Boycott JAPAN, ICELAND, NORWAY

LizEstelle

Good luck in however you decide to go about it. As aformentioned, this is quite a personal matter.

tr3mor

MORPH3US wrote:

Just to clarify, I do feel VERY strongly about whaling and am strongly against this sickening barbaric act

I don't think any of us agree with whaling to be fair.

MORPH3US

tr3mor wrote:

Well, it's been shown in the past to be a fairly rubbish way of change.

My internet is playing up so I can't get the whole story, but you may already be familiar with the background

"The Montgomery Bus Boycott started in December 1955. What happened in Montgomery is seen as a pivotal point in the whole civil rights story"

Not every boycott works, I agree, but can you think of a bigger one than Montgomery that didn't work?

M

BaJi_2

tr3mor wrote:

Nope, I just get wound up by people saying we should save our environment by covering the whole of in in bloody wind-turbines.



Having learnt more on this subject over the past few days there are vast differences between Iceland's and Norway's use of renewables compared to ours.

Both countries have renewable energy that is reliable. That is to say on any day of the year they can expect pretty much the same output from each source.

Iceland always has, and always will have, superheated steam coming up through holes in the ground. This makes it very easy for them to generate power.

Norway now seems to have over 300 dams, presumably to provide drinking water as well as hydro-electric. All of these should be able to provide the constant supply of water needed to generate electricity.

Britain doesn't have a vast array of fjords or geysers shooting steam out of the ground so we have to rely on the wind or the sun.

The wind and sun aren't constant, therefore they are not reliable.

You cannot generate a high proportion of our electricity from non reliable resources. There is no way to make this add up. Are you saying we should just use less electricity when it's calm and go nuts when there are huge storms?

It is impractical, and I would suggest very unenvironmentally friendly, to store large amounts of electricity.

So, the argument comes down to which non-renewables everyone prefers...

You don't understand the renewables argument. Please read up on it and get your facts right. Solar does work on cloudy days. The wind is always blowing somewhere, a thermal dynamic fact.

purpleimp

I can't condone whaling in this day and age, many years ago when these creatures were plentiful and it was essential for survival for food and income it was a way of life and the thought was not there for preserving species for future generations, then it was understandable if not acceptable.

There was a whaling station in the adjoining island to where I live and my grandfather worked there after he came back from the war, obviously this station closed down many years ago, it's not something that's been limited to the countries listed above, although I can't see it being reinstated in the UK any time soon.

These things aren't right especially when species are verging on extinction and there is no option of farming them to fill the market demand to preserve those in the wild.

There are so many issues associated with this and a large portion of the issue is cultural, here we have a cull every year and there are 1000's of guga killed(google it, it's got to be seen and smelled to be believed!), preserved and sent off around the world ( they are toxic evil things and I have bad memories associated with the whole thing) but many view these birds as a delicasy where as a lot of the locals wouldn't dream of eating it, (more due to the squeemishness factor than for ethical reasons, these birds are more than plenitful, but the same can be said for another local delicasy of sheeps head soup, another very contraversial dish, due to spinal fluid and method of slaughter etc and it is the older generations who tend to preserve these traditions, cultural notions and continuance of these things, all very OS in many ways, use what you have mentality, waste nothing etc )

None of these things are necessarily right in principle or method used in slaughter/cull, but very few mass meat producers are hugely ethical in the production of the final product be it veal, or battery hens, if nothing else it can be said that a whale can lead a free happy life until its slaughter as opposed to the caged, oppressed existence forced apon many of the other creatures we use as food source.

I amn't vegetarian, I amn't an activist of any sort, and I by no means want to offend anyone by my musings, it just seems that although this is a very pertinant issue there are also many more which are even more contraversial but because they are "the norm" and accepted by society that they are overlooked, there are many of us who can not afford to shop ethically, and the best we can do is buy directly from the butcher as you can assure yourself that the produce bought has had a better life, I appreciate that this may be wishful thinking but if nothing else it will support local economy small uk businesses and their suppliers than the multi million £ companies who rob their producers blind to provide them with their goods. xxx

tr3mor

BaJi wrote:

You don't understand the renewables argument. Please read up on it and get your facts right. Solar does work on cloudy days. The wind is always blowing somewhere, a thermal dynamic fact.

Yes, good plan, lets cover the whole bloody world in turbines. You sir are a genius!

LizEstelle

Wasn't there a tabloid newspaper boycott on Merseyside which was fairly effective also?

LizEstelle

tr3mor wrote:

Yes, good plan, lets cover the whole bloody world in turbines. You sir are a genius!

Once again, may I remind posters that this thread is not about energy supplies...

tr3mor

LizEstelle wrote:

Once again, may I remind posters that this thread is not about energy supplies...

He raised it again!

I hope you realise by sitting at your computer that you'll be using electricity derived from Norway's gas!

PurpleChair

LizEstelle wrote:

Yes, and you DO go on... yet another 'two wrongs make a right' argument.

No it isn't. It isn't at all.

(S)he's pointing out one of the glaring inconsistencies in your argument - if you completely boycotted a country just because their government was doing something bad, you'd be boycotting absolutely everywhere. Everywhere.

Just like if you're going to assume that all citizens support everything their government does, you're implicitly saying that you support PFI schemes, and the Iraq war, and everything else that Labour have cooked up. If you don't, then your argument regarded the citizens of other countries is stupid and hypocritical. If you do, it's just stupid.

(Taking both these stances together, you'd probably have to start boycotting yourself, seen as how you haven't started an armed revolt against Tony Blair)

Speaking personally, I'm not even convinced that species dying out is such a big deal anyway. I do think there are questions to be asked about how far technology can be considered part of natural development, but dying and living and becoming extinct and being born as the mutant progenetor of some brand new species is all just part of the rich tapestry of life. Death happens, and as much as you'd like to, you can't just wrap all living things up in bubble wrap and preverse them indefinitely. It'd be just as perverse as systematically killing them all just for the sake of it.

Oh, and speaking as someone who's lived in both, Scandinavia is almost deserted compared to the UK. Norway, for example, has a population of 4 million compared with 60 million in the UK, yet has an area around 80,000 km sq. in excess. And, yes, they have reliable natural resources, wheras we have stupid weather all year round. It's true to say that we, as a country, just aren't as interested in producing green energy, but we couldn't be as good as Iceland in our wildest dreams. A bit of wave power and a few windmills can't hold a candle to what they've got, and it's unrealistic to pretend otherwise.