Whale wars: Watch Eco-pussies attack japanese whalers, and fail hilariously

[marcos_eirik]

Episode 9 is out.

 

[hansvonaxion]

Those fools don't deserve boats. Watching that propeller get ripped off was painful.

It doesn't seem as if they've stopped any whaling this season, and it's almost over. Maybe that influenced the decision to head straight back with Bethune, they were probably already close to the quota.

They've started selling whale bacon in 2 of the supermarkets near me but it's damned expensive, 580? (nearly US$7) for what seems like a few slivers. The serving suggestion is in a green salad, I guess similar to how you might serve smoked salmon. Can anyone confirm its superior tastiness?

 

[WillDAQ]

Episode 9: The sheer spectacle of 4 boats circling another like sharks was spectacular.

Next episode looks like they might finally get both boats onto the fleet, I expect lulz.

 

[Karoug]

So, how can anyone watching this show still be supporting the sea shepherds?

 

[Blind_Io]

As I've said before, I agree with their stated goals, but their methods are questionable - even when they work.

They are a bunch of hippies with no nautical experience in aging ships going up against a modern fleet of professional sailors. Their initial success was due to shock. Now that the Japanese expect them to show up they have developed effective countermeasures based on the areas where they are strongest - funding, speed, maneuverability and seamanship. The Sea Sheppards were creative, I give them that, the prop foulers were a good idea but have seen very limited success. The buteric acid is a good idea in theory, but to my knowledge there has never been any confirmation that they have tainted any meat. The helicopter is by far their greatest success and they have used it every year to extend their range and find the Japanese.

This is an arms race. The Ady Gil posed a significant threat and was sunk because of it (and I was sad to see such an incredible machine go to the bottom - especially after seeing it in person as Earthrace). The Sea Sheppards are reaching the end of what they can do with the funding they have, they will either have to come better equipped and spend some time in the off-season doing some serious training to build a professional (and therefore paid) crew as well as getting better equipment or they will face becoming less and less effective than they already are.

 

[Dino]

I'm watching the last episode right now, and I keep wondering: Why is it, that whenever they show the crew, they look completely lost and vacant. Virtually obliterated by what is happening.

I mean, the crew, although certainly lacking in a number of areas, can't really be like this the whole time. This is television, I know, but TV is normally not as consistent. Call me naive or stupid, but I have the same thought every single time it happens. Which is a lot.

Edit: Just realized. It's like watching David vs. Goliath, only David ...was a slow child, and is quite possibly drunk. More fun to watch than it should be.

 

[Blind_Io]

It's the Vegan diet. If only there were a convenient source of meat out there in the ocean.

 

[marcos_eirik]

If only there were a convenient source of meat out there in the ocean.

 

[phuckingduck]

Y'know, after my voter-pamphlet induced rage earlier, these people really know how to bring warmth to my heart. Thank you inept sailors and brilliantly-insane bald man. You sir are an inspiration with your boredom induced fires in confined spaces. Your 'get-it-dun' attitude is an inspiration.

 

[mpicco]

Edit:
I understand people have complained before. This is just an opinion. If you dont wanna read an "animal cruelty" rant, feel free to ignore this post.

Never seen this show outside of the parody South Park did on them...
I'll start by saying i'm not an environmentalist, or an activist of any kind.
But I can't agree with killing whales or dolphins. Don't tell me its the same as killing cows and chickens cos we breed those for the purpose, and such there are countries with more cattle than people.
Watching these whaling boats go and harpoon these majestic animals like it was nothing is really cruel.
I know it's funny to look at these ill-equipped idiots trying to ram their tiny boat on huge whalers and being a total fail, but some things are just morally wrong.
Killing seals is another thing that makes me sick. Bullfighting too even if they're not endangered. If those guys wanna show how big their balls are, why don't they enter the bullring with no swords or anything else?
It's all fun and games till soon enough we won't find tigers, lions or gorillas in the wild. I wouldn't want to live in a world like that.

 

[hansvonaxion]

Y'know, after my voter-pamphlet induced rage earlier, these people really know how to bring warmth to my heart. Thank you inept sailors and brilliantly-insane bald man. You sir are an inspiration with your boredom induced fires in confined spaces. Your 'get-it-dun' attitude is an inspiration.

That was awesome, one of the best parts of the show so far. I think Watson will be jealous.

But I can't agree with killing whales or dolphins. Don't tell me its the same as killing cows and chickens cos we breed those for the purpose, and such there are countries with more cattle than people.

You're right, it's far more humane overall to kill a wild animal.

...these majestic animals....

Damn, there it is again!

It could be defined as something like "lofty dignity". In Japanese Buddhism, all living creatures have equal dignity. To say a whale is more dignified than any other animal is absurd. Even so you can even find whales names in Buddhist cemeteries in whaling towns, and tombs/tombstones erected in respect for whales killed.

When whale flensing was completed on the island, a monument was built and Buddhist priests were called to perform a ceremony to appease the soul of the killed whale.

Landing on the uninhabited island shrubbed with old chinquapin trees, I walked under the gate of the Hiruko Shrine and advanced along the stone steps. Then I found three tombs of whales half buried in fern and dead leaves. Engraved on the tombstones were: "Mother whale found with a fetus," "In memory of whale fetus," and "Tomb for whale calves." In front of them were a few half-decayed whale bones. Seeing the tombs, I joined my hand in prayer.

I know it's funny to look at these ill-equipped idiots trying to ram their tiny boat on huge whalers and being a total fail, but some things are just morally wrong.

What's with the random links?

Morally wrong? More hypocrisy and cultural imperialism. A brief history lesson;

Following reports of a merchant vessel captain who had been en route from Shanghai, the first Western whaling ships, the 'Maro' from Nantucket, and the 'Enderby' from Britain, soon filled their casks with oil. By 1822, thirty ships were whaling off Japan. By 1846, together with Russian, British, Dutch and French ships, as well as the big American whaling fleet, there were seven hundred or more vessels hunting off Japan, killing right whales, humpback whales, grey whales and sperm whales in great numbers. However, unlike the shore-based Japanese, the foreign ships had no use for meat or bones, and certainly not for entrails. They killed for oil, baleen, and what little ivory came from the sperm whales. To the Japanese, the wastage of those years is a horror story.

Whaling was big business. In 1846, the peak year of the American whaling industry, in the United States alone some 70,000 people were employed in the whaling business, and it was pressure from this business that brought about the lobbying which caused the eventual dispatch of a powerful American naval expedition to Japan, headed by Commodore Perry. This expedition, which took place in the years 1852, 1853 and 1854, was the point of the wedge which opened Japan to the rest of the world. I'd like here to quote from the official Narrative, published by order of Congress in 1846.

"Whales of several varieties abound in those parts of the ocean lying between the Bonins and the coast of Asia, and are in greater numbers in the neighborhood of Japan. Until the establishment of a treaty with that singular empire the masters of whaling vessels were cautious not to approach near to its shores, under a well-founded apprehension of falling into the hands of the Japanese, and suffering, as a consequence, imprisonment and cruel treatment. These fears should no longer exist, as the stipulations of the treaty (the Treaty of Kanagawa, the first treaty Japan ever signed with a foreign nation. Brackets mine.) make provision and offer guarantees not only for kind treatment to those Americans who may approach the coast, or be thrown by accident upon its hitherto inhospitable shores, but allow all American vessels under press of weather to enter any of its ports for temporary refitment; and the ports of Hakodadi (Hakodate) and Simoda (Shimoda) are open for all purposes of repair or supplies.

"As, therefore, the obstacles to a free navigation of the Japan seas no longer present themselves, our whaling ships may cruise in safely and without interruption as near to the shores as may be convenient, or in the seas lying more to the eastward. But to render this part of the ocean in all respects convenient to our whaling ships, something more is wanted, and that is a port of resort, which shall be in all respects free for them to enter and depart without the restraints of exclusive laws and national prejudices; for though, as before remarked, the ports of Hakodadi and Simoda, in Japan, to which we may add Napha (Naha), in great Lew Chew (Ryukyu, i.e., Okinawa), are by treaty open to American vessels, a long time may elapse before the people of those ports divest themselves of the jealousies which they have hitherto entertained against strangers, and it is well known that the crews of whaling vessels visiting the ports of the Pacific are not remarkable for their orderly behavior or conciliatory deportment."

However, despite Perry's remarks that the masters of whaling vessels had been cautious not to approach near to the coasts of Japan, by the time the black ships of his squadron had bullied their way into the ports of Naha and Shimoda, and into Edo bay, there had been thirty or so years of intensive whaling off the coast of Japan by foreign vessels, eager to brave storms and typhoons for the riches of the seas. The Kanagawa Treaty made things easier for them, but already the whales, especially the slow-moving and valuable right whales, were in decline.

etc

It's all fun and games till soon enough we won't find tigers, lions or gorillas in the wild. I wouldn't want to live in a world like that.

How many species have suffered extinction, how much damage to the environment has been caused due to the raising of cattle? It isn't as easy to calculate. Besides, tigers, lions, gorillas have what to do with minke whales?

Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world?s tropical rain forests.

Just this week, the president of Brazil announced emergency measures to halt the burning and cutting of the country?s rain forests for crop and grazing land. In the last five months alone, the government says, 1,250 square miles were lost.

Growing meat (it?s hard to use the word ?raising? when applied to animals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it?s a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth?s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation?s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world?s greenhouse gases ? more than transportation.

Grain, meat and even energy are roped together in a way that could have dire results. More meat means a corresponding increase in demand for feed, especially corn and soy, which some experts say will contribute to higher prices.

This will be inconvenient for citizens of wealthier nations, but it could have tragic consequences for those of poorer ones, especially if higher prices for feed divert production away from food crops. The demand for ethanol is already pushing up prices, and explains, in part, the 40 percent rise last year in the food price index calculated by the United Nations? Food and Agricultural Organization.

Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens. This despite the inherent inefficiencies: about two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption, according to Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University. It is as much as 10 times more in the case of grain-fed beef in the United States.

The environmental impact of growing so much grain for animal feed is profound. Agriculture in the United States ? much of which now serves the demand for meat ? contributes to nearly three-quarters of all water-quality problems in the nation?s rivers and streams, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Perhaps the best hope for change lies in consumers? becoming aware of the true costs of industrial meat production. ?When you look at environmental problems in the U.S.,? says Professor Eshel, ?nearly all of them have their source in food production and in particular meat production. And factory farming is ?optimal? only as long as degrading waterways is free. If dumping this stuff becomes costly ? even if it simply carries a non-zero price tag ? the entire structure of food production will change dramatically.?

Animal welfare may not yet be a major concern, but as the horrors of raising meat in confinement become known, more animal lovers may start to react. And would the world not be a better place were some of the grain we use to grow meat directed instead to feed our fellow human beings?

(sorry if it seems choppy, I cut it down a bit)

Besides, Southern Bluefin Tuna is critically endangered and currently thousands of tonnes are caught and eaten. But I guess they just aren't "majestic" enough to need protecting.

 

[Blind_Io]

So, if the Sea Sheppards were going after the tuna fishermen you'd be ok with that?

It's not hypocrisy to realize that you are destroying a natural resource and change the hunting/fishing accordingly. By that logic we should pull all the catalytic converters off our cars and scrubbers from industrial smoke stacks because we wouldn't want to contradict our own mistakes.

You are trying to link the killing of whales to the destruction of the rain forests and the energy required for factory-farming cattle and chickens. The two are not related (and not all meat is raised in a factory farm anyway). We've been over this. Whales are wild animals with greatly depleted numbers and many species have still never recovered from the whaling of the past century. Cows and chickens are domesticated animals, genetically modified through generations of selective breeding to be food. These two things are not the same. Cows and chickens aren't even a naturally occurring species, at this point they are almost entirely created by man.

It makes sense to compare whaling to the tuna catch, but whaling to deforestation? The only thing they have in common is that they are both examples of mankind's destruction of natural ecosystems and species.

 

[mpicco]

NY times says "Bla bla bla livestock takes space and releases greenhouse gases"

I will go out on a limb here and say that if we all went vegetarian, these crops that are now used for "growing meat" would not sustain the human population for long. Remember cows eat all sort of stuff that is just not edible by us. Straws, grasses, etc? Would you survive on that? The problem is not what we do to feed ourselves, the real problem at this moment in the planet is overpopulation I believe.
But going back on topic:
What I was saying in my post is that I oppose any unnecessary killing of animals. The least we kill, the better. I, however, will not watch a man or a child die of hunger just to save a chicken or a cow, or a whale even, if it was required to feed them. But this killing is not required at all. These oils, fins, whatever they get from these whales, can be replaced with other things. The same with those danes who kill the dolphins, and the canadians who club infant seals over the head. It's just damn wrong.

And a couple of other things ... 1: I don't care if the english started doing it off the coasts first. I don't care about nationalities, it's just wrong.
2: Driving a bolt into a cow's brain, making it die instantly and pretty painlessly, is a bit different than shooting a harpoon through a whale and then dragging it to the deck, killing it with a mixture of loss of blood, suffocation and all around pain and shock.
3: I don't eat seafood so if they decided to stop fishing tuna, cod, sardine etc, I'd love it, cos that'd mean I wouldn't have to bear the smell of fish anymore.
4: Yeah I think a whale is more dignified than a mosquito carrying malaria, but that's just me.
5: I'd like to think we live in a more enlightened era than the XIX century. Perhaps these people thought the whales, like the dodos, would keep coming and coming. What did they know about biology and reproduction? But we live in a different age where whaling is prohibited by many countries. Are the Japonese just "taking back what was theirs"? They should ban it too.

 

[hansvonaxion]

Straws, grasses, etc?

Straw as a byproduct of wheat? Grass from land not suited to grain production? You make it sound like they're doing us all a favour. Then why do we need to clear massive tracts of the Amazon, or divert grain from starving people to feed them?

The least we kill, the better. I, however, will not watch a man or a child die of hunger just to save a chicken or a cow, or a whale even, if it was required to feed them. But this killing is not required at all. These oils, fins, whatever they get from these whales, can be replaced with other things.

Oils, fins, whatever? I guess you haven't been paying attention. Japan has a thousands year old tradition of whaling and they have always utilised every part of the animal. It was western countries who whaled purely for oil as an energy resource.

It is not required to kill any animals for food, in fact it's quite the opposite.

There is more than enough food in the world to feed the entire human population. So why are more than 840 million people still going hungry?

The truth: The more meat we eat, the fewer people we can feed. If everyone on Earth received 25 percent of his or her calories from animal products, only 3.2 billion people would have food to eat. Dropping that figure to 15 percent would mean that 4.2 billion people could be fed. If the whole world became vegan, there would be plenty food to feed all of us"?more than 6.3 billion people. The World Watch Institute sums this up rightly, saying, ?Meat consumption is an inefficient use of grain"?the grain is used more efficiently when consumed by humans. Continued growth in meat output is dependent on feeding grain to animals, creating competition for grain between affluent meat-eaters and the world?s poor.?

Per capita, Americans eat more than 10 times the beef consumed by 2 billion Chinese, 30 times that of 1 billion Indians and more than 4 times that of Japan (eating beef is only a "recent" trend in Japan, it used to be forbidden to kill 4 legged animals) . My point being that if we all ate like westerners, the world would die and yet it's westerners who always feel it's their place to lecture everyone else on morals, ethics and whatever else they feel like.

Eating beef puts other animals species, and the environment as a whole, at risk.

And a couple of other things ... 1: I don't care if the english started doing it off the coasts first. I don't care about nationalities, it's just wrong.

The IWC does. The US, Canada, Russia and Greenland all whale. I realise that a lot of people are against all whaling (and they stand on firmer ground), but many seem to distinguish indigenous whaling as separate from Japanese indigenous whaling, including many IWC member nations. They refuse to define the terms, aboriginal, indigenous and subsistence.

2: Driving a bolt into a cow's brain, making it die instantly and pretty painlessly, is a bit different than shooting a harpoon through a whale and then dragging it to the deck, killing it with a mixture of loss of blood, suffocation and all around pain and shock.

Very evocative, but untrue. Most whales die instantaneously, average time to death is under 2 minutes. The cow probably lived a life of pain and suffering. Livestock in the US consumes 8 times the antibiotics of humans. Chickens are given steroids so that their muscular system can grow so fast it become too heavy for the skeletal system and they can't stand, they fall and die of starvation. Debeaking chickens without anaesthetic is hardly nice, some say it causes chronic pain. Half of chicken deaths in Australian sheds are caused by heart failure and pulmonary oedema.

In the United States, farmed animals are excluded by many state animal cruelty laws including the federal Animal Welfare Act.

3: I don't eat seafood so if they decided to stop fishing tuna, cod, sardine etc, I'd love it, cos that'd mean I wouldn't have to bear the smell of fish anymore.

Good for you.

4: Yeah I think a whale is more dignified than a mosquito carrying malaria, but that's just me.

Yes, that is just you. Not everyone is the same. It isn't the mosquito's fault it carries malaria, I suppose human malaria sufferers are also less dignified than those who are malaria free?

5: I'd like to think we live in a more enlightened era than the XIX century. Perhaps these people thought the whales, like the dodos, would keep coming and coming. What did they know about biology and reproduction? But we live in a different age where whaling is prohibited by many countries. Are the Japonese just "taking back what was theirs"? They should ban it too.

No they continuing to do what they have done for millenia.

It may be hard to follow my arguments because they cover several fronts. People generally argue against whaling on a number of fronts.

 

[mpicco]

It is not required to kill any animals for food, in fact it's quite the opposite.

The opposite of "It's not required to kill animals for food" is "It's required to kill animals for food".. or is it "It's not required to kill food for animals"? You confuse me.

Do you know what we get from grain? Bread. Yeah you can feed the whole world on bread that is instead used to feed cows and chicken. Is that practical? Not really. I want my essential amino-acids, please.
Meat is a part of a diet. You're talking like people eat a meat sandwiches using porkchops as buns.
Grain sounds like a solution only if you see the world like if you were playing Civilization.

Also if you're talking about millenia of tradition, how long have 'westerners' been domesticating animals and breeding them just to eat their products?

 

[Blind_Io]

Not only is meat part of the human diet, it's kind of necessary.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/07/30/128877628/meat-fire-and-the-evolution-of-man

My beef is with the harvesting of whales for meat.

 

[tigger]

Remember cows eat all sort of stuff that is just not edible by us. Straws, grasses, etc?

Not in the US (which is by far the largest beef market in the world). We feed our cows corn ... and antibiotics and growth hormone. Just like mother nature intended. You wouldn't come anywhere near meeting the US' beef demand with grass-fed cattle. It's simply not possible.

And while it's certainly a misrepresentation to compare, say, the caloric content of a pound of beef to that of a pound of wheat (instead of a pound of bread), it's not incorrect to say that you could feed a lot of people with the grain we put into cattle.

It's just damn wrong.

Like hansvonaxion said, that's just your (highly subjective) opinion. Minke whales are not in danger of extinction and the Japanese make use of the entire animal. Unlike most other countries, historically. What's the harm in that? How is killing an animal inherently/morally wrong?

Out of curiosity: I hunt deer because I oppose the feedlot system in the US; am I wrong just for killing or right for avoiding farm meat?

People don't go hungry because other people eat meat. People go hungry because of the fucked up socio-economic mess that the world is. I seriously doubt things would be any different if we were all vegan.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/07/30/128877628/meat-fire-and-the-evolution-of-man

That's an interesting take on evolution. Though I disagree that you need meat to be healthy. My father has been a vegan for a few years and my sister has been a vegetarian for almost 10 years, both of them are perfectly healthy. Actually, they're probably two of the healthiest people I know (for their respective ages). The vegetarians who have problems are the idiots who think they can live on potatoes and pasta.

 

[hansvonaxion]

Can't believe I got sucked back into the politics.

The opposite of "It's not required to kill animals for food" is "It's required to kill animals for food".. or is it "It's not required to kill food for animals"? You confuse me.

Sorry, my bad. I meant to say that utilising land animals as a food source reduces the overall available food supply due to the immense amounts of resources need to sustain the industry. It is not required to kill animals for food, to the contrary, doing so is counterproductive.

Meat is a part of a diet.

You're talking like people eat a meat sandwiches using porkchops as buns.

So is whale.

Funny you should say that.

This sandwich is two Original Recipe fried chicken filets stacked on top of each other with a slice of pepper jack cheese, a slice of Swiss cheese, two slices of bacon and the Colonel?s secret sauce. No bun. The fried chicken is the bun.

Americans intake more than double the RDA of protein from meat, and the RDA is very generous.

The International Society for Research on Civilization and Environment, headquartered in Brussels, in their report in 1989, stated that the classical protein requirement tables needed an overhaul and that the consumption of meat, fish, and eggs is not necessary on a daily basis. This is directly opposite of what is still being traditionally taught. In 1993, Canada, as well as the United States, decided to upgrade their food requirement tables, adding more vegetable proteins to the recommended lists. However, meat producers and lobby groups pushed so hard that they were able to force a reversal.

You don't need to eat meat for your essential amino acids. Definitely not so much of it.

According to the American Dietetic Association report in 1981, vegan men were consuming 150% more than the daily requirement; vegan women 139% more; lacto-ovo-vegetarian men 175% and women 186% more.

You seem to buy all the propaganda.

Whose diet is healthier?

Life expectancy;

1. Japan
35. USA

Obesity (from 2005, Australia is now #1 I believe);

1. USA 30.6%
28. Japan 3.2%

Heart disease;

13. USA 106.5/100,000
26. Japan 30/100,000

But Japan should take diet tips from the west? Hell, even Paul Watson if fat!

As the reader may now understand, the paradigm as this writer sees it is a juxtaposition of meat versus fish, and livestock-farming peoples versus maritime peoples. Let's compare the consumption of meat and fish around the world. In terms of annual per-capita consumption of animal flesh and fish, we can divide the world into those countries which consume 50 kilograms or more of meat and/or fish a year and those which consume less. The former includes all the economically advanced nations. Even within this group, there is considerable variation in the consumption of meat. Five countries - Australia, the United States, New Zealand, Canada, and Argentina - are conspicuous for their consumption of meat, which exceeds 100 kilograms a year. Fish consumption is low in these countries. The European countries - including France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy - can also be categorized as meat-eating nations with annual meat consumption per capita in the range of 50 to 100 kilograms. Both meat and fish figure fairly heavily in the diet of the Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland), as well as the former Soviet Union and Spain. By contrast, Japan and Iceland are in a class by themselves, with very high levels of dependence on fish. They can be characterized as typical fish-eating nations.

Among the countries whose per-capita meat and fish consumption is less than 50 kilograms a year, those in Southeast Asia - including South Korea, North Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand - tend to consume more fish than meat. Rice is the staple food in these countries. Other major fish-eating nations are Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Cote d'Ivoire, all of which are located on the west coast of Africa. Countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America tend to be meat-eating, but consumption is relatively small. China is mainly a pork-eating nation.

This quick summary shows that fish-eating countries are a minority in a community of nations where an overwhelming majority are meat-eating. It is easy to imagine, though, that even those nations which consume smaller amounts of animal flesh will develop a greater taste for meat if the supply of cereals in those countries becomes plentiful. This should give us pause for thought as we consider the long-term prospects for the supply of food.

I want to compare meat-eating and fish-eating from the point of view of food energy. Whereas fish is harvested directly from the natural environment, the production of meat by livestock farming consumes a huge amount of basic food energy - energy expressed in terms of the calorific value of cereals - since livestock feed on cereals and other land-produced products. The production of one kilogram of animal meat requires between six and eight kilograms of feed on average. Specifically, the amount of feed required to produce one kilogram of meat is over 10 kilograms in the case of beef, between four and five kilograms for pork, and about two kilograms for chicken. Consequently, the typical diet of meat-eating Westerners consumes far more basic food calories than that of Orientals, whose staple foods are cereals. Whereas the people of a developing country consume on average 200 kilograms of cereals per year, those in industrially advanced countries consume more than 500 kilograms. Annual food consumption per capita in the United States is equivalent to 1,000 kilograms of cereals. The consumption of one American, in terms of basic food calories, is therefore five times that of an Indian and more than twice that of a Japanese.

If everyone in the world today were to eat an average of 500 grams of cereals per day, the whole world population, about 5 billion people, could be fed by the production of only about 800 million tons of cereals. The total worldwide production of cereals in recent years is estimated to be somewhere between 1.6 billion and 1.7 billion tons, enough to feed everyone. But with a large number of people throughout the world preferring meat and aiming for a Western-style diet, the existing capacity of agriculture on the planet is inadequate to meet the demand.

Supplies of marine products, on the other hand, are obtained largely by exploiting natural resources, with the minor exception of marine farming. The task is to find the most effective way of harvesting natural resources. If we primarily harvest marine resources that feed on plankton, we can count on large potential catches. If, on the other hand, we limit our harvest to fish higher in the chain, which feed on other fish, the potential size of catches will be limited. The most effective way of utilizing marine resources, therefore, is to harvest from all levels of the food chain. In that sense, the Japanese fishing industry is most effective. The Japanese habit of eating many varieties of marine products makes our production pattern economical.

Also if you're talking about millenia of tradition, how long have 'westerners' been domesticating animals and breeding them just to eat their products?

But you want it both ways? OK, you can continue eating beef if Japanese are allowed to continue eating whale. We are agreed.

____________


Just went to the supermarket to get my lunch, that whale bacon I mentioned is 580yen/50g, which equates to over US$135 or EU100/kg! Shit.

 

[hansvonaxion]

Out of curiosity: I hunt deer because I oppose the feedlot system in the US; am I wrong just for killing or right for avoiding farm meat?

Good on you. I love beef, although I avoid eating US beef, I always go for domestic Japanese or Aussie beef. And I eat a lot less here in Japan.

People don't go hungry because other people eat meat. People go hungry because of the fucked up socio-economic mess that the world is.

No kidding. It always irks me when I see ads or someone personally asks me for money for African food aid while the EU (for example) burns excess grain to keep prices inflated. It just doesn't make sense.

 

[tigger]

Good on you. I love beef, although I avoid eating US beef, I always go for domestic Japanese or Aussie beef. And I eat a lot less here in Japan.

I can't blame you. At least you get better access to Kobe beef over there; that stuff is fantastic no matter the cut and it's damn near impossible to find here. If I go out I usually just eat seafood or bison. Being in Kansas, (feedlot) beef is always cheap but bison only costs a little more. Not being able to get fresh seafood is a real downer.

No kidding. It always irks me when I see ads or someone personally asks me for money for African food aid while the EU (for example) burns excess grain to keep prices inflated. It just doesn't make sense.

Exactly the kind of thing I was referencing. Here in the US farm subsidies aren't just used to protect soil (by encouraging crop rotation), farmers are smart enough to do that themselves; they're used to ensure crops are limited and prices are kept artificially high. Now that Russia has lost 1/3 of their wheat crop to wildfires farmers here are rejoicing, but that also means many people around the world are going to get forced to subsist on even less this year. Next year we'll probably up our quota and the Russians will get back to normal production levels ... global grain prices will drop ... and a bunch of third world farmers won't make any money. The poor bastards get fucked no matter what.