549. The First Great American Industry

Freakonomics Radio

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6 • 32K Ratings

🗓️ 13 July 2023

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Whaling was, in the words of one scholar, “early capitalism unleashed on the high seas.” How did the U.S. come to dominate the whale market? Why did whale hunting die out here — and continue to grow elsewhere? And is that whale vomit in your perfume? (Part 1 of “Everything You Never Knew About Whaling.”)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	What drives you to do what you do, Paul?
0:06.3	I don't want to live in a world without whales.
0:12.3	Paul Watson is an environmental activist.
0:15.7	You may remember him from a TV show called Whale Wars, where he and his crew confronted
0:21.1	Japanese whale hunting ships in Antarctica.
0:24.6	Warning, warning, warning.
0:27.1	Quit poaching whales and go back to Japan.
0:31.2	Watson calls himself an eco-warrier.
0:34.6	Other people have different names for him.
0:37.8	A judge on the ninth circuit court of appeals called him a pirate.
0:41.7	I'm actually quite proud of the fact that I'm officially a pirate.
0:44.4	Others call him an eco-terrorist.
0:47.2	In 1985, I went to Reykjavik with my ship and I said, look, the law is going to come
0:51.8	into effect here in 86 and I'm warning you if you continue to kill whales and we're
0:56.6	going to come here and we're going to sink your ships.
0:58.4	So they continue to kill whales and then on November of 86, we sank half the fleet
1:03.0	in Reykjavik, Harvard.
1:04.5	How did you do that?
1:05.5	Went into the engine room in the middle of the night and opened up the saltwater cooling
1:09.4	systems, flooded the engine rooms and they sank docks side.
1:11.9	There was nobody on board.
1:13.6	Not everyone approves of Watson's tactics, not even all his fellow environmentalists.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.