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It could be that the world is doing it wrong by eating cows instead of whales. :) They're direct contributors to global warming and rainforests are being clear

by fiblye 8y ago

It could be that the world is doing it wrong by eating cows instead of whales. :) They're direct contributors to global warming and rainforests are being clear cut to make way for pastures. In contrast, the whales that Japan harvests, minke whales, aren't endangered, their consumption has negligible impact on the environment, and they're quite delicious. I grab whale sashimi whenever I see it at the supermarket and I keep a couple cans in my cupboard just in case I get a craving. I don't eat it often due to the risk of mercury accumulation, but I can't think of a good reason to not eat it every now and then. From an environmental standpoint, it's also preferable to fish, since trawling absolute destroys environments and nets as a whole end up killing a lot of "waste" fish and dolphins that people won't eat. Whaling is targeted and doesn't really have much collateral damage in comparison.

steve19 8y ago
Whales are not fish, nor are they harvested like fish. “If we can imagine a horse having two or three explosive spears stuck into its stomach and being made to pull a butcher’s truck through the streets of London while it pours blood in the gutter, we shall have an idea of the present method of killing. The gunners themselves admit that if whales could scream, the industry would stop, for nobody would be able to stand it.” - Dr Harry Lillie, 1946. Lillie was a a surgeon and medical officer aboard British whaling ships in the Antarctic during the 1940s.
- fiblye 8y ago
  >Whales are not fish, nor are they harvested like fish. And nowhere did I say that they are. Unlike fish, they're harvested in a way that doesn't result in wasteful and incredibly destructive bycatch. And frankly, it's hard to think of a form of butchering or mass-scale animal harvest that wasn't brutal in the 1940s. Factory farming today is a worse fate than most people can ever imagine hell to be, yet most of us (my hypocritical self included) are still providing financial support to it. Eating meat (at least as it is now) results in a death no matter how you go about it. The options we have are let an animal have a free life and suffer at the end, let an animal suffer its whole life then pop it in the brain to "stun it", or let it watch itself bleed out if you're going for halal/kosher food. Hunting and modern whaling are ironically more humane than most other methods of meat consumption we have.
  - goalieca 8y ago
    Whales are very intelligent creatures.
  - steve19 8y ago
    You did compare whaling to fishing, and with a straight face compared whaling to hunting small/medium animals and to halal methods of killing animals. There is no comparable suffering of a mammal that the cruel and draw out method killing a whale. It would be best compared to how the English hung drew and quareted the worst condemned prisoners. You are now bringing up strawmen. We are talking about whales. Not chickens. Yes battery chicken farming is aweful, so I don't eat battery chickens or eggs. Pig farming is terrible and if I didn't have religious objections to eating in the first place I would avoid that too. I also eat ethically grown beef. Just because other animals are mis treated does not mean anyone should give whaling a pass. If you truly belive fish are so bad, maybe you should avoid that too.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    I don’t know how you can be turned off by animal slaughter and ok with whaling.
yorwba 8y ago
> minke whales, aren't endangered, Sure, they're only "near threatened". [1] I wonder though which classification would finally make Japan cut their whaling quota. [1] https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/2480/50350661 https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/2480/50350661
- fiblye 8y ago
  Massively disingenuous statement. The minke whales found closest to Japanese waters are least concern.[1] Japan also does controversially take some whales outside of its waters, though, and that's definitely a problem. Regardless, it's not nearly as bad as eating the verifiably endangered yet popular bluefin tuna[2] or any variety of sturgeon or its caviar, of which pretty much all are on the verge of extinction. [1] https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/2474/50348265 https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/2474/50348265 [2] https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/21860/9331546 https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/21860/9331546
  - yorwba 8y ago
    Most minke whales caught by Japanese whalers were in Antarctic waters when they were still in the IWC. [1] I don't see how it is disingenuous to link to the classification of the whale that makes up most of their catch. [1] https://iwc.int/table_permit https://iwc.int/table_permit
credit_guy 8y ago
> They're [the cows] direct contributors to global warming It's a popular misconception that cows contribute greatly to the global warming. The general story is that recently a lot of people in emerging countries (and specifically China) have increased their beef consumption and you need more cows for that, and hence more methane emissions from their burps. And since methane is many times more potent than CO2 ... you know the rest. What people don't take the time to check is if the story is true. The global inventory of cows was constant at very close to 1 billion for the last 45 years [1]. The half-life of methane in the atmosphere is about 7 years [2], so all the burps released by cows today simply replace burps that decayed from cows of decades past. Overall, cows don't contribute to an increase or decrease in the level of methane in the atmosphere. [1] http://beef2live.com/story-world-cattle-inventory-1960-2014-130-111523 http://beef2live.com/story-world-cattle-inventory-1960-2014-... [2] https://phys.org/tags/methane/ https://phys.org/tags/methane/
- rhn_mk1 8y ago
  While the inventory stays constant, the environment is not in a stable state right now regarding greenhouse gases. Considering than methane is two orders of magnitude more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2 [0], removing it from the atmosphere will also do good alongside reducing CO2 emissions. [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-bad-of-a-greenhouse-gas-is-methane/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-bad-of-a-gree...
- hannob 8y ago
  Your whole argument is a logical fallacy. You're basically saying "It was bad before, so continuing on the same level isn't making it worse". I haven't checked the numbers, but even if true that's not an argument at all.
  - gameswithgo 8y ago
    no, his argument is not that simple. read it more closely, he is saying the methane from cows is not causing any methane accumulation. its a fixed, relatively small forcing admidst a monotonically increasing one from co2. If we all stopped eating cows co2 would replace the cow-methane forcing in a short time.

by fiblye 8y ago

steve19 8y ago

Whales are not fish, nor are they harvested like fish. “If we can imagine a horse having two or three explosive spears stuck into its stomach and being made to pull a butcher’s truck through the streets of London while it pours blood in the gutter, we shall have an idea of the present method of killing. The gunners themselves admit that if whales could scream, the industry would stop, for nobody would be able to stand it.” - Dr Harry Lillie, 1946. Lillie was a a surgeon and medical officer aboard British whaling ships in the Antarctic during the 1940s.

fiblye 8y ago
>Whales are not fish, nor are they harvested like fish. And nowhere did I say that they are. Unlike fish, they're harvested in a way that doesn't result in wasteful and incredibly destructive bycatch. And frankly, it's hard to think of a form of butchering or mass-scale animal harvest that wasn't brutal in the 1940s. Factory farming today is a worse fate than most people can ever imagine hell to be, yet most of us (my hypocritical self included) are still providing financial support to it. Eating meat (at least as it is now) results in a death no matter how you go about it. The options we have are let an animal have a free life and suffer at the end, let an animal suffer its whole life then pop it in the brain to "stun it", or let it watch itself bleed out if you're going for halal/kosher food. Hunting and modern whaling are ironically more humane than most other methods of meat consumption we have.
- goalieca 8y ago
  Whales are very intelligent creatures.
- steve19 8y ago
  You did compare whaling to fishing, and with a straight face compared whaling to hunting small/medium animals and to halal methods of killing animals. There is no comparable suffering of a mammal that the cruel and draw out method killing a whale. It would be best compared to how the English hung drew and quareted the worst condemned prisoners. You are now bringing up strawmen. We are talking about whales. Not chickens. Yes battery chicken farming is aweful, so I don't eat battery chickens or eggs. Pig farming is terrible and if I didn't have religious objections to eating in the first place I would avoid that too. I also eat ethically grown beef. Just because other animals are mis treated does not mean anyone should give whaling a pass. If you truly belive fish are so bad, maybe you should avoid that too.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  I don’t know how you can be turned off by animal slaughter and ok with whaling.

yorwba 8y ago

> minke whales, aren't endangered, Sure, they're only "near threatened". [1] I wonder though which classification would finally make Japan cut their whaling quota. [1] https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/2480/50350661 https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/2480/50350661

fiblye 8y ago
Massively disingenuous statement. The minke whales found closest to Japanese waters are least concern.[1] Japan also does controversially take some whales outside of its waters, though, and that's definitely a problem. Regardless, it's not nearly as bad as eating the verifiably endangered yet popular bluefin tuna[2] or any variety of sturgeon or its caviar, of which pretty much all are on the verge of extinction. [1] https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/2474/50348265 https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/2474/50348265 [2] https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/21860/9331546 https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/21860/9331546
- yorwba 8y ago
  Most minke whales caught by Japanese whalers were in Antarctic waters when they were still in the IWC. [1] I don't see how it is disingenuous to link to the classification of the whale that makes up most of their catch. [1] https://iwc.int/table_permit https://iwc.int/table_permit

credit_guy 8y ago

> They're [the cows] direct contributors to global warming It's a popular misconception that cows contribute greatly to the global warming. The general story is that recently a lot of people in emerging countries (and specifically China) have increased their beef consumption and you need more cows for that, and hence more methane emissions from their burps. And since methane is many times more potent than CO2 ... you know the rest. What people don't take the time to check is if the story is true. The global inventory of cows was constant at very close to 1 billion for the last 45 years [1]. The half-life of methane in the atmosphere is about 7 years [2], so all the burps released by cows today simply replace burps that decayed from cows of decades past. Overall, cows don't contribute to an increase or decrease in the level of methane in the atmosphere. [1] http://beef2live.com/story-world-cattle-inventory-1960-2014-130-111523 http://beef2live.com/story-world-cattle-inventory-1960-2014-... [2] https://phys.org/tags/methane/ https://phys.org/tags/methane/

rhn_mk1 8y ago
While the inventory stays constant, the environment is not in a stable state right now regarding greenhouse gases. Considering than methane is two orders of magnitude more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2 [0], removing it from the atmosphere will also do good alongside reducing CO2 emissions. [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-bad-of-a-greenhouse-gas-is-methane/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-bad-of-a-gree...
hannob 8y ago
Your whole argument is a logical fallacy. You're basically saying "It was bad before, so continuing on the same level isn't making it worse". I haven't checked the numbers, but even if true that's not an argument at all.
- gameswithgo 8y ago
  no, his argument is not that simple. read it more closely, he is saying the methane from cows is not causing any methane accumulation. its a fixed, relatively small forcing admidst a monotonically increasing one from co2. If we all stopped eating cows co2 would replace the cow-methane forcing in a short time.