

This is not true: indigenous cultures have much more respect and empathy for their environment than western civilization. However, by western standards these people are considered poor and uncivilized and therefore they would not be able to haveempathy with animals? Maslow’s recognition of self-actualized individuals was almost exclusively limited to Highly Educated White Males.

Vincent,

The indiginous cultures you are referring probably have their basic needs satisfied: food, water, shelter and hence the are able to focus on other things as well e.g. the care, respect, empathy for their environment.
You are misreading my words by taking everything so literally....."poor" should be interpreted as much more than "how much money you have in the bank". Did you ever see me write that I consider another culture as poor and uncivilised??? Indigenous cultures might not even have money, yet they can be rich. And you don't even have go to Africa (to pick just one continent) to find people struggling for life, even your own home country has a 4th World. Ask a single mother of 4 kids in Amsterdam, working 2 jobs to feed her kids and pay the rent if she cares about a whale or any other animal threatend with extinction for that matter...

Vincent, you obviously feel very strongly about Conservationism and I admire your enthousiasm and devotion, but I fear that if you don't get a little more realistic (i.e. acknowledging that there are people out there with another opinion than yours) you are going to become very frustrated.

After your "Jap"-lapsus you said you were going to pick your words more carefully. Well, in order to do so, you might want to apply the PADI's chartflow for an UW stress-situation: (stress = emotions, or this particular discussion)
STOP - BREATHE - THINK - ACT (you're an instructor, right)
It seems to me that due to your strong emotions/believes you are misreading some lines (not only mine, but Drew's as well, cfr previous posts). So next time you don't agree with someone's reaction, you first might want to take time to read it properly, and instead of reacting in the spur of the moment sit back and think and phrase your thoughts,...re-read after a while and see it you still feel the same, re-write if you feel the need and then post.

Edited by bartusderidder, 19 January 2008 - 10:57 AM.

[Craig Ruaux]

This is not true: indigenous cultures have much more respect and empathy for their environment than western civilization.

I'm going agree to disagree on that statement. I offer as exhibits against this position

• The Anasazi
• The Maya
• Easter Island
• Potlatch ceremonies

All societies, when given the opportunity or the sociopolitical-religious justification to increase either the rate or efficiency of extraction of natural resources from their environment, take them. And continue to take them even in the face of declining yields. The only reason 'indigenous cultures' don't destroy their environments the way we are inclined to is that they are limited by their ability to extract resources. Working dusk to dawn in a field or hunting doesn't leave very long to chop down trees and make new houses.

[John Bantin]

It is my belief that all of us who enjoy the wealth and prosperity of living in the Western world are part of the conspiracy to destroy the planet. Looking at one small detail, whether it be shark finning or whale slaughtering is short-sighted to say the least. Stop buying imported goods that enable others to choose to do things you don't agree with. Pol Pot had an answer - but it was inevitably cruel and doomed to failure.

[shawnh]

Think globally, act locally. John, you need to tackle the issues at all levels in the chain. That is why there is room for a diversity of approaches, from the in-your-face approach of Sea Shepherd to the long-winded debates of politicians. Sadly, in the minority are the forces for "good" who care about the environment but spend too much time arguing about who's approach is the right one while the forces of "bad" continue their onslaught on the vulnerable environment.

Ask yourselves: Am I a "doer" or "talker"? I think everyone can answer that for themselves by doing a little soul searching.

[vincentkneefel]

http://www.seashephe..._080118_2.html

[ColinMunro]

Ok, here's my two cents worth.

Firstly, laying cards on the table, my interest in this is that I am a marine biologist by profession working primarily in conservation and impact assessment, including fishing impacts. For what it’s worth, I have worked for Greenpeace (under contract) in the past. I also feel very strongly about ethical matters concerning our use, or misuse, or the natural environment.

My main concern is the argument seems so often to be based on emotion and incorrect assumptions. I’ll give you some examples of commonly asserted ‘facts’ that I have noticed repeated in this forum.

Whales should not be hunted because they are very intelligent creatures.

Correct! And also wrong. Some whales, in particular smaller cetaceans that are active hunters (dolphins, killer whales) are demonstrably highly intelligent creatures. Baleen whales that effectively graze (for example the Minke whales Japan is now hunting) are considered significantly less intelligent. There is no reason or strong evidence to assume they are any more intelligent than terrestrial grazers such as cows or sheep (for which no such claims are ever advanced). They are almost certainly less intelligent than pigs, highly intelligent animals that are subjected to extremely cruel intensive factory farming practices in the US and Europe (kept in semi darkness their entire lives, kept in pens too small to turn around in, to name but two).

Whales should not be hunted because they are endangered.

Correct and possible incorrect. Many whale species are endangered, and certainly should not be hunted. Are Minke whales endangered? A point of fierce argument. What we do know is that there are somewhere over 150,000 Minkes (for comparison there are between 5-12,000 for blue whales or 8-9,000 for bowhead whales).

Now there certainly is fishing that is being pursued against species where there is no credible argument as to whether they are endangered. EU cod stocks for one, Mediterranean tuna for another.

Whale hunting is cruel.

Everyone has there own definition of cruelty. Personally I find battery chicken farming immensely cruel; I find intensive pig farming unspeakably cruel. I find injecting cows with bovine somatotrophin in order that they produce even more milk than we have especially bred them to, unacceptably cruel (to their credit, the EU banned its use and tried to ban US imports of milk where it was used- the US won, as issues of farm animal welfare cannot be considered over free trade).

Some might find the idea that, every day, millions of fish die by suffocation, their swim bladders forced out of there mouths as they rupture, while they are eviscerated alive as they are gutted on the decks of commercial fishing boats, to be cruel. I can't say I've noticed high levels of picketing of fishfinger producers.

Personally I find the idea that whales are allowed to live a fully natural life, to socialise normally with others of its species, feed naturally, reproduce naturally, then die by a harpoon - if not quickly, then far faster and less painfully than many of its brethren killed by sharks or killer whales, not a particularly distasteful idea. Contrast this to many of our farmed animals: castrated days after birth, kept in metal pens in semi darkness, fed artificial diets, given little or no opportunity to socialise or interact normally at any stage in their lives and if they do reproduce, having their young removed from them at a very early stage.

My main points here are:
1.Whaling is not deliberately cruel; the harpoon is as efficient and quick as possible. Much of our practices I have outlined above are not done out of necessity, it just makes it that much cheaper for us.

2. Whaling is a nice 'soft target', as we don't do it. Intensive farming of unsustainabling domestic fisheries are harder to attack as they involve changes to our own lifestyle.

I will make one final point. Whaling is one of the very few fisheries where there is no bycatch and no damage to the habitat. Much of the bottom trawling and dredging I witness results in over 50% of the species catch being thrown back dead because its not commercially marketed species (this ignores the approximately 60% of commercial species thrown back dead in EU waters because its beyond quota limits). Equally, much of this bottom fishing is destroying large areas of reef habitat at an alarming rate.

I am not arguing in favour of resumed whaling. I am simply arguing for a more informed debate, and for conservation pressure groups to cease the touchy-feely emotive arguments in favour of more factually based ones.

[John Bantin]

Is it practical for me to
1) stop burning fossil fuels or using energy produced therefrom?
2) persuade my government to desist from invading and destroying other sovreign nations with high-explosive?
3) stop eating food produced by farming that destroys the natural habitat?
4) stop eating meat produced intensively?
5) stop by-catch?

6) ...et al.


I think you get the idea!

[pmooney]

This is from the Japan Times News online Thursday 17, 2008
Hypocrisy weakens West's whaling protests

Edited by pmooney, 19 January 2008 - 07:56 PM.

[Drew]

Pol Pot had an answer - but it was inevitably cruel and doomed to failure.

Hmmm I believe Watson once advocated a mass reduction for the hominids. But he was nice enough to let natural selection to make the choice instead of choosing his own crew for the job.

The only reason 'indigenous cultures' don't destroy their environments the way we are inclined to is that they are limited by their ability to extract resources. Working dusk to dawn in a field or hunting doesn't leave very long to chop down trees and make new houses.

As part of this viral culture, I take offense to that inaccurate statement. I plan to have 4 kids to help with all that stuff. Is that enough?

....Much of the bottom trawling and dredging I witness results in over 50% of the species catch being thrown back dead because its not commercially marketed species (this ignores the approximately 60% of commercial species thrown back dead in EU waters because its beyond quota limits). Equally, much of this bottom fishing is destroying large areas of reef habitat at an alarming rate...

Colin don't worry, that 50% of non-marketed species will get more popular as we run out of the popular ones. What is this called ... the shifting baseline syndrome? As one species becames scarce, we move on to the next and so on. I suppose that's how rats, insects and dogs and cats became favorites in Asia... starvation by famine, war and suppression by oppressive rulers.
Thanks to Craig, Colin, John and Peter for clearly stating what I was trying to say but obviously muddling up.
Vincent, Abraham Maslow's Self Actualization Theory is a little deeper than just 'white males.' He merely used those examples, which I believe include Eleanor Roosevelt, to further his theory. In his analysis for self-actualization, his subjects were 'big picture' thinkers, who happened to be known to him at that time. His model can be applied to any society or culture because of the broadness of his needs model. It's a much broader theory than what you've made it out to be by taking his examples too literally.

[zippsy]

http://www.seashephe..._080118_2.html

The more I read their press releases on their website, I dislike them even more.

[Drew]

The more I read their press releases on their website, I dislike them even more.

It's called spin. The truth is the reverse. GreenPeace would never officially give fleet info to SS for obvious reasons. Yet somehow, the information on the whereabouts of the Nisshin Maru and the fleet, which the Esperanza found earlier, leaked to SS. Unfortunately, there's no such thing as bad PR to spin doctors.

[Craig Ruaux]

As part of this viral culture, I take offense to that inaccurate statement. I plan to have 4 kids to help with all that stuff. Is that enough?

Well, if you can rear them all to maturity they may be able to help you build a bigger house and dig more in the fields, but until they have grown to the age where you can start to exploit their labor they are only going to decrease your ability to exploit your environment, seeing as how you don't have and nanny or a childcare facility. Hope your mother likes rearing children


Getting back to the stuff we've been talking about re: the Sea Shepherd protesters and how they were handed back. This is what I was getting at a couple of pages back when I said it would be interesting to see how they would be handled. Frankly, I'm a little surprised that Australia handed them back to the Steve Irwin, but I'm not surprised that they made the Irwin move away from the Japanese vessels to do this.

There's a game being played out here, and the Minkes are the pawns. I suspect that the Australians WANT some Minke harvest to occur, so that they can then take evidence to the UN and other international courts to push for prosecution of the Japanese and bring the research whaling issue to more prominence. If they'd have just steamed off with the SS protesters on the Oceanic Viking then the Irwin would have been able to keep following their target. I suspect SS has been gamed here and neutralized as part of a longer term plan.

There is an interesting write up of the potential ramifications of the recent Australian Federal Court decision that whaling in territory that Australia claims is illegal at the Sydney Morning Herald here...

If Australia is aiming to legitimize this position at either the International Court of Justice or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, they are going to need evidence. And Greenpeace will get it for them while SS fumes on the sidelines. Let us not forget that Peter Garrett, the Australian Minister for the Environment, has significant previous connections to Greenpeace, including a two year stint on that movement's international board. I would imagine that connections now run deep between the Australian federal government and Greenpeace.

[Drew]

Well, if you can rear them all to maturity they may be able to help you build a bigger house and dig more in the fields, but until they have grown to the age where you can start to exploit their labor they are only going to decrease your ability to exploit your environment, seeing as how you don't have and nanny or a childcare facility. Hope your mother likes rearing children

If child labor is good enough for goods to be sold in the industrialized world, I'm ok with it. Plus the mothers can take care of them til they are 5 and old enough to work

I'm a little surprised that Australia handed them back to the Steve Irwin, but I'm not surprised that they made the Irwin move away from the Japanese vessels to do this. I suspect SS has been gamed here and neutralized as part of a longer term plan.

You were surprised? I knew they were going to charge those guys for trespassing in Oz since it happened on a Japanese boat. Of course if they were carrying guns or acid, that'd be a different story. But of course it's in the charter of SS to be non-violent as well(although I see throwing glass bottles of acid as violence but I guess that's my interpretation)

If Australia is aiming to legitimize this position at either the International Court of Justice or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, they are going to need evidence. And Greenpeace will get it for them while SS fumes on the sidelines. Let us not forget that Peter Garrett, the Australian Minister for the Environment, has significant previous connections to Greenpeace, including a two year stint on that movement's international board. I would imagine that connections now run deep between the Australian federal government and Greenpeace.

Well the Rudd (congrats btw for finally getting a multilingual PM ) government made campaign promises to protect whales. Moreover, with the new non-lethal methods of testing, JARPA programs can no longer be justified. Which is why Morimoto and Holgarth had the big pow wow to drop humpbacks to set the stage in Mar. The whaling countries want commercial whaling restarted to keep their voters happy, just like the Spanish fishing fleet. Norway simple objected and ignored the moratorium. Japan, while sneaky, has played within the rules. Now once those permits are probably going to be rescinded, what will keep them in check but a compromise to reopen commercial whaling on a limited scale. The thing is even the Norwegians gave up the hunt at 500 whales in 2007 because they didn't have a market. The Japanese will certainly lose nationalist support once all this anti-japanese rhetoric is gone. The whaling industry will slowly but surely disappear into obscurity. There's no real market for any whale product. In fact, if there was half as much effort into appealing to the public of the respective whaling nations instead of telling them what to do, it'd probably end even faster.
As Peter's article written by Singer, if anyone tries to use the moral high ground argument, they would most definitely be shot down. However, appealing to the Japanese sense of wonderment for cute things (SanRio, Hello Kitty...ok that's a chick thing but women really rule the world ) will help. For example, looking at the cetacean watching industry in the Izu peninsular (not far from Tokyo), Osagawara (bonin) islands... I think there were more people watching cetaceans annually than eating them.
Perhaps for the Norwegians, they could be forced to allow whaling if they consume the meat prepared like lutefisk (since the cod will be wiped out soon in the North Sea anyway).

[writepic]

Is it practical for me to
1) stop burning fossil fuels or using energy produced therefrom?
2) persuade my government to desist from invading and destroying other sovreign nations with high-explosive?
3) stop eating food produced by farming that destroys the natural habitat?
4) stop eating meat produced intensively?
5) stop by-catch?

6) ...et al.
I think you get the idea!

the free range and organic movement if entirely successful would create even more habitat loss than is currently suffered under todays farming methods. intensive farming is completely undesirable but it is economic on space, therefore inevitably natural habitat.

[MikeVeitch]

..ok that's a chick thing but women really rule the world )

Guess that means you're not allowed to come to Bali eh?

[John Bantin]

Perhaps for the Norwegians, they could be forced to allow whaling if they consume the meat prepared like lutefisk (since the cod will be wiped out soon in the North Sea anyway).

I can't see many people paying to go on cod-watching trips.

[Drew]

I can't see many people paying to go on cod-watching trips.

Aww John, picking on my bad writing again?

What I really wanted to say was that for the Norwegians to continue whaling, they have to consumer the whale meat prepared in the tradition of lutefisk. Lutefisk is bad enough with cod, can't imagine with whale meat.
Well, even if there were cod watching trips, there'd be none to see soon anyhow.

the free range and organic movement if entirely successful would create even more habitat loss than is currently suffered under todays farming methods. intensive farming is completely undesirable but it is economic on space, therefore inevitably natural habitat.

That's why it's better to go vegetarian . That movement is more about hormones and chemicals rather than ecology. Not everyone against mass production is a treehugger.

[writepic]

That's why it's better to go vegetarian . That movement is more about hormones and chemicals rather than ecology. Not everyone against mass production is a treehugger.

hey i'm all for gm crops and nuclear power. gm crops so that we can grow enough food for a small village on a single ear of corn and nuclear power so we can excercise population control with large scale industrial accidents.

[vincentkneefel]

An excerpt from the Sea Shepherd website, thought it might be interesting for the discussion.

Question No. 2
Greenpeace accuses Sea Shepherd of being a violent organization. Is this a valid?

Captain Paul Watson: Our record speaks for itself. In 30 years of operations the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has never caused a death or a single injury. We have never been convicted of a felony.

Yes we have sunk whaling ships, rammed whalers and drift netters, boarded poaching vessels and destroyed equipment used for illegal exploitation of the oceans and we believe that these are valid tactics.

Martin Luther King once wrote that violence can not be committed against a non-sentient object. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has given Sea Shepherd a letter of support in praise of our record of non-violence.

In fact Greenpeace supported Sea Shepherd actions when we rammed and sank the pirate whaler Sierra in 1979. The article about the Sierra ramming was written by me as the cover story on the Greenpeace Chronicles in September 1979. I was co-founder of Greenpeace International in October 1979 after this incident with the Sierra.

Greenpeace has worked with the group Earth First! and that group participates in ecotage i.e. the destruction of logging and construction equipment.

So why does Greenpeace separate itself from Sea Shepherd? The answer lies more in politics than tactics.

As a co-founder of Greenpeace, I along with most other of the original members have been marginalized by the bureaucrats who now run Greenpeace. We are a threat to their leadership and especially a threat to their revisionism.

The vision and the passion that helped create Greenpeace are not welcome today in Greenpeace the corporation where the bottom line is to increase contribution revenues by presenting a wide appeal and taking measures to not be overly radical or to offend possible donors.

The truth is that the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is more non-violent than Greenpeace. Greenpeace has suffered a few deaths and numerous injuries over the years due to not taking proper precautions. No sea Shepherd crewmember has ever been injured.

But the most significant testament to Sea Shepherd’s superior record of non-violence is the fact that Sea Shepherd ships do not serve meat, fish, eggs or dairy products to the crew. The ships are vegan ships and not a single animal suffered or is killed to feed the crew. Greenpeace ships serve meat, dairy products, eggs and fish. Greenpeace posted a You Tube video of Greenpeacers eating whale meat in Japan to demonstrate they are not opposed to whale as part of Japanese cuisine. So who is more non-violent? Vegan Sea Shepherd crewmembers or steak and fish eating Greenpeace crewmembers?

[zippsy]

As previously posted, the more I read things from their website, the less I like them or their tactics.