Biden Administration Sacrificing Whales to "Save the Planet."
It's Whale Week, according to NOAA Fisheries, so here's our plight to #SaveTheWhales.
The major news outlets are talking: why are whales turning up dead on the East Coast? It isn’t because they’re a good source of energy; they’re not. Fortunately, oil & gas exploration and production was discovered in time to save them over a hundred years ago. Once again, a poor source for energy is threatening them.
NPR says scientists are concerned about the recent spike in whale deaths in such a small geographic area, but they won’t look at the likely reason; a massive uptick in geological survey vessels using frequency-modulated sound pulses or sonar chirps to capture measurements from the soil in those areas. They dismiss any impact on the whales from those surveying vessels. And that’s the crux of the issue. The global elites have decided that the next step to “keep it in the ground” is to force offshore wind, at the cost of anything and everything in their way.
When I visited in 2021, Block Island Wind Farm had only one turbine in operation (out of five), all are reported to have unexpected stress fractures, and grease is leaking down the masts into the ocean (pictured). And did I mention that National Grid is having a difficult time keeping the high-voltage powerlines buried?
In fact, in the newest proposed permit, the Biden administration would allow foreign offshore wind companies to kill 42 whales, 2,678 dolphins, and 1,472 seals in conducting yet another survey for turbines. So, not environmentally friendly! Where’s GreenPeace? Sadly, silent.
Even without extensive research, it is easy to see the correlation between whales beaching the coasts with increased activity of survey vessels from offshore wind projects. But as with everything related to the ESG agenda (decarbonization, DEI, etc), the truth gets buried underneath the climate alarmist narrative. The result is that people suffer and the planet is no better off.
A Heavy Wind: The Threat to an American Heritage
The climate alarmist movement, ultimately sacrificing truth for an agenda, is threatening our food supply and our environment.
That’s why the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s litigation arm, the Center for the American Future, has sued the Biden Administration. The plaintiffs own fisheries and are multi-generational fishermen themselves. Their livelihoods, and much of our food, depend on the sea.
You can watch their stories below.
Those plaintiffs care deeply for the ocean and for all its inhabitants. After all, the archetypal fisherman has always had great respect for the sea. They are very aware of the great risks and harms that offshore wind will have on the ocean.
As the video talks about both pile driving and surveying, here is an image from NOAA fisheries showing how sound affects marine life.
The surveying interferes with the whales’ ability to talk to each other, for example,
“High levels of low-frequency sound can displace whales, interfere with their foraging/breeding behavior, and mask their acoustic communication, leading to population-level effects. Noise-sensitive and endangered North Atlantic Right Whales (NARW) have demonstrated altered behavior when exposed to background noise.”
This includes an increase in stress hormones in reproductive females, likely making the noise a key contributor to slowing down the reproductive cycles of the NARW.
Fishermen have become more and more aware of the NARWs and have adapted their practices and routes to respect the endangered species. Offshore wind surveying vessels, however, do not garner any respect toward marine life as they not only survey but prepare to pile drive the ocean floor, which will destroy areas that have been responsibly fished for centuries.
In 2017 the National Marine Fisheries Service stated,
"The current threats limiting right whale recovery, like changing habitat use, reduced calving, and sublethal entanglement stress are complex, and their translation to conservation policy through the recovery plan is unclear. These issues warrant the assembly of independent research and management experts to assist in the development of an expanded recovery strategy.”
So, the question follows: why would the government not only expedite but also incentivize the installation of foreign-owned, habitat-destroying, unreliable electric generation?
Seafreeze Fisheries Liaison Meghan Lapp—also a plaintiff in the case—was on Tucker Carlson to talk about the plight of the whales.
All of this to uphold a narrative that the sky is falling. Why can’t climate alarmists learn from Chicken Little, move on, and seek to better the world instead of trying to destroy it?
How insane are these people, really?! It utterly boggles the mind.