Agriculture Reference
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per who, during the moratorium, reluctantly had to hire his boat out for whale watching
trips:
These so called 'researchers' and their WWF friends were the ones who stopped
whaling for us. Now they are making money on adopted whales. They have robbed
us of our livelihood, but make a profit on the whales themselves. They keep telling us
that we do not own the whales, but they sell adoptions as if they own them.
The skipper keeps his harpoon mounted on the forecastle head during his whale watch-
ing excursions to let the spectators know that 'this is a whaling boat and I am a whaler! I
am just waiting for the moratorium to end.' 32 Does he ever consider that the power harpoon
which he sees as the symbol of his identity might be the very cause of his disempower-
ment? When the crew of the Pequod sailed by the wind, chased whales through the swell
in tiny rowing boats armed with hand-held harpoons, and gave their lives to keep candles
flickering in 19th century drawing rooms, they could hardly claim to be much more than
pawns in the unending struggle of nature. The mainly Norwegian whaling factory ships of
the early and mid 20th century put an end to that. 'The true graciousness of hunting' writes
Roger Scruton, 'occurs when the species is controlled through the arduous pursuit of its in-
dividual members and so impresses upon us its real and eternal claim to our sympathy.' 33
Once technology grants domination, it imposes alienation; and the penalty, for alienated
humanity, is to become a mere spectator of the world we were once part of.
If the vegan project were to spread outwards from the Anglo Saxon world, and taboos
spread down the trophic hierarchy, from whale and elephant to fish and rabbit, millions of
people living on the wild side of the fence would lose their livelihoods and find themselves
faced with a triple option: of emigrating to soybean civilization; of becoming a tourist guide
or vegan gamekeeper; or of disappearing into the woods, 'going native'. If ever we reach
that state, the champions of a more natural human lifestyle will not be the environmental
police, but the poachers.
Abolition of Nature
In his 2006 book, The Revenge of Gaia , James Lovelock maps out how he thinks Bri-
tain might look if we managed to stave off runaway global warming by what he considers
to be the only solution - widespread use of nuclear energy.
Lovelock's nuclear-powered dystopia is divided into three sections. Most people would
live in a dense compact metropolis 'of the kind now favoured by Richard Rogers', together
with 'industries, ports, airports and roads'. The second part would be devoted to intensive
farming, producing 'real food grown in soil'. However this real food might have to be re-
served for 'the privileged' while 'the poor', Lovelock reckons, would have to make do on
 
 
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