Comments on Tragos: Whales in the News

It's also worth mentioning the farmed salmon, who ...

2007-05-23T20:36:00.000-07:00

It's also worth mentioning the farmed salmon, who feeds on meal made largely of fish gathered from the open sea by boats burning fossil fuels. Naturally, if left to their own devices, the salmon would do a very fine job of catching their own food. In any case, more fish goes INTO a salmon farm (in the form of food) than comes OUT of it. Yet another perverse twist of the profit-principle, which always keeps the hidden cost hidden. Eating less expensive farmed salmon rather than wild-caught salmon is like leaving your lights on all day to get a discount on your energy bill. Would you do it if you could?

Indeed. For more on cows, see the current and fort...

2007-05-21T22:01:00.000-07:00

Indeed. For more on cows, see the current and forthcoming work of JPL, our resident ethicist.

JLB

Reading this, I am reminded of another animal that...

2007-05-21T21:44:00.000-07:00

Reading this, I am reminded of another animal that suffers the violence of the profit principle- the cow. I am thinking, in particular, of the Mad-Cow disease scare and of the fact that cows generally contracted the disease from being fed the meat and bones of other cows that were already infected. So the cows that were being raised for food were fed the parts of cows that were non saleable. (No need to waste any money obtaining feed or, God forbid, grass.) Then, as a result of this, well, unnatural profit policy, and something like the intolerbale odor of the burning whale, the cannibalistic cows made people sick too.