{"id":317229,"date":"2024-04-10T19:11:39","date_gmt":"2024-04-10T17:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=317229"},"modified":"2024-04-10T19:11:41","modified_gmt":"2024-04-10T17:11:41","slug":"time-to-save-the-right-whales-from-the-green-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=317229","title":{"rendered":"Time To Save the Right Whales From the Green Left?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
*Editor\u2019s note: While, as<\/em>\u00a0Climate Realism\u00a0has pointed out previously,\u00a0here<\/a>, whales are not threatened by climate change,\u00a0right whales<\/a>\u00a0are confronted with more boat traffic, and are being driven into boat traffic by offshore wind development, especially via sonar testing<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Craig Rucker<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

There was a time back in the 1960\u2019s and 70\u2019s when a cause like \u201cSave the Whales\u201d was the exclusive domain of the political left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as Bob Dylan might say, \u201cthe times they are a changing\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three major \u201cconservative\u201d organizations \u2013 the National Legal Policy Center, Heartland Institute, and my organization, the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow \u2013 recently filed a major lawsuit<\/a> in a Washington, D.C. federal court to save the Right Whale from facing potential oblivion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why aren\u2019t the larger Green groups, unlike the grassroots ones, rallying around the efforts of these organizations to save Right whales?  Good question.  Perhaps it\u2019s because the threat to the remaining 350 of them doesn\u2019t come from Russian, Norwegian, or Japanese whaling vessels, as it did back in the 70\u2019s.  Rather, it is from so-called \u201cGreen energy\u201d in the form of offshore wind.<\/a>  Right whales are being threatened by the Biden Administration\u2019s fast-track plans to hurriedly place 30,000 MW of wind power generation off the Eastern coast, and doing so without the proper sort of environmental impact assessment they might otherwise perform for, say, offshore oil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The collective decision by our outfits to take the issue of whale protection to Court came after two years of futile attempts to get the Biden Administration to listen. Offshore wind development threatens the nearly extinct North Atlantic Right Whale in various ways, and the government refuses to investigate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two agencies which share responsibility for making sure wind development does not harm whales include the Interior Department\u2019s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which oversees building wind facilities, and the Commerce Department\u2019s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS or NOAA Fisheries), which enforces the various laws to protect whales. Neither seems intent on doing their job<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In issuing its \u201cbiological opinion\u201d last September, for instance, NMFS only examined the impact that each of these projects individually and in isolation would have on the North Atlantic right whale. The agency did not, as it should have, issue a comprehensive and cumulative analysis examining the combined harm which all the projects, together, would inflict on the whales during their annual migration path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If it had done so, it would have uncovered that dangerous noises generated from several projects combine to create much louder and more dangerous circumstances for marine mammals than noises coming from just a single project. In fact, impacts can combine over time as well, such as when migrating Right Whales are repeatedly forced to go around a dozen wind facilities into heavily trafficked shipping lanes. The risk of being struck by a ship then becomes ten times greater than for a single project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s likely for such reasons the Endangered Species Act specifically calls for assessment of cumulative impacts such as these, but the Biden Administration has ignored this requirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BOEM and NMFS say there is no evidence<\/a> of a threat to whales. But this is just a coverup. The Right Whale population began its rapid decline in 2017, the year offshore wind development began in earnest. The Humpback Whale death rate tripled that very year and has remained abnormally high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NMFS<\/a> actually provides some of the strongest evidence. For every wind project they estimate the number of marine mammals by species that will be adversely affected by construction noise, something which they call \u201cLevel B Harassment\u201d. For Right Whales the cumulative total of predicted Level B Harassments the government projects, and allows for, is already roughly twice the total population of the mammal \u2026 and growing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is this a big deal?  Because such harassment can easily lead to a whale death. This can happen, for example, when the noise level of an operating turbine disrupts the navigation of a marine mammal, driving it into heavy ship traffic or fishing nets. BOEM and NMFS have refused to consider this deadly possibility, even for a single project like Dominion Energy\u2019s windfarm off Virginia Beach, much less cumulatively. Meanwhile more and more whales are dying from ship strikes and fishing net entanglements as offshore wind development recklessly accelerates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harassment-caused death is merely one of many potentially deadly threats that BOEM and NMFS refuse to assess.  There are others we have cited, including loss of habitat, reduced food supply, and concentrated ship traffic.  This is why we are asking the Court to require that the government undertake such an investigation, as they are required to do so under the ESA, on all offshore wind projects cumulatively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSave the whales\u201d<\/a> is more than a slogan. It should be a directive our federal agencies are eager to carry out.  But if they won\u2019t do it, then they shouldn\u2019t be surprised to see lawsuits headed their way from every corner of the public interest \u2013 including from those of us on the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Craig Rucker is co-founder and president of the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally posted at<\/em>\u00a0RealClearPolicy<\/a>,\u00a0reposted with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was a time back in the 1960\u2019s and 70\u2019s when a cause like \u201cSave the Whales\u201d was the exclusive domain of the political left.<\/p>\n

But as Bob Dylan might say, \u201cthe times they are a changing\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":317230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818336,691818301,691827745,691823331,691828076],"class_list":{"0":"post-317229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-biden-administration","9":"tag-offshore-wind","10":"tag-right-whales","11":"tag-save-the-whales","12":"tag-whale-protection","14":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/0whale-2882898_1280.jpg?fit=1280%2C853&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1kwB","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":276248,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=276248","url_meta":{"origin":317229,"position":0},"title":"The Wind Industry\u2019s Ignored Consequences: Whales in Peril","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"29\/08\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Michael Shellenberger\u00a0has an article in the New York Post titled: New documentary \u2018proves\u2019 building offshore wind farms does kill whales","rel":"","context":"In \"Dead dolphins\"","block_context":{"text":"Dead dolphins","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=dead-dolphins"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-1069.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-1069.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-1069.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-1069.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-1069.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":257583,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=257583","url_meta":{"origin":317229,"position":1},"title":"Right, Washington Post, Whales Aren\u2019t Carbon Sinks, Especially If Offshore Wind Kills Them","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"15\/05\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"There\u2019s too much of a coincidence here to ignore, and we continue to rapidly push forward. This activity off our coast is only going to dramatically increase as they begin pile-driving and installing these wind turbines. So if this is having an effect on our marine mammals now, it could\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Climate change\"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-change"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/0ad_194203865.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/0ad_194203865.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/0ad_194203865.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/0ad_194203865.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/0ad_194203865.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":279870,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=279870","url_meta":{"origin":317229,"position":2},"title":"Thrown To The Wind","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"22\/09\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Michael Shellenberger\u2019s new documentary \u201cThrown To The Wind\u201d","rel":"","context":"In \"killing whales\"","block_context":{"text":"killing whales","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=killing-whales"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/0Screenshot-2023-09-22-115616.png?fit=973%2C559&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/0Screenshot-2023-09-22-115616.png?fit=973%2C559&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/0Screenshot-2023-09-22-115616.png?fit=973%2C559&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/0Screenshot-2023-09-22-115616.png?fit=973%2C559&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":252710,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=252710","url_meta":{"origin":317229,"position":3},"title":"\u2018License to Kill\u2019 Whales, Dolphins Handed to Offshore Wind Power Companies in Biden\u2019s Green Energy Push","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"13\/04\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Greenpeace launched its \u201cSave the Whales\u201d campaign on April 27, 1975. 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It may actually be aiding and abetting the Biden administration and the offshore wind industry in killing whales supposedly to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Dolphins\"","block_context":{"text":"Dolphins","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=dolphins"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/0-dead-whale-458.jpg?fit=1020%2C574&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/0-dead-whale-458.jpg?fit=1020%2C574&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/0-dead-whale-458.jpg?fit=1020%2C574&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/0-dead-whale-458.jpg?fit=1020%2C574&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":222382,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=222382","url_meta":{"origin":317229,"position":4},"title":"Radical environmentalists are exploiting plight of North Atlantic right whales","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"05\/10\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"In Episode 306 of District of Conservation, Gabriella discuss how North Atlantic right whales are being used by radical preservationist environmentalists to restrict public waters access to lobstermen and recreational boaters and anglers without any net positive to the whales.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/image-257.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/image-257.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/image-257.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/image-257.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/image-257.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":222907,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=222907","url_meta":{"origin":317229,"position":5},"title":"James Taylor on OANN: Dominion\u2019s wind project \u201cnail in the coffin\u201d for right whale","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"08\/10\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"But a project like this just literally drives the nail in the coffin of right whales","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/image-404.png?fit=848%2C565&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/image-404.png?fit=848%2C565&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/image-404.png?fit=848%2C565&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/image-404.png?fit=848%2C565&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=317229"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317233,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317229\/revisions\/317233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/317230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=317229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=317229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=317229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}