I like your response to the article. In fact, I was also quite surprised to hear the arguement made. I live in Kagoshima in Japan, and last April the Nisshin Maru came to the town for a "whaling festival." It was a big family event and I could see the challenge anti-whaling campaigners are facing: Japanese people just don't have a clue. Not only are they extremely apolitical (in fact just chatting you can convince most young people to agree with your way of thinking whatever your view), but they simply buy the whole "Japanese culture" thing. Battles on the high seas, in their eyes, just turns the view of Greenpeace etc. into "eco-terrorists." Ridiculous.

Personally it would be nice to see more peaceful protests in Japan itself - demonstrations in cosmopolitan Tokyo just don't appeal to the 100 million other Japanese people who live elsewhere.

Hi, Dave. I agree with you.

I just can't see how greener it is to catch a whale as an alternative to eating beef. I also wonder if Yonezawa took the whaling industry's entire carbon footprint into account.

Assuming that he did, then how sure was Yonezawa that we won't kill off whales if we all start having whale sashimi? Nobody knows just how many whales are out there. Anybody?

I don't think there's anybody out there who would be willing to wipe out just one specie these days. It's just antisocial.

Norm

Dave,

Of course we can't feed everyone with whales alone. That is not the idea. The idea is to catch up to as many whales as the scientists advise is sustainable, and reduce beef production (or some other similarly bad practice) accordingly.

This is the common sense, smart way to go about making the world a better place.

As you know, whales and other wild creatures are produced by natural processes, so we do not need to cut down trees to clear land for unnecessarily grazing cows and other animals, while we have unexploited natural resources available which can (and therefore should) be utilised on a sustainable basis in accordance with conservative scientific advice.

And it is possible for various stocks of whales already. The IWC's scientific committee has already completed implementations of the RMP for a number of whale stocks, and work is on-going for others. So they can provide advise in some cases right now. And other unexploited whale stocks are continuing to recover from past over-exploitation for oil, and will one day in future hopefully have recovered enough to also support sustainable harvests.

What's more is such whaling could be implemented off the Pacific coast of Japan immediately - the IWC scientific committee is already in a position to provide advice - and a corresponding amount of beef imports from Australia or the USA could be reduced. And the world becomes a slightly better place. Greenpeace should not stand in the way of this, on the contrary it should be promoting this.

Around the world if every one were to reduce their reliance on bad practices (such as eating beef), and substitute them for sustainable ones, then things will get better.

Greenpeace should immediately announce it's faith in the IWC's scientific committee, and demand that the IWC seeks to set sustainable whaling quotas wherever is deemed possible by them.

David,
When you say "catch up to as many whales as the scientists advise is sustainable", are you referring to the scientists at Japan's Institute for Cetacean Research, or are you talking abou the Scientific Committee for the IWC? I can't see the two groups agreeing.

I have to award you a "quote of the week", for it's outright bizarreness: "this is the common sense, smart way to go about making the world a better place."

You are a very strange man, David. But you're commitment to making the world a better place is admirable. :D

As for this paragraph:
"As you know, whales and other wild creatures are produced by natural processes, so we do not need to cut down trees to clear land for unnecessarily grazing cows and other animals, while we have unexploited natural resources available which can (and therefore should) be utilised on a sustainable basis in accordance with conservative scientific advice."

While land-based farming has its issues (lots of them), history has so far not been kind to those who exploited whales as natural resources. Whales are *not* like cows in a field - they're a lot harder to keep track of for a start. We know lots about cows, we know comparitively much less about whales. We do know that they are extremely slow growing, and take a long time to mature.

What you're suggesting is that we wait until some whales species arrive back from the abyss of over-exploitation, then start exploiting them again?

Whales are up against a wider set of problems since the heydey of whaling - climate change, ship strikes, pollution, underwater noise (including military sonar etc.), and entanglements.

The last thing we need to be doing is holding the flensing knife aloft, reading to start chopping them up again.

Dave,

Of course I'm talking about the IWC Scientific Committee. And like I said, the IWC Scientific Committee already can provide advice on sustainable catch limits for certain species due to their fine work in implementing the RMP for various whale stocks.

Learning from mistakes in our history is precisely how the IWC Scientific Committee came to develop and unanimously recommend the RMP to the IWC.

Whales are *not* like cows in a field - precisely. I don't see anyone suggesting otherwise. Whale stock management differing to cow stock management is why the management advice the IWC scientific committee is based on the RMP and not Farmer Brown's method. The RMP is specifically for baleen whales based on scientific knowledge of baleen whale biology and numbers of each stock, taking into consideration the various uncertainties that exist in our knowledge about them (including changes to their environment, as you refer to when you speak of a "wider set of problems"). And when the RMP is implemented it's implemented with respect to the specific characteristics of each specific whale stock.

But as I said, the whales don't emit unnatural levels of gas in the way the cows humans farm do, nor do we need to cut down trees to allow them space to graze. Mother Nature produces whales, naturally. So rather than not utilise these precious resources while people cut down more trees to farm more cows, we should utilise whale resources cautiously and conservatively to the extent that we can be extremely sure that it is safe (i.e. under RMP based management).

Why Greenpeace would be against the advocation of reducing negative human impacts on the environment such as those brought about through cow farming is really beyond me. It's particularly strange, because at least Greenpeace Australia recently recognised that Australians ought to be making better use of their native kangaroo biodiversity rather than farming cows.

David, it's rather amusing that you're surprised at your own assertion that we're against the reduction of negative human impacts on the environment. You're in danger of knitting yourself in knots, and leaving the rest of us bewildered.

As for the Kangaroo argument, it's already be comprehensively dealt with on Making Waves by Richard, in "Should we be eating Skippy to solve climate change?". For the record, Greenpeace did NOT say that people should eat more kangaroos.

Mother Nature certainly does produce whales - albeit very very slowly. We need to be protecting those whales from the "wider set of problems" and the Antarctic marine food web and environment in general from negative impacts - not totting up how much we can get away with wiping out for the sake of some sashimi.

There's plenty of ways to combat climate change without resorting to killing whales, David. Maybe go vegetarian?

Dave,

"Mother Nature certainly does produce whales - albeit very very slowly", you stress, but why? Under the RMP whales would not be caught at rates that would result in over-depletion of the stock in question. Harvest rates need be tailored to species, so if the species reproduces slowly, you harvest slowly. This is common sense, to you too, right?

I was not aware that what I had heard about Greenpeace, advocating "shifting to kangaroo meat" as part of a plan to reduce beef consumption, was incorrect. And I'd thank you for correcting me if it wasn't sad news, since I was prepared to give Greenpeace some credit for that... Good on the researcher from "Sustainability Centre" though.

As for you guys, even though it's an option to do better for the environment (as is sustainable whaling) why would Greenpeace reject it? Coupled together with inciting supporters to waste paper sending silly letters to the TPO over the Two Tokyo Thieves, it paints a picture about just how little Greenpeace actually seems to care about the environment.

David, if you're trying to get me to suggest that a full return to commercial whaling would be acceptable, via the RMP... well, good luck to you. Greenpeace is against commercial whaling; the IWC needs to transform itself from an organisation that protects whalers to an organisation that protects whales. It needs to be become a conservation-based body rather than an industry-based one.

This has already happened to some extent with member countries interested in whale watching and conservation, but not getting involved in whaling.

From this point of view, a new IWC would find the RMP redundant, as no whales would be killed.

As for the kangaroo story - who said that we rejected it?

In Richard's blog, he says

"As Dr Mark Diesendorf of the Sustainability Centre has pointed out, reducing beef consumption could be accomplished in more than one way and indeed many more ways can be listed other than eating kangaroos. And just to reiterate, Greenpeace does not endorse eating kangaroos nor is it advocating eating kangaroos as a solution to climate change."

"Australia needs to dramatically reduce its emissions: it's the highest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. Changing agricultural practices in Australia is an important component of any climate change response but it ranks towards the bottom of the required measures when compared to greenhouse gas savings from energy efficiency and renewable energy."

Read more about Greenpeace's Climate campaign here »

Thanks...

Dave

Dave,

Yes yes, I know you guys are against "commercial whaling", yadda yadda.

But the point is you should start putting the environment first. I recognise it's not easy for the bosses of your big corporate confidence scam organization to turn around and admit it when your policies are / have become entirely useless and counter-productive, but I always remain optimistic that the goodness that remains in you will one day prevail.

No one is asking people who don't want to catch whales to go out and do so. The idea (again, common sense) is to allow people who do want to, to do so sustainably in accordance with the RMP.

Consequently prices for substitutes such as bad-for-the-environment beef will drop and production will decrease. This is good for the environment. A reduction in beef production would be a benefit for the environment and whale eaters would be happier with more whale meat, but due to your out-of-date 1970's ideology you reject it anyway.

Re: Kangaroos - Oh I see now. So you take a sit-on-the-fence (for wimps) position on it. Do the same with whales.

David, you might be interested to know that a former ICR counselor and whaling industry expert has criticised the climate change claim, in a letter to the Japan Times:

"Whaling as a business hardly justifies the environmental costs" - former Japanese whaling official »

Japan Times: Shigeko Misaki - Environmental impact of whaling

Dave, Misaki says nothing with respect to Kunio Yonezawa's actual figures about the relative badness for the environment of alternative methods of meat production, nor mentions beef production or alternative production methods for meat, or availability of alternatives or feasibility.

Erm, in all fairness David, Misaki only wrote a four paragraph letter to The Japan Times - brief, and to the point. I'm not sure where should could have shoved in a piece about beef too. Perhaps you should take take that up with Ms. Misak herself, maybe via The Japan Times letter's page?

hello david i agree with you.definitivamente los japoneses y siedo un poco atrevida parece que no tuvieran alma , no creen en nadie y se quieren comer todo lo que se mueva a su alrededor ,los admiro por otras cosas de la cultura pero que seres tan bajos creer que las ballenas contaminan el medio ambiente creo que de tanto eat a dog estan locosy lo peor con todo quieren hacer plata no se respetan ellos mismos ,son inhumanos barbaros asesinos no pensar que lo que estan haciendo es destruir el ecosistemas dañar la fauna son criminales y no tienen perdon de nadie .los felicito a los que pueden estar alli ydefender a esos seres majestuosos, marravillosos que cantan y bailar en el mar a todos mil gracias por luchar contra esos barbaros y hacer de este planeta un mejor lugar para todos.