Green Pressure Saved The Whaling Industry

Instead of saving the whales, environmentalists resurrected whaling with overstrident activism. The BBC correspondent is not the only one warning the Save the Whale crowd about their tactics, as I did with Greenpeace's Dutch web admin in the comments to this post:

I know protestors have a cause, but respecting maritime traditions would go a long way towards jumpstarting that conversation. Right now, all of you guys look like crazy foreigners trying to take away sailors' livelihoods. Political pressure on Japan works better coming from within their insular society, not from without.

In an unkind fashion, I have likened Green activists to losers, because their causes are so tied in with their self-identities, that they can't allow themselves to win. If they ever did win, what would be left to protest about? Remember that most members of the Green movement have counter-culture backgrounds, so if their aim, such as "Save the Whale," was actually successful, would they rejoin culture, or would they find another cause? Activism is not about achieving a goal, but about reinforcing a lifestyle and a worldview. Some in the Green movement have begun to question their motivation.

If they had lowered the pressure, might they now be looking at a world without Japanese whaling?
"We'll never know; but I have thought about that a lot," says Patricia Forkan.
"It's possible, if we all passed the moratorium and we all went home, maybe."

Did they really want to save the whale, or did they just want to keep feeling morally superior? I lean toward the latter.

Via Instapundit.

Update: Greenpeace still feeling morally superior. I wonder how PETA feels about this, since those whales in that ice-filled trough are actual dead animals. That moral high ground can get crowded pretty quick...