Time for a boycott of Japanese products?

ICBM

They've been taking the piss for thirty years with their 'scientific' whaling, but it now looks like they're going to even drop the pretence.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-46682976

Some of you might not feel that this matters, but if you do then there's a simple way to express your disapproval. Don't buy Japanese products.

If you don't think it will make any difference, the popular economic boycott was a factor in the downfall of the South African apartheid regime.

Blueingreen

I'm saddened by this but you have to have a sense of perspective. 

Trump's America is practically a rogue state.  It poses a much more serious threat to world stability and the environment than Japan. Are we, guitarists, going to boycott American products?  I somehow doubt it.

merlin

Boycott China too for their rounding up and imprisoning (seemingly with intent to ethnically cleans) all Uyghur. 

Bygone_Tones

A big step backwards for humanity. I find their excuses for doing it ridiculous too.

If something is "part of culture" or "tradition" that doesn't make it right. We need to move forward as we mature culturally and our attitudes change, not carry on making the mistakes we have made in the past out of "tradition".

Also the numbers thing annoys me. Just because something is not on the brink of extinction doesn't make it OK to slaughter them.  A life is a life. Why not just slaughter a few million human children instead, those are definitely not going extinct any time soon, so that makes it OK doesn't it?

WiresDreamDisasters

You'll need to add Norway and Iceland to your boycott list as well, since they also still whale as they object to the original 1986 Moratorium imposed by the IWC.

In 1946 the IWC stated their purpose was to "provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry"

In 2018 they stated their purpose was now different; "the purpose of the IWC is the conservation of whales and that they would now safeguard the marine mammals in perpetuity and would allow the recovery of all whale populations to pre-industrial whaling levels."

So it seems to me that the IWC has betrayed their original remit and that in response to this Japan have pulled out.

It's all right here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Whaling_Commission

Given that the IWC's stated aims in 1946 were to enable industry, and their apparent about-face on that matter, it seems to me not to be a simple case of Japan == evil.

On the face of it it sounds like radical environmentalists have overtaken what was supposed to be a comission for sustained industry, and have turned it into a platform for eco-warrior enforcement. A similar thing to what happened with Greenpeace.

Whales are animals. Animals are food. Food feeds people and is part of culture. We don't eat children. Children are not food.

WiresDreamDisasters

More from wiki:

The purpose of the IWC as specified in its constitution is "in safeguarding for future generations the great natural resources represented by the whale stocks;" and the original members consisted only of the 15 whale-hunting nations. However, since the late 1970s and early 1980s, many countries which have no previous history of whaling (some of which are landlocked such as Switzerland and Mongolia) have joined the IWC. This shift was first initiated by Sir Peter Scott, the then head of the World Wildlife Fund. Labelling the IWC a "butchers' club", he mounted lobbying campaigns in developed countries with support from the green lobby and anti-whaling block of IWC members to change the composition of the IWC's membership, which was instrumental in obtaining the necessary three-quarters majority vote to implement the moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986. This campaign triggered the first accusations of vote-buying in IWC. According to Scott's biographer, Elspeth Huxley, China's decision to join was influenced by a World Wildlife Fund promise to provide $1 million to fund a panda reserve.[41][42] Dr. Michael Tillman, former IWC Commissioner of the United States, said in a radio interview that "there was what we called 'common knowledge,' that a number of countries joined and that their dues and the travel support was reportedly due to conservation groups providing it. So that, in a sense, one could say that the conservation groups set out a strategy that the Japanese copied." [43]

I can't really agree with a boycott on the basis that the IWC was infiltrated and all of the actual nations that do have a culture and history of hunting at sea for food have been lied to for over 30 years or so.

ICBM

I don't think the Japanese are evil, but I do think they're wrong - and I would apply the same to Iceland and Norway if they try to take up commercial whaling again.

Just because the IWC was set up for a different reason originally doesn't mean that the conclusion they came to on the basis of scientific advice more than thirty years ago is wrong.

WiresDreamDisasters

ICBM said:

I don't think the Japanese are evil, but I do think they're wrong - and I would apply the same to Iceland and Norway if they try to take up commercial whaling again.

Just because the IWC was set up for a different reason originally doesn't mean that the conclusion they came to on the basis of scientific advice more than thirty years ago is wrong.

Norway has been commercially whaling since 1994 and Iceland restarted their commercial whaling efforts in 2006.

Japan has been following the rules since 1986 under the notion that the IWC was going to continue to try to find ways to enable industry. Since 1991 IWC scientists have said that whaling quotas could be sustainable. But the IWC has refused to renege on the moratorium.

If you disagree with whale-hunting on pure principle, that's one thing. But Japan are not wrong. The IWC is failing to deliver on it's commitments - commitments that have been restated time and time again since the inception of the IWC, and have now just been reneged on recently.

It's obviously completely possible to enable some sort of commercial whale hunting on a quota basis. The issue is that the majority of IWC members are anti-hunting on emotional and principle grounds. Not scientific and business orientated grounds.

Is there common ground? I don't know. But it's completely within Japan's right as a sovereign nation state to pull out of an international group and set of agreements in order to be able to fish it's own national territory. Which is what they're going to be doing.

By pulling out of the IWC, they're no longer able to fish in the Antarctic. They've accepted this consequence it seems.

WiresDreamDisasters

The pro-whaling nations accuse the IWC of basing these decisions upon "political and emotional" factors rather than upon scientific knowledge given that the IWC prohibits all whaling, even though its own Scientific Committee has concluded since 1991 that quotas on some species of whale would be sustainable. They argue the IWC has swayed from its original purpose and is attempting, under the guise of conservation, to essentially grant whales an entitlement to life via an absolute protection from being killed by humans for commercial purposes.[39]

Non-IWC whaling nations have expressed similar sentiments. Canada withdrew from the IWC after the vote to impose the moratorium, claiming that "[t]he ban was inconsistent with measures that had just been adopted by the IWC that were designed to allow harvests of stocks at safe levels."

After the moratorium came into force in 1986, the Scientific Committee was commissioned to review the status of the whale stocks and develop a calculation method for setting safe catch limits. At the IWC's annual meeting in 1991, the Scientific Committee submitted its finding that there existed approximately 761,000 minke whales in Antarctic waters, 87,000 in the northeast Atlantic, and 25,000 in the North Pacific. With such populations, it was submitted, 2000 minke whales could be harvested annually without endangering the population. Despite this, the IWC Plenary Committee voted to maintain the blanket moratorium on whaling, arguing that formulas for determining allowable catches had not yet been adequately evaluated.

In 1991, acting on the recommendation of the Scientific Committee, the IWC adopted a computerized formula, the Revised Management Procedure (RMP), for determining allowable catches of some whale species. Despite the fact that the RMP indicated that it would be possible to authorize a catch that year, the moratorium was not lifted. The IWC noted the need to agree on minimum standards for data, to prepare guidelines on the conduct of population surveys, and to devise and approve a system of measures for monitoring and inspection.

The IWC Plenary committee adopted the RMP in 1994, but decided not to implement it before an inspection and control scheme had been developed.[citation needed] This scheme, together with the RMP, is known as the Revised Management Scheme (RMS). Since then it has been all but impossible for the member countries in the Plenary committee to agree on an RMS.[citation needed]

Australia is the only member country of IWC who has officially announced its opposition to any RMS and is therefore not participating in the discussions.[citation needed] Anti-whaling NGOs, such as Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace, are also generally against the RMS.[citation needed]

Ray Gambell, then the Secretary of the IWC, agreed at least in part with the argument of the pro-whaling nations: "In all reasonableness, we would have to say that a commercial catch could be taken without endangering [Minke] stocks."[40] In June 1993 the Chairman of the Scientific Committee, Dr Philip Hammond, resigned in protest to what he saw as contempt of the Scientific Committee's recommendations. The same year Norway became the only state in the world to resume commercial whaling, on the grounds that they had objected to, and thus opted out, of the moratorium.

Bygone_Tones

Whales are animals. Animals are food. Food feeds people and is part of culture. We don't eat children. Children are not food.

Human beings are animals too. We did eat each other in the past, and there are still some tribes that practise cannibalism. We moved on culturally from it because we know it is wrong. It is time to move on from killing whales, because that is wrong too.

WiresDreamDisasters

Bygone_Tones said:

Whales are animals. Animals are food. Food feeds people and is part of culture. We don't eat children. Children are not food.

Human beings are animals too. We did eat each other in the past, and there are still some tribes that practise cannibalism. We moved on culturally from it because we know it is wrong. It is time to move on from killing whales, because that is wrong too.

So when we move on from doing all the wrong things, what do we eat?

TheMarlin

We cage and force feed birds and pigs for rapid growth and early slaughter. 
We clear hundreds of miles of rainforest a year. 
Seems we’re doing a poor job across the board. 

Hootsmon

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Bygone_Tones said:

Whales are animals. Animals are food. Food feeds people and is part of culture. We don't eat children. Children are not food.

Human beings are animals too. We did eat each other in the past, and there are still some tribes that practise cannibalism. We moved on culturally from it because we know it is wrong. It is time to move on from killing whales, because that is wrong too.

So when we move on from doing all the wrong things, what do we eat?

Something with no meat in it

Logie

Bull fighting is wrong to the vast majority of people but we still flock to Spain for our holidays. Pigs are considered to be as intelligent as a 2 year old human but the majority of us are happy to see them potentially suffer to indulge in a bacon sandwich now and then. The slaughter and torture of cats and dogs every year in a particular province of China is considered vile by most rational people but If it wasn't for clothes bought from China most of us would be buck naked walking down the high street. Why are whales an exception?

darthed1981

Bygone_Tones said:

A big step backwards for humanity.

2018 in one sentence.

PC_Dave

darthed1981 said:

Bygone_Tones said:

A big step backwards for humanity.

2018 in one sentence.

Wisdomded 

menamestom

I think the fishing industry full stop is pretty destructive to the oceans so so find it hard to be morally outraged by whalling in isolation.
Also the amount of plastic shit we discard that ends up in the sea, personally I think we should either take the lead in global standards or realise taking the moral high ground doesn’t really work. 

If were talking boycotting things start with non farmed or non hand caught fish 

WiresDreamDisasters

menamestom said:

I think the fishing industry full stop is pretty destructive to the oceans so so find it hard to be morally outraged by whalling in isolation.
Also the amount of plastic shit we discard that ends up in the sea, personally I think we should either take the lead in global standards or realise taking the moral high ground doesn’t really work. 

If were talking boycotting things start with non farmed or non hand caught fish 

When it comes to plastic in the sea, we do take the lead in global standards. I looked into this a while back. Basically from what I remember, China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam are dumping more plastic into the oceans.

And they're doing it more than the rest of the world combined.

And it's primarily down to the lack of local collection and sorting facilities and no cultural appreciation for refuse collection. Seriously.

Heartfeltdawn

ICBM said:

Some of you might not feel that this matters, but if you do then there's a simple way to express your disapproval. Don't buy Japanese products.

I've already cancelled my next three sex doll orders. 

DefaultM

Lol fucking hell. It's just so bizarre to me that people would be so desperate to go kill something again. Something that they have to search for and they won't naturally encounter as well.

ICBM

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Norway has been commercially whaling since 1994 and Iceland restarted their commercial whaling efforts in 2006.

I was under the - obviously mistaken - impression that Norway and Iceland weren't doing it commercially, but exploiting the same loophole as Japan. Ah well - probably a good thing that I've bought nothing from either of them then...

WiresDreamDisasters said:

If you disagree with whale-hunting on pure principle, that's one thing.

I do, as do a very large number of other people.

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Is there common ground? I don't know. But it's completely within Japan's right as a sovereign nation state to pull out of an international group and set of agreements in order to be able to fish it's own national territory. Which is what they're going to be doing.

Will they not be whaling in international waters then? I find that hard to believe.

WiresDreamDisasters said:

So when we move on from doing all the wrong things, what do we eat?

That is a good, and difficult, question - but the answer has to be less meat of all kinds. And we should probably start by stopping eating the most intelligent, and possibly endangered, wild species.