David @ Tokyo

An amusing yet telling interchange between Australia's Ian Campbell and his Icelandic counterpart:

Ian Campbell spouting the usual rhetoric with regards to Iceland's scientific whaling permits

Iceland's measured response

And Campbell completely loses it

"Is the man a fool?" he asks...
Good grief. That Campbell is resorting to this form of argumentation gives a good indication of who is winning the debate.

Campbell is also thoroughly out-knowledged by his opponent:

"Is he asking us to submit detail of biodiversity on range-lands to a meeting on whales? They should be deeply embarrassed by this... To contemplate comparing the culling of kangaroos, which is in the interests of the environment, to the killing of whales, is outrageous," Mr Campbell said.

In fact, his counterpart was requesting the information inline with an IWC resolution related to humane killing techniques. The request was to enable comparisons of the humaness of Australian killing techniques versus Iceland's killing techniques. Perhaps Campbell's blustering is because he knows that his figures won't be a match for those from the Icelanders?

Obviously very worked up, in response to a comment from Iceland that environmental studies that ignored whales would not be prudent, Campbell also let this cracker slip out the trap:

"It's a fairly outrageous comment".

Nice one, Ian! That's a slightly tremendous gaffe!

In all seriousness however, reading this interchange gives one a very clear depiction of just how emotionally driven, non-scientifically based arguments against whaling are. Ian Campbell, with simply no answers to the Iceland response could do little more than bluster, and hurl insult.

Not just a one-nil to Iceland on this exchange, but a four-nil I'd score it - with at least one own goal from Campbell.

Labels: Ian Campbell, Iceland, Whaling