Japanese researchers suggest Greenpeace are wrong re: whaling not supported

This article "YAHOO POLL SHOWS MORE SUPPORT FOR WHALING IN JAPAN" says that the ICT (Institute of Cetacean Research) shows that the Japanese do support whaling, contrary to Greenpeace's claims.

Quote:

CR Director General Hiroshi Hatanaka said that using Greenpeace's own data, the opposite was true. TOKYO, JAPAN, Jan. 10 -/E-Wire/-- Greenpeace is misleading the public with claims that 70 percent of Japanese don't support whaling, the Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) said today.

ICR Director General Hiroshi Hatanaka said that using Greenpeace's own data, the opposite was true.

In November 2006, Internet giant Yahoo Japan held an online poll that showed 90 percent public support for a return to commercial whaling. In the recent poll, 21,221 people cast a vote, with 19,001 agreeing with sustainable commercial whaling and 2220 opposed. In Japanese only: http://polls.dailynews.yahoo.co.jp/quiz/quizresults.php?poll_id=120&wv=1&typeFlag=1


That may be so but I suggest two things:

1. That the Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) are the group collaborating on the "Scientific Whaling" which the world believes is just a front and excuse for commercial whaling.
   
2. That the data actually supports the claims of Environmentalists. That the Japanese want to perform commercial whaling to feed the hunger of those Japanese who can no longer get off on just tuna (which incidently is itself facing extinction in many tuna species in many parts of the world).
   
   If this is all true then it is another of the human race's behaviours which needs to change if we are to survive. People might contest that it doesn't matter if a species is wiped out, aslong as we had fun doing it. These people do not understand the web of life and the earth as a living organism (Gaia Hypothesis).
   

I'll suggest something else: that Whales are beaching themselves, in order to die to show protest at what the human race is doing, much the same way as some of the refugees in australia have killed themselves as a protest against the Australian Government's locking up of those who are fleeing their lives of uncertainty in their native countries (refugees), and arriving in Australia since it is a "free" country. This beaching is a longish bow to draw, but if tru then supports the Gaia Hypothesis)

I'm sure Greenpeace have something to say on this study. I can't find anything directly though I'm sure the responses will be coming out soon. In the meantime I did find this which does show that if the Japanese DO support whaling, then they aren't being told all the information about why and what it all means:

Letter to ICR (From December 2005).

Whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is conducted using our (Japanese) tax money. However, Japanese citizens have not been informed by you about what is really happening in the waters around Antarctica. For instance, the fact that whaling is conducted in the Antarctic whale sanctuary, designated by the International Wahling Commision, and that your organization with a Japanese company, Kyodo Senpaku, are the only ones conducting whaling in the Sanctuary has not been well communicated. Also the hunting of 10 fin whale this season, an endangered species, and the more than doubling of the quota for minke whale to 935, have also not been well communicated to Japanese citizens and media.

I'm sure this will go back and forth for a while as the various parties fight it out. I think that the views, opinions and understandings of the Greenies should be given more acknowledgment. These people have been touting for decades (atleast since 1970 and no doubt earlier) that the world is in crisis and we need to stop over-fishing, over-exploiting our forests and natural landscapes, we need to stop releasing toxic substances into the environment and so on. They have been laughed at, insulted, killed or maimed in many cases, but it seems that they (and me too now!) are correct. The world is looking in a terrible way with climate change, species extinction, polution and the social chaos which is seeming to go hand-in-hand. I'd suggest that we need to "stop the world" (let those get off who want to) and look at ourselves from a distance and change the way we do things. Tell idiots like Bush to go hide in some under-gound hidey hole somewhere and not come out. These people are criminals in moral terms, and if they do surface, they should be dealt with as the criminals they are.