by Dr. Patrick Moore
Since 2016, when the acoustic sonar surveys needed to build 1,500 wind turbines began on the Atlantic coast of the United States, 174 Humpback whales died ashore. This represents a 400 percent increase in mortality compared to previous years. And then there’s the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, which now has less than 400 individuals left in existence. They have recovered somewhat from being hunted to near-extinction in the 1930s, but are now thought to be in decline.
Federal government agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are authorizing sonar surveys. Greenpeace, which I helped found in 1971, has sided with wind turbines on behalf of whales, saying there is no “evidence” that sonar was involved in the tragedy. This is a quote from a Spokesperson of Greenpeace:
“At this point, due to the lack of evidence showing harm from offshore wind development, Greenpeace maintains that the best way to protect whales is to create ocean sanctus, eliminate plastic used used once at source and ended our dependence on oil and gas.”
Perhaps it would be a good idea to place “ocean sanctuaries” where whales live.
It is a fact that whale deaths in this area are often caused by entangled in fishing nets and boat collisions. But a 400% increase in the number of dead whales, to coincide with the sonar program, will prompt environmentalists like Greenpeace to take action and spend hundreds of millions of their dollars on a thorough research program. Instead, they do nothing. Well, they cruise on a $30 million yacht they call a “sailboat” despite having a 1,850-horsepower diesel engine in the main propulsion supply compartment.
It is conceivable that federal agencies such as NOAA will downplay concerns for whales. The Biden administration was determined to build all of these devices even though they would be much more expensive and much less reliable than nuclear, hydroelectric or fossil fuel generators.
Whales are sonar species that use sonar to see the world around them. They have eyes for close-ups, but their sonar is how they navigate and talk to each other.
It’s not just sonar surveys that can cause real problems for whales. Depending on their size, each one of the 1,500 turbines would require a concrete foundation dug into ocean sediments up to 150 feet deep and 30-40 feet wide. This will obviously cause a large amount of sludge to be dispersed into the water column. Both of these whales are of the baleen type. They are filter feeders using their horns to force food into their stomachs. The mud from many of these excavations can interfere with their feeding and can also affect the species on which they depend for food.
I sailed as a navigator, first mate, and leader in all four Greenpeace campaigns to save whales from 1975-1978. We went into the deep Pacific for months during the whaling season, sometimes 1,000 miles inland. We put ourselves in front of the harpoon to protect the fleeing whales. When we arrived in San Francisco in early July 1975 with footage of a javelin darting over the heads of our crew members in a small inflatable boat and crashing into the back of a sperm whale, the images This went viral around the world in just a few hours. Greenpeace has arrived as a major player in the global environmental movement.
By the time we intervened in the Pacific whaling, Russian and Japanese whaling fleets were killing about 30,000 whales a year. Many species – including blue whales, sei whales, fin whales and right whales – have been slaughtered to the point of commercial extinction. Of the whales with the highest commercial value, only the sperm whale, the largest toothed animal that has ever existed on Earth, has survived in large numbers. But they will certainly be wiped out if the hunts continue. Much smaller beaked whales, which have never been considered optimal by large fleets, are still present in reasonable numbers.
In 1979, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) banned the hunting of all species – with the exception of spear whales – by industrial ships and declared the Indian Ocean a whale sanctuary. In 1982, the IWC adopted an indefinite global ban on all commercial whaling. With the exception of right whales in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, all whale species are either fully recovered or in good condition.
I left Greenpeace when they started to see humans as “Earth’s enemies”, a bit like “original sin” to me. On top of that, my fellow directors, none of whom had formal scientific training, decided that we should campaign for a “worldwide ban on chlorine.” They nicknamed chlorine the “Devil’s Element,” conveniently dismissing that chlorine is the most important of the more than 90 naturally occurring elements for public health and medicine. I guess this doesn’t count for people who don’t like humans.
Today, Greenpeace executives work in cushy offices and travel around like a bunch of college students on a summer excursion. By siding with the machines over the living, endangered whales, they betrayed their founders and all those who truly cared about the natural world. Now more than ever, I’m glad I left them behind in 1986, after 15 years of service. When it has the right priorities, Greenpeace is made up of voluntary crusaders for peace and nature. It has become a big business focused on fundraising, a backstage science dealer.
This commentary was first published at Washington TimesFebruary 14, 2023, and can be accessed This.
Patrick MoorePhD, ecology, is Co-founder of Greenpeace and director of Greenpeace from 1971 to 1986. He was the director of CO . gas2 Arena of valorArlington, Virginia, and is the author of several books, including “Fake invisible catastrophes and threats of doom,” exposes scare stories used to instill fear.
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