What's traditional about an explosive grenade harpoon?

Dr Kumi Kato, a lecturer in the school of languages and comparative cultural studies at the University of Queensland, dispassionately looks at the claims of the Japanese whalers to hunting rights based on cultural identity.

Articulately arguing for a sustainable way forward that recognises the claims of some Japanese to a whaling tradition, while exploding the 'research' myth, it bears republishing in full:

The whale hunt that knows no tradition

December 24, 2007

At the southern end of the Japanese island of Honshu is a small fishing village where community-based coastal whaling took place from the late 1600s to the early 1900s. Today, more than 100 years since the whaling ended there, the island is scattered with monuments dedicated to the spirits of whales caught in the region. Associated rituals and festivities continue, including daily prayers for the spirits of whales and dolphins by two elderly nuns.

It is true that whale meat, or more generally cetacean meat, had been - and in some regions still is - part of the Japanese diet. In some regions it is valued as celebratory food as it was closely linked with community unity based on collaborative labour, sharing of food, celebration and thanksgiving rituals, in which remorse was also expressed.

It is also true that whale meat was introduced as part of General MacArthur's regime to increase the protein intake of the starving nation after World War II. Older generations therefore associate whale with postwar food shortages. The meat was also used for school lunches, a practice reintroduced in recent years in some prefectures.

But small-scale coastal whaling largely diminished due to the transition to large-scale industrial whaling and the 1986 moratorium and subsequent ban on minke hunts for the coastal communities. Small-scale hunts for dolphins continue for a range of purposes, including sales to aquariums.

The claim by the Japanese Government that whale meat is part of Japanese culture is true in that it existed in this small-scale, community-based coastal whaling similar to the hunts of indigenous groups such as the Makah and Inuit, but this is, in my opinion, clearly separate from the large-scale industrial whaling conducted on the high seas.

If the Government is seriously committed to the maintenance of cultural tradition, the priority would be on the sustainable livelihood practices of coastal community fisheries, which may include a very limited number of whale hunts. It is human arrogance to assume harvest of any natural resource as a right but, if an inherent cultural right is to be granted to anyone, it would be the coastal communities.

This situation is comparable with mass clear-fell logging versus small-scale selected logging by specialised timber workers sustained by their knowledge, ethics and spirituality. A "wood culture" exists in the latter, the small-scale loggers who, with their knowledge, can make a positive contribution to today's environmental thinking. This would be the case with small-scale whalers and hunters. They have valuable knowledge that can inform us about sustainability.

Another argument Japan makes in favour of whaling is that it is for scientific research. Simply, if research destroys a species it should not be carried out, and if research is necessary to improve the ecological wellbeing of a species every effort must be made to minimise the impact of the research.

This is the fundamental consideration in any research. If the research was genuinely concerned with conservation of the humpback it would not be abandoned for a better bilateral relationship, or the hunt would not even have been considered in the first place. Humans are in no position to "cull" wild species, except in cases in which our past mistakes have skewed the natural balance and thus need to be corrected, such as with the cane toad.

Another issue requires urgent consideration: the reported high level of mercury in cetaceans like whales and dolphins. Two councillors from a coastal village, a birthplace of traditional whaling in Japan, recently spoke out about the dangerous level of mercury found in the locally harvested dolphin meat, some of which may have been used for school lunches. Reports and warnings have been issued about consumption of fish and cetacean products by the Ministry of the Health, Labour and Welfare, and the Japan Consumer Co-operative Union. This obviously has serious implications for consumers, as well as the wellbeing of the animals, which would benefit from urgent research.

The extent of the impact of humans on the planet is undeniable. This must be compensated for in every way possible, and we must keep changing unsustainable practices. Clearly it is time to move on.

Stop Japan's Whale Hunt: Sign the Daily Telegraph Petition

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Arctic melt drives Alaskan Walrus onto land

The Warlus are shifting onto the land. "The Big question is, whether they'll find sufficient prey where they are looking".

Clip stolen from Pokkets:

clipped from www.mail.com By DAN JOLING Thousands of walrus have appeared on Alaska's northwest coast in what conservationists are calling a dramatic consequence of global warming melting the Arctic sea ice Alaska's walrus, especially breeding females, in summer and fall are usually found on the Arctic ice pack. But the lowest summer ice cap on record put sea ice far north of the outer continental shelf, the shallow, life-rich shelf of ocean bottom in the Bering and Chukchi seas Walrus feed on clams, snails and other bottom dwellers. Given the choice between an ice platform over water beyond their 630-foot diving range or gathering spots on shore, thousands of walrus picked Alaska's rocky beaches "It looks to me like animals are shifting their distribution to find prey," said Tim Ragen, executive director of the federal Marine Mammal Commission. "The big question is whether they will be able to find sufficient prey in areas where they are looking." Walrus need either ice or land to rest they cannot swim indefinitely

Polar bears on the way out

U.S. Ge­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey sci­en­tists do not hold out much hope that car­bon di­ox­ide can be turned around in time to help the po­lar bears...

clipped from www.world-science.net Report: Most polar bears to die out by 2050 Two-thirds of the world’s po­lar bears will be killed off by 2050 — and the en­tire popula­t­ion gone from Alas­ka — be­cause of thin­ning sea ice from glob­al warm­ing in the Arc­tic, U.S. gov­ern­ment sci­en­tists fore­cast Fri­day. Only in the north­ern Ca­na­di­an Arc­tic is­lands and the west coast of Green­land are any of the world’s 16,000 po­lar bears ex­pected to sur­vive through the end of the cen­tu­ry, said the U.S. Ge­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey, which is the sci­en­tif­ic arm of the In­te­ri­or De­part­ment. USGS pro­jects that po­lar bears dur­ing the next half-cen­tu­ry will dis­ap­pear along the north coasts of Alas­ka and Rus­sia and lose 42 per­cent of the Arc­tic range they need to live in dur­ing sum­mer in the Po­lar Ba­sin when they hunt and breed. A po­lar bear’s life usu­ally lasts about 30 years. Sci­en­tists do not hold out much hope that car­bon di­ox­ide can be turned around in time to help the po­lar bears.

Global warming shapes society. Part 1 - Migration

One of the major effects of global warming is adjusted species-range. Plants and animals evolve to survive in a particular climate, and when it changes quickly species follow their preferred climate travelling up the latitudes towards their closest pole, as the planet heats up. They change their range. While many species tend to travel north or south, the only way is up for the American pika - their 1200 years migration from the great American plains has now found them high up in alpine terrain.

Which brings us to us. We are a species too, and we have our range, which is currently every continent bar Antarctica. Yet in the nascence of our evolution as Homo sapiens sapiens, around 150,000 years ago, our range was restricted to the Rift Valley in central Africa - for 50,000 happy years. What happened to make us leave the comfy ancestral home?

Climate change is what happened. :::[Vanity Fair: Out of Africa]

What set these migrations in motion? Climate change—today's big threat—seems to have had a long history of tormenting our species. Around 70,000 years ago it was getting very nippy in the northern part of the globe, with ice sheets bearing down on Seattle and New York; this was the last Ice Age. At that time, though, our species, Homo sapiens, was still limited to Africa; we were very much homebodies. But the encroaching Ice Age, perhaps coupled with the eruption of a super-volcano named Toba, in Sumatra, dried out the tropics and nearly decimated the early human population.

[...]

And then something happened. It began slowly, with only a few hints of the explosion to come: The first stirrings were art—tangible evidence of advanced, abstract thought—and a significant improvement in the types of tools humans made. Then, around 50,000 years ago, all hell broke loose. The human population began to expand, first in Africa, then leaving the homeland to spread into Eurasia. Within a couple of thousand years we had reached Australia, walking along the coast of South Asia. A slightly later wave of expansion into the Middle East, around 45,000 years ago, was aided by a brief damp period in the Sahara. Within 15,000 years of the exodus from Africa our species had entered Europe, defeating the Neanderthals in the process.

From the beginning climate change has had an all pervasive influence on our global migrations. And indeed, even on the music of U2. :::[Vanity Fair: Mommy, where Do Bonos Come From?]



The maternal ancestors of Africa-issue guest editor Bono were, like Graydon's, part of the second major migratory wave out of Africa. They moved northward out of the Near East, entering Europe around 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. During the worst of the last ice age, about 15,000 years ago, these ancestors were pushed into Iberia. After the ice age, Bono's ancestors moved northward and westward to populate the British Isles and Scandinavia.

(I always thought I could hear the atavistic strains of the windblown Iberian tundra of 15,000 BCE in New Year's Day).

Our history is one of being shaped by climate change, it's quite ironic that we now shape the climate ourselves. I wondered how it would all turn out:



Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Arctic plants can survive climate change

Expanded north-south habitants of plants and ranges of animals is going to be one of the features of a shift to a warmer world.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk Arctic ice no barrier for plants Arctic plant species can travel vast distances, researchers suggest Arctic plants are able to migrate the distances needed to survive changes to the climate, scientists have suggested. Habitats are expected to shift further north as the planet warms, and plants' inability to move quickly enough has been a cause for concern. But researchers, writing in the journal Science, suggest seeds can be carried vast distances by the wind and sea ice. The biggest challenge, they added, was likely to be their ability to establish themselves in the new habitat. Researchers from Norway and France analysed more than 4,000 samples of nine flowering plant species found on the remote Svalbard islands inside the Arctic Circle. By analysing the genetic fingerprints of the plants, the team reconstructed past plant colonization and decline in the area. Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Arctic hippopotamus to survive the polar bear

We only have one hundred years till mankind can start experiencing life in our own Jurassic Park according to Appy Sluijs, an expert in ancient ecology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and fossil footprints of a pantodont found on an Arctic island.
:::[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantodont]

Most adult polar bear males weigh 300-600 kg (660-1320 lbs) and measure 2.4-3.0 m (7.9-10.0 ft) in length, about the size of a pantadont. That both animals have made Svalbard archipelago their home over time is a stunning demonstration of how ecology adapts to climate change over 55 million years.

The questions each one of us has to answer is - do our descendents start having to adapt in 2107, within 100 short years? Or are you the type that intuitively believes that mankind should live out our benign interglacial bonus in accordance with natures prescription?
:::[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear#Natural_range]

clipped from www.reuters.com COAL MINE SEVEN, Svalbard, Norway (Reuters) - Fossils of a hippopotamus-like creature on an Arctic island show the climate was once like that of Florida Fossil footprints of a pantodont, a plant-eating creature weighing about 400 kg (880 lb), add to evidence of sequoia-type trees and crocodile-like beasts in the Arctic millions of years ago when greenhouse gas concentrations in the air were high. about 55 million years ago "Where we are now was once a temperate rainforest," orests grew in the Arctic when carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, was at about 1,000 parts per million in the atmosphere because of natural swings in the climate. clipped from www.reuters.com Sea levels 55 million years ago were about 100 meters higher than now -- Antarctica was free of ice. Carbon dioxide levels are now at almost 390 per million in the atmosphere, up from 270 before the Industrial Revolution and rising fast. Sluijs said they could reach 1,000 parts per million by 2100 if not held in check.

Global Warning Climate Change

Wealthy swordfish do Norway & Greenland for school holidays

It's all too easy to blame fossil fuels for global warming, but they have brought prosperity unknown in previous generations of tropical swordfish. So much so, in fact, that there have been frequent sighting of holidaying swordfish recorded off the coast of Norway and Greenland. :::[SMH]

Parts of the North Atlantic are setting winter heat records, allowing species ranging from swordfish to jellyfish to thrive beyond their normal ranges in a shift linked by many scientists to global warming.

Temperatures in Arctic waters off northern Europe at the tail end of the Gulf Stream, for example, are about 6.7 Celsius, the highest for early January since records began in the 1930s, according to Norway's Institute of Marine Research.

[...]

In Lista by the North Sea, for example, water temperatures were a record 8.5C, 2-3 degrees above normal for January.

In recent years, salmon have been seen swimming north of the Bering Straits between Russia and Alaska, and jellyfish plagued Mediterranean beaches in 2006. Over-fishing and destruction of habitats is also disrupting marine life.

Many scientists link high global air and water temperatures in recent months to an El Nino weather event warming the eastern Pacific, and to global warming stoked by burning fossil fuels.

The longer-term warming trend is affecting all oceans.

"The Indian Ocean has had an overall warming trend attributed to the overall warming of the oceans," said Nerilie Abram of the Australian National University.

Abram said droughts in Indonesia and perhaps Australia might become more frequent as a result of changing ocean and monsoon conditions.

Global warming alarmists would deny swordfish their new found mobility. They would turn back progress and condem these magnificant creatures back to their humble beginnings in Australia, back to being hunted by wealthy tourists from Norway.

Global Warning Climate Change Environment

Nature's climate change canary cooks

The only way is up for the American Pika as it seeks to adjust to global warming. Very sensitive to hot temperatures, their 1,200 years migration from the great American plains has found them in alpine terrain, the windswept no-man's-land above tree line, in search of their ideal cooler temperatures. This from National Wildlife Magazine entitled "No Room at the Top".

But biologists like [Chris] Ray now fear that these hearty creatures may not survive global warming. Unlike many wildlife species that are shifting their ranges north or to higher altitudes in response to changing climate, pikas and other alpine animals have nowhere else to go. In some locations, entire pika populations already have disappeared. Scientists say the animal's decline, like the proverbial canary in a coal mine, may presage problems for other species, from butterflies and birds to large mammals.

The extinction of the pika will be another harbinger of global warming.

In the Great Basin, the arid region between the Rocky Mountains and California's Sierra Nevada, pikas already are disappearing. According to National Park Service biologist Erik Beever, the mammals have recently disappeared from 8 of 25 mountainous locations where they were documented in the early 1900s. Beever, who published his discovery in the Journal of Mammalogy, says the die-off indicates that suitable habitat is shrinking. Notably, the most recent pika losses occurred at the warmer, southern end of the animals' range. "This is what you would expect from rising temperatures, a loss at the margins of their distribution," says Beever. The finding represents "one of the first contemporary examples of a North American mammal exhibiting a rapid shift in distribution due to climate."

Global Warning Climate Change Environment Biology Harbinger Carbon Sink Earth United States Temperatures Extinction Biodiversity