Ignorant Media Sensationalism Helps Promote Japanese Whalers' Lies

With typical media ignorance and sensationalism, the reporting of the Sea Shepherd “acid attack” on the Japanese whaling boats completely misrepresents the severity and intent of the actions.

Headlines such as “Acid Attack On Japanese Whaling Boat” and “Activists Attack Whaling Boat With Acid” conjure up images of highly corrosive chemicals being thrown by people in attacks akin to terrorism. This is an utterly false representation of the so called “attacks”.

The “acid” in question is butyric acid. Its pH is around 4.8, making it about as corrosive as lemon juice. The reason Sea Shepherd is using it is that it smells like a mix of rancid butter and vomit. If fact, anaerobic bacteria can produce it from butter as it goes off.

A small amount of background research is all that is required to understand the above. Even if newspaper editors don’t know basic, high school chemistry (which they probably don’t), is there some reason they could not have checked their facts? Asked Sea Shepherd what chemicals they used? Looked on the internet to verify their claims? Rang a chemistry department at any university?

Why hysterically sensationalise the events? Do the editors support the killing of whales? If so, tell us explicitly.

The media is supposed to report the truth. That is, accurately report events and what people say and do, not skew descriptions and coverage so that the intentions of actions are misconstrued.

The characterisation of the “attacks” as “dangerous and violent” by the absurdly named Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research, representing the whalers, are self serving lies and should be reported as such. To do so is not unbalanced editorialising; there is ample, easily available evidence that butyric acid is just extremely smelly.

What papers does this “Institute” write? The Use of Mirin as a Marinade for Whale Meat perhaps? Actually, here are their publications. In the past few years, they are either surveys of whale numbers or reports on how the whales are killed.

The latter is not necessary to do the former.

If Eskimos in Greenland, Canada or Siberia kill a few whales from non-endangered species, maybe we shouldn’t stop them. But there is no justification for people from one of the most prosperous countries on Earth killing whales to eat them as a delicacy in the 21^st century. The Japanese can easily grow and import sufficient food obtained via humane farming methods. They do not need to eat whales and we should tell them so.

At a government level Australia can do little other than make diplomatic representations to or publicly embarrass the Japanese if they hunt in international waters. However, their whaling boats are regularly in our waters and have ignored our demands to leave. Many other countries would respond militarily to this violation of territorial sovereignty and we should do the same.

The Australian government should send a destroyer or a couple of frigates down to Macquarie Island and run the Japanese off. What is the Japanese government going to do? Boycott our miners? Good luck with that!

Currently, Japan needs Australia as a trading partner a lot more than we need them. The Australian government needs to realize this and act strongly. It is the only language the Japanese authorities understand.

As for activists boarding Japanese vessels in international waters, they might see themselves as operating under a higher law, but I think they are unfortunately going to find out otherwise. Australia has had a succession of extremely weak willed governments, who have consistently demonstrated an abjectly spineless unwillingness to assertively assist our citizens when held or charged by foreign powers. I’m not sure I’d be boarding a foreign vessel in international waters if I couldn’t rely on meaningful support from my government.