Japanese take the piss out of science

[Kim]

Tuna is not disgusting.

Flame ashlee

[Benno]

Ok yes alot of the processes used to farm cows are bad for the environment.

But
1) this was never about cows
2) Whaling doesn't and cannot support the same number of people as cows
3) We aren't going to FARM cows to extinction (acutaly i guess this is plausible since we are injecting them with antibiotics and creating resistant bacteria that is harder to stop, but i guess a virulent form would be needed anyway and so that is nature)
4) your a cow
5) i'm going to eat you
6) no the diffrence between arable land and the sea is it is alot easier to look after and manage crops and livestock than sustain the population off wild shoals of fish. We are already altering the temperature of the sea and therefore the ecosystem, there is already a decline in one of the major links in the sea food chain, plankton.
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?c...31B251&set_id=
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...06/MN31432.DTL

you should also note that plankton accounts for roughly 50% off all CO2 uptake, so it's not only important to the food chain, but to slow down gloabal warming. but it seems global warming is killing it as it needs cold waters.

Anyway i don't see the sea as this great resource of unlimitless bounty that we can just dip into too to feed an exponentially increasing population ...

1: if you suddenly cut one food supply, it has to be replaced by something. More poigntly, even a strictly vegan diet will be the cost of something's life, so trying to rationalize what you eat as ok and what others eat as unacceptable is simply cultural bias.

2 - 5 irrelevant

6: I think you're confusing whaling with the waton polution of the ocean, which I don't think anyone supports. In fact, the only concievable link I can imagine you're trying to make is between land usage and sea usage, which means you're saying ships in general are bad. Point six's relevance further disapears with your mention plankton since whales, not evil whalers, eat tons of plankton. Whats more, comercial fishing, which I doubt you're going to support a ban of, is far more prevelant than whaling.

While it seems a little misleading to label this as science, it is far better than opening whaling the norwegians practice (which somehow evades your criticism). This way each whale caught will provide valuable scientific data supplemented with food and blubber. This research can lead to a better understanding of whale populations which may someday lead to the eventual banning of it or well founded whaling quota guidelines. To me, selective conservatism is a thin viel of good intentions covering a core of selfishness. Everyone wants to save the world, so the easy targets are things you don't really care about but are important to another group of people.

Nuclear energy makes nuclear waste
Livestock make methane and use up farmland and rainforest
Wood comes from trees
Wind farms kill birds and take up land, as do solar farms
Alfalfa farms kill hares
whaling kills whales

The thing about activist groups is all of them step on the toes of another activist group. The people nuclear energy supporters who want non-fossil fuel dependant energy sources are hated by the NIMBY anti-nuke crowd. The people who want the save the ocean at the expense of mounting world food supply shortages and dwindeling plots of land to grow them on are agasint the save the rain forest crowd. Selfishness, thats all it is. The real solutions are going to be the pragmatic ones. Holding your breath and stamping your feet insisting for a ban on whatever you don't like might solve your niche problem but the consequence will be worsening another problem.

[Bigwig]

all that sounds reasonable, except its mostly irrelevent.
there is enough scientific data on whales without the need to kill a thousand whales. Any research that might be needed can be taken in non-lethal ways.

if people stopped whaling nobody would starve, they are not necessary to eat. The research might lead to an eventual ban on whaling? most countries already have a ban on whaling.

in fact, many fishing industries have been crippled in general by overfishing and climate change. here in nova scotia, during the mid 90's, tens of thousands of people lost their jobs in the fishing industry, and those losses have not been recovered. so your point about people resorting to the sea for more food, doesn't seem likely, agriculture is more renewable.

As for japanese cultural identity hinging on the slaughter of one type of food. boo freaking hoo. Do you see my crying about every tom dick and harry celebrating st. patricks day, a day of cultural pride in my heritage?

The decline in plankton means that with the added pressure of whaling, whale stocks would most likely fall further than any commercial whaling operation is likely to foresee or admit.

Finally just because people have conflicting interests concerning 'trying to save the world' doesn't mean we should throw our hands up in the air and say fuck it.

[Pressure Drop]

Benno i did mentioned that norway didn't agree to the pact. Even though they are whaling commercialy the Norweigians kill less whales than the Japanese will do for "science". In regards to you saying that the Japanese have scientific merit

"With the new proposal, Japan will increase its annual take... to levels approaching the annual commercial quotas for Antarctic minke whales that were in place prior to the moratorium.

"Consequently, we... feel unable to engage in a scientifically defensible process of review of the JARPA-2 proposal."

My point was and has always been that this is not science but commercial fishing, at what point is the farce going to be called what it is. I also disagree with hunting an animal that is in decline or underthreat from extinction, but like i said i would need to know more about the whale populations to make that judgement.

my point 6 seemed to confuse you. It was you that said

The sea, not the small percentage of farmable land will be the future food source for populations that easily overload the supply capabilities of land based food stocks.

that was what my point 6 was about, it wasn't about whaling it was about the validity off your statement that heralds the sea as a soloution to an ever increasing human population. I was trying to point out that its not in a great state allready and since the nutritional content off most diets are mainly from arable land i don't see how it could sustain us solely in the future like you seemed to suggest.

Like Bigwig said, there has already been a collapse in fish stocks cuased by over fishing in some areas. More consveration and study is needed and stricter quotas too to prevent this happening in other areas as well.

I don't know why you feel so strongly for whale hunting, but my posts have never been about the morality of it but the hypocrasy that is calling obviously commercial whaling science. You seem to have a beef with anyone "trying to save the world". I'm not amogst these ppl, but i put my trust in the scientists researching into these things who know alot more than the general public. Yet it seems the men with power or the international community off dumb ass politicians often ignore them. They say we need to cut green house gass emisions yet Bush doesn't sign Kyoto ...

There is a difference between trying to save the world and purposely ignoring the damage you are doing, too often we are doing the later.

[BleakFuture]

If they want to keep killing off all the animals, soon there'll be nothing left but Us and Insects. So unless you want to start eating bugs: Click here to eat humans

P.S. bigwig lives in the maritimes too?

[Ashlee]

Tuna is not disgusting.

Flame ashlee

Okay, the TASTE isn't that bad, but the smell is ew

[Horny Elf]

mm

whaleburger is fucking great, im going to have one right now

[BleakFuture]

Sink your teeth into a Hufu burger and you'll be surprised.

[DoTheFandango]

What have the whales ever done for us?

[Troll King]

Star Trek IV?

[Blanke]

Okay, the TASTE isn't that bad, but the smell is ew

Do you cook a lot :P Fresh fish shouldn't smell. Almost every meat product has an odor.

Benno: Thank you for arguing on the side of common sense (I know I'm getting flamed for saying something so emotively-charged as that) I nearly agree with all that you've proclaimed.

Ratty: whales don't swim up onto beaches to die. I can't even begin to comprehend as to a method of farming whales. There is no way that can be successful.

[Pressure Drop]

Do you cook a lot :P Fresh fish shouldn't smell. Almost every meat product has an odor.

Benno: Thank you for arguing on the side of common sense (I know I'm getting flamed for saying something so emotively-charged as that) I nearly agree with all that you've proclaimed.

Ratty: whales don't swim up onto beaches to die. I can't even begin to comprehend as to a method of farming whales. There is no way that can be successful.

smoked mackerel will reek your house out
nice though

isn't there evidence or a theory saying that beached whales may be increasing becuase of use of some sort of naval sonar ?


and surely its common sense that you don't need to kill 1000 whales in a year for science. GRRRRR!!!!!!

[RATTY...]

Do you cook a lot :P Fresh fish shouldn't smell. Almost every meat product has an odor.

Benno: Thank you for arguing on the side of common sense (I know I'm getting flamed for saying something so emotively-charged as that) I nearly agree with all that you've proclaimed.

Ratty: whales don't swim up onto beaches to die. I can't even begin to comprehend as to a method of farming whales. There is no way that can be successful.

There is a BIG black fish that swims up on beaches and die, a fish bigger than a human is called whale by me.

Extract the gene that makes the whale grow so fucking big? And farm them? Shouldn't be hard.

[Blanke]

isn't there evidence or a theory saying that beached whales may be increasing becuase of use of some sort of naval sonar ?

Yes, in some cases. I don't think it's been proven. On another note the navy, at least in the area I live, is working with conservation organizations to prevent deaths due to unnatural means.

Ratty: no.

[RATTY...]

That's the reason the Japanese kill so many whales, to eat them, and then research on the leftovers to find a way to farm them, since they eat so many of them each year. Atleast that's what I think.

Blanke: it's not hard at all.