april 26, 2004
Count Greenpeace out of the latest campaign against the Canadian seal hunt. Not for reasons expounded by Globe & Mail columnist Christie Blatchford, who says she stands squarely behind the people of Newfoundland on the basis that they need to put food on the table, but because they have more important things to do.
Greenpeace was conspicuously absent from the annual paid advertisements against the seal hunt published last week in major newspapers, including the New York Times.
Steven Guilbault, Greenpeace’s Quebec spokesman, said the world’s largest environmental group would focus instead on issues such as genetically modified foods and climate change. (True Green readers will remember Guilbault is the Greenpeacer who had to be plucked from Toronto’s CN Tower during his unsuccessful attempt to scale it a couple of years back).
"People aren’t talking about climate change, the ozone layer or GMOs," Guilbault told News Canada. "Our role is to work on issues that are particularly urgent."
In other words, after years of protesting the seal hunt, Greenpeace has switched to more economically viable matters.
This year’s renewed international protest initiative got underway without Greenpeace. Protesters were galvanized after Canada announced last year a quota indicating that 975,000 seals could be killed off Newfoundland and Labrador through 2005. Indeed, the latest paid advertisements coincided with the start of the peak killing period this month.
The Humane Society took out full-page newspaper ads in January urging americans to consider cancelling trips to Canada and boycotting Canadian products.
Even though many countries ban the import of seal products, the Canadian government has supported the hunt in a show of political solidarity with coastal towns whose economies are badly flagging.
The Canadian industry earned about $15 million last year, largely from pelt sales to Norway, Denmark and China.
Canadian officials say the hunt has grown because of the North atlantic cod fishery’s collapse. They also point out that the region’s harp seals are far from endangered, now numbering an estimated 5.2 million.
The hunt became the byword of the international animal-welfare movement back in 1969 with televised pictures of "Sex Kitten" Bridgett Bardot sitting on ice floes, shown worldwide. Victory was claimed in 1983 when Canada banned the killing of whitecoats--the appealing baby seals prized for their snow-white fur.
Where does a cow burp go after it’s emitted?
Now that the Government of Canada has tried every test possible on the south end of a cow, they’re researching the other end.
Environment Canada is launching a $50,000 study to measure the amount of methane gas produced by cattle as they digest their food. Belching is okay for the rubes down at the neighbourhood bar, but not for cattle. The cattle burp, you see, could be having an impact on climate change.
While government types wouldn’t dare measure the damage done by barroom belching on dart-playing Friday nights, they believe that cattle produce 19 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year in Canada. Belching cows account for three percent of the country’s total.
But much of the data on cattle comes from outside the country, and Environment Canada officials are suggesting that cattle in Canada could lead very different lives.
Surely the $50,000 being spent will prove something.
Cattle, already under pressure from diseases like Mad Cow and constantly under the gun by vegetarians because of the meat they produce, will have their every move monitored by scientists in white lab coats.
Some studies suggest that the average cow produces as much greenhouse gas in a day as a car that is driven 3.2 kilometres. Now no cow crevice will be safe.
Vegans in the sack
People for the Ethical Treatment of animals (PETa), who not so long ago laid claim to having God on their side, have turned to sex as a tool in promoting their cause.
Pulled from five Prairie cities in 2002, was a billboard ad promoting vegetarianism that depicted God wielding a handful of carrots and asparagus along with the phrase, "I said, Thou Shalt Not Kill; say no to meat."
In Toronto came a recent public display that turned some people off. It happened when two PETa members--a U.S. marine and Iraq war vet wearing only boxer shorts and what a PETa news release described as a "raven-haired beauty" decked out in sexy lingerie, passionately making out in a bed set up on a sidewalk. The in-bed scene was all to make the point that vegetarians make better lovers.
While the couple displayed amorous tactics, activists held a banner reading, "Vegetarians Make Better Lovers" and distributed free vegetarian starter kits to let nonplussed onlookers know how they could spice up their own sex lives.
according to PETa, vegetarians are, on average, more fit and trim and have more energy and stamina than people who stuff themselves with fat-laden meat, dairy products, and eggs.
Chalk it up to yet another tasteless PETa publicity stunt.
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