Our NGO

We established a new NGO group "AEO". AEO stands for Anti Eco-terroeism Organization. AEO is the group against any kind of eco terrorism. We will put a powerpoint on this blog about AEO on the last page.

Results of survey

Here are results of our survey on ecoterrorism, so I introduce them briefly.

We got 52 answers from our friends and strangers.

 

About 70 % of them don’t know about ecoterrorism or never heard of it, and rest of them says that it sounds like scary or good for environment, and few people know what ecoterrorism really is. However, they know some of ecoterrorist organizations, and 50% of them know Sea Shepherd. Greenpeace is also well-known. Many people disagree with whaling, killing for furs and animal experiments because they think it’s impermissible to kill animals for humans and fashion, and threaten them with extinction. However, most of them say they will ignore it when they encounter those actions. This shows that people think they should protect environment in their mind, but they don’t translate their ideas into action.

 

It’s a matter of course that we think we should save environment and animals, but few people start action. The reason may be it’s troublesome, we don’t know what to do and so on. I think it’s much better to take action than just to think. In order to do so, we must research and know those problems first of all.      

 

Feedback from classmates

I and Toshinari gave the presentation on ecoterrorism on July 26^th and we got the feedback from classmate, so I introduce them here.

 

Many of them says they want to join our NGO, Anti-ecotterorism organization(AEO), because they agree with our activities and ideas against ecoterrorism, or think ecoterrorists’ actions are not acceptable. On the other hand, some of classmates says they don’t want to join because they can’t judge whether ecoterrorism is really bad or not. Interestingly, all of them says our video was interesting! However, most of them don’t understand our ways of networking and use of media clearly, so that shows our explanation was not enough.

 

Those feedback is really useful for us, so thank you very much.

"Fact and Opinion" in Ecoterrorism problems

First of all, facts are truths about something, and the opinions are someone's beliefs or judgements or points of view, so 'fact' and 'opinion' are not oppsite. The oppsite of a fact is  falsehood, whereas an opinion may be true, or it may be false, or it may be neither.

Here is an example, and it is mainly related to 'opinion' side.
Japan insists that the amount of whales that are targets of whaling is increasing rather than decreasing. Due to this, Japan is still continuing whail fishing. However, the investigation about the amount of whails is halfway and accurate data are not released yet.
Regarding this claim and act of Japan, Sea Shepard which is an organization trying to save whales, is opposing Japan's act. They are feeling pitty for whails, so they are against whailing just emotionally, without any certain data.
What we can see from this, is that because respective claims are not based on facts but opinions, we can't juege which is right.

(Again) Two Perspectives to Ecoterrorism

When editting this blog, only this article had a mulfunction, so I resend it now

 

Here are two perspectives to ecoterrorism.

I'm a member of the company that supports Sea Shepard. I’m afraid I can’t tell the name of the company, and all what I can say about it is that it’s an outdoor brand company. It is really existing. By the way, do you know about Sea Shepard? It’s a non-profit organization that insists on antiwhaling. They’re acting to protect whales so we think they are a great organization and want to support them. We are providing financial support to them so that they can take action. However actually, to give their money is beneficial for not only Sea Shepard but also our company. That is because Sea Shepard is such a big group and acting extravagantly, we can be regarded as a good company that contributes to environmental preservation if we support them. In short, we create nice image of company that saves environment by donating and supporting Sea Shepard. It's a wonderful thing, isn't it? Giving money to Sea Shepard results both saving whale and making our company's name famous.

This is the second perspective.

I’m Ishikawa. I specialize in the study of Japanese whale. This time, I’m going to tell you the true aspect of Green peace because probably most of you don’t know what it is. Green peace is an environmental organization, and their main activity is to prevent whale fishing. When you first hear of the purpose of their activity, you might think it is a great group, but it’s completely wrong. Their original goal is simple, just making money. Once they say they’re against whale fishing, people all over the world want to support their activity, and donate money to them. It is said that an annual budget of Green peace is about 28.3billlion yen. As you know, these funds are from the people who want to support Green peace’s activity to preserve environment. Then, what do they do with these funds? They distribute their brave his is the action that confronts whaling ships in the Atrantic Ocean through the Internet. However, what they are really doing is terrible - destroy whaling ships, steal items of ships, injure crews and so on. They just perform and appeal to their supporter that they are brave trying to save the earth to make money. If they really want to save the earth, they should stop their actions right now and start useful action for the earth.

 

 

Other Perspectives

A.L.F is a group that is generally regarded as eco terrorist. Let's see their opinion from their websites. A.L.F stands for The Animal Liberation Front. They cary out illegal actions against industries who profit from animal exploitation. These actions most often take the form of liberating live animals (from fur farms, slaughterhouses, etc.) or economic sabotage in the form of property destruction. They have no membership lists and no leaders. Because their activity is illegal, A.L.F. activists keep their involvement secret in order to remain free and continue carrying out actions. Referring to A.L.F. activists are compassionate people who put their own freedom on the line for animals who cannot fight for it themselves.
As you can see it, A.L.F. doesn't feel guilty for their illegal actions. They feel rather do right things and help people who cannot fight themselves. At this time, I have no intention of deciding whether this group is evil or not.

Hi, Everyone!

 We are going to search and write about ecoterrorism in this blog, so check it out!