14 nations commit to protect oceans

I think you're grossly understating the extent of aboriginal whaling. Reading numbers off the table at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling#Whaling_catches_by_loc... and cross-checking with the "by country" writeups below: Canada kills a thousand whales per year, about 2:1 narwhals to belugas, with "subsistence" amounts of bowheads. Greenland contributes about equal numbers of belugas and narwhals, and half as many minkes. Alaska contributes almost as many beluga kills, but also about a hundred bowheads a year. Faroese pilot whale kills number another ~800 per year. Any two of these four outstrip the scale of all commercial whaling.

Let's dispense, too, with the delusion that these aboriginal peoples "don't take more than they need and they use the entire animal":

> Hunters in Hudson's Bay rarely eat beluga meat. They give a little to dogs, and leave the rest for wild animals.[15] Other areas may dry the meat for later consumption by humans. An average of one or two vertebrae and one or two teeth per beluga or narwhal are carved and sold.[15]

Aboriginal whaling is no less reprehensible than the commercial variety. Hell, at least commercial whaling is mostly constrained to operating at profit.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_Canada

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_whaling

They generally eat it, make art, and perhaps use parts for traditional clothing.

Japan on the other hand (a) has no Indigenous peoples following their traditional ways, (b) often violates the waters of other countries, and (c) has no basis for scientific inquiry (as ruled by the ICJ):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_Japan

You don't see Intuit fisherman in the Southern Ocean off the coast Antarctic, but you do see Japanese fishing boats.

You don't need to be a card-carrying PETA vegan to find it quite off-putting to eat self-aware social animals with some of the world's largest brains.

Plenty of people started businesses on what may be termed blind optimism and succeeded.

I think it even helps a little to underestimate the obstacles in innovation - otherwise one might not attempt it in the first place. But just a little, because diverging too far from reality brings its own problems.

Optimism is essential to progress.

There's very little evidence they care that their fishing fleets are destroying fish stocks halfway across the world.

So they respond by devaluing their currency to remain competitive even against the tariffs, which is equivalent to paying the tariffs rather than passing the cost on to the customers. But then your own citizens don't feel the pinch from the tariffs and you can maintain them indefinitely, or even increase them, until you get what you're asking for.

That assumes you're a large enough player to get them to respond that way, but smaller players can form coalitions.

Bingo.

I mean, right this minute we're all ignoring a literal concentration camp in China in the name of not upsetting our supply of cheap gadgets. Good luck getting support over something less tangible.

> I don’t know what a Global Warming Plan would look like, but I know that any first world government who tried it would find themselves promptly removed from power and a newer consumer/polluter friendly government installed amongst rabid cries for new iPhones and maintaining current niceties of life.