What happened to the whales?

and why don't the climate people care to find out?

A couple of weeks ago I came across the news of whales dying, in large numbers, washing up on the Jersey shores for the past year or so.

I find it so sad. There is something magnificent, majestic, and awe-inspiring about those mammals. They are old creatures, first appearing about 50 million years ago. They have been around long before we came along.

Just before the whales got on my radar, I had been working on a video about the government coordinating and colluding with the private sector to foster ideological changes, and my mind scrolled back to New Jersey. I was looking for an example of state-sponsored green energy projects to put in the film, and discovered that New Jersey was creating offshore wind farms, largely subsidized by the state.

The government of New Jersey signed the Offshore Wind Economic Development Act into law in 2010. This was the beginning of a series of legislative actions and multiple Executive Orders passed in 2018, 2019, and 2022 to ‘green’ New Jersey.

They call Offshore Wind the linchpin of their clean energy program, with the goal of going completely ‘green’ by 2050.

Recently, they began off-shore sonar surveys to develop the vast off-shore wind turbine farm.

So far, thirteen dead whales have washed up on the New York & Jersey shores. My mind immediately connected the wind farms to the whales.

Suddenly, whales are dying en masse.

dead humpback whale on NJ shores

Then, I came across this ridiculous tweet from the New York Times:

The New York Times @nytimes

Twenty-three dead whales have washed ashore along the U.S. East Coast since early December, including 12 in New Jersey and New York, officials say. Factors including climate change and online shopping appear to be at least partially to blame.

nyti.msWhy 23 Dead Whales Have Washed Up on the East Coast Since DecemberAnother humpback whale was spotted dead late Monday, floating near a shipping channel between New York and New Jersey, the 13th whale found in the two states in three months.

Though the New York Times are doing their propagandistic duty in blaming climate change (and online shopping?), others have the same suspicions as I do. Senator Joe Pennacchio led efforts to request a 30-day moratorium on the wind farm development in order to see if there was any association with the death of these whales. “The Democrat majority voted to block his amendment.”

While politically motivated actors that support ‘climate change’ action don’t care about the whales, bona fide environmentalists do care. Clean Ocean Action is one such group supporting Pennacchio’s initiative, claiming that sonar mapping, drilling, and seismic testing might be to blame for the fatalities.

There’s a clear disconnect between people who truly care about the environment and all life on this planet, and those who have hijacked environmentalism, politicized it, and use it to push for rapid, radical, utopian central planning. Greenpeace, who have been on a ‘save the whales’ mission for over forty years, are among the largest and most powerful NGOs to push for ‘climate action’. According to them, “Scientists agree that the world is getting warmer and human activity is largely responsible.”

Human activity is likely responsible, not for climate change, but for killing the whales. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist, or rather, a marine biologist, to connect the dots. In any case, a 2014 publication called Acoustic Pollution and Marine Mammals provides some evidence:

“Sonar technology emits sound vibrations into the water, then records the echoes of that sound off various distant objects. This method is useful for mapping the ocean floor and detecting underwater vessels, such as submarines. The sounds emitted by tactical/military sonar are particularly powerful, capable of traveling hundreds of miles through the ocean in order to track distant threats. These vibrations can strike whales with tremendous force. In fact, the impact of mid-frequency military sonar on a whale's hearing can be equivalent to that of a jet engine at takeoff on the ears of a human located only three feet away. Many marine biologists believe the intensity of this noise is disturbing to whales, leading to their fatal rapid ascent.”

When the whales travel to the ocean’s surface too quickly, such as when trying to escape intensely harmful and loud sounds, they develop decompression sickness. Nitrogen gas bubbles from the rapid change in atmospheric pressure and altitude form in the blood, and create clots which can kill the majestic creatures.

The New York Times, the Democrats who blocked the investigation, and the political ‘environmentalists’ are all complicit in their desire to shape our future in accordance with their high ideals.

Hayek wrote in The Road to Serfdom,

“Is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that, in our endeavour consciously to shape our future in accordance with high ideals, we should in fact unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving for?”

greenpeace ‘save the whales’ photograph

The willful blindness of those who champion the climate change ideology exposes their collectivist utilitarian underbelly. They are willing to sacrifice any means for their ends, and inconsistently judge man-made harms. If man causes climate change, they must do everything in their power to stop man from causing climate change. If the things they do to stop man from causing climate change breeds ecological death, so be it. They must carry on, for the program is in place, and nothing will get in their way.

But this is illogical! you may think. Why would they be okay with all these whales dying? Why did the politicians overturn the moratorium? Why won’t they investigate? If they see that their plans are not working, causing harm, maiming, then why? Why won’t they take a pause, have a look, reassess? Slow down?

The same can be said of course, for other species than whales. Surely, the same utilitarian logic won’t apply to us, to humans? What if the windmills can’t support the energy infrastructures needs? What if the people can’t heat their homes? What if the materials for solar farms are built on the backs of child labour in countries far, far away?

If you don’t know the answer to these questions, you have missed the two main points. Number one, ‘climate change’ is blamed on man. Man is the problem.

Two. It is not about ‘climate change’.

“The desire to organize social life according to a unitary plan itself springs largely from a desire for power…In order to achieve their end, collectivists must create power— power over men wielded by other men— of a magnitude never before known, and that their success will depend on the extent to which they achieve such power.” - Hayek

It is about absolute control.

In scanning footage for my last video, I came across an old Ayn Rand clip. The interviewer asked her if she thought America would be headed towards dictatorship. She said that if the current collectivist trends continued, that yes, it would be inevitable. However, there was some hope in her answer; in that she didn’t believe in historical determinism. That men have free will. Basically, that we can choose another path.

Climate Change is the ideology of the collectivists. They are willing to sacrifice the whales; they are willing to sacrifice you for the cause. The only way to save the whales, in my mind, is to save the individual. Do not let yourself be a sacrificial animal for any ends.

A wise man once told me, “We are dealing with a collectivist problem. You’re not going to find group solutions to a collectivist problem. The solution lies with the individual.”

It shocked me at the time. Wouldn’t we need to rally a large group, a counter movement? To coordinate, to organize, to come back with equal power?

Since then, I have learned that the greatest power is in our ability to choose. What you say yes to, what you say no to, what you choose uniquely comes down to you. You can read the New York Times headline, think it’s pure baloney, and shrug it off when someone says climate change kills whales. Or, you can be a lone senator, requesting an investigation. Will you save the whales? Maybe, maybe not. Will you stop the central planners from attempting to amass more power in the name of ‘climate change’? Maybe not.

lone man at tiananmen square

Maybe, you just never know.

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