You seem to have a strong claim you'd like to make on this point. It might be true, but it's a claim offered without much evidence. I guess one thing I'd be cu

You seem to have a strong claim you'd like to make on this point. It might be true, but it's a claim offered without much evidence. I guess one thing I'd be curious about is: were non-synthetic non-animal alternatives substituted for whale oil in large quantities before synthetics took over? If so, that would be one data point in favor of the idea that regulation (and possibly the decline of the species) was the driving factor, rather than the superiority of synthetics.