A Sudden Interest in Saving the Whales
Energy industry front groups have been spreading disinformation about wind farms killing whales.
It isn’t true. We can understand the concern. We love cetaceans and have spent many hours with them, and we support groups that protect and study them (images of whales and dolphins on this website were taken by Susan Levinson). If credible evidence for such endangerment comes to light, it will be critically important to address.
Remember: these industries and their front groups make things up. They lie and distort the truth with a goal of sowing doubt and confusion. The forces of darkness profit by delay and doubt, draining the coffers of those who try to do good as they spend time and resources to counter lies.
We are currently editing a podcast about this insidious and cynical manufactured doubt, centering on the oil companies. It started with tobacco companies and chemical companies, and of course these strategies are also used by politicians and others who can gain power or profit by these methods.
Note the allusion to stories on Fox News regarding the whales and in the link above. I don’t recall Fox News having a history of news or opinion pieces about safeguarding whales and ocean ecology and biomes before. Have they been educating their viewers about rising ocean temperatures, coral reef bleaching, other sources of noise pollution affecting cetaceans (industrial, oil exploration and oil rigs, shipping, military), ships killing them, etc?
Has Fox News suddenly seen the environmental light? From the Factcheck.org article. :
“‘Wind Surveying Is KILLING our Whales,’ Fox News’ Jesse Watters wrote on Facebook on Jan. 12, sharing a segment of his show with the same name.
“A day later, during a segment titled, ‘The Biden Whale Extinction,’ Fox’s Tucker Carlson blamed wind farms for killing a huge number of whales.’ He added: ‘This is the DDT of our times…’
“In March, Fox’s Laura Ingraham continued to push the unfounded narrative. ‘These whales that are washing up on our beaches is a direct result of the pre-construction that’s taking place here off of New Jersey,’ a commercial fisherman [comment: an odd “expert” to use for whale biology and shore activity] claimed during an interview, a clip of which was shared on social media. ‘The argument is always oil and gas is so bad for the environment,’ Ingraham replied, ‘how ironic that what they’re doing is almost certainly killing large swaths of the whale population.’”
If you want to read about the history of such manufactured doubt and lies, here are some books you can read that are on our bibliography, along with other resources; it is well documented:
Merchants of Doubt; How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate. Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010; 2019 (new forward by Al Gore). Written by historians who look at the ways industry hitmen manufactured doubt and confusion to impede progress on planetary health. Not just climate change, of course.
Short Circuiting Policy; Interest Groups and The Battle Over Climate Policy in the United States. Leah Cardamore Stokes. Oxford University Press, 2020. An academic political scientist looks at the issue. As a recurring theme, the oil companies, and particularly the Koch brothers and Koch Industries, are stars of the show, but the web of interactions of special interests is vast and well documented.
The New Climate War. Michael E Mann. Hachette Book Group, 2021. A climate scientist looks at the role of the fossil fuel industry in obstructing efforts to get on top of climate change.
The Petroleum Papers; Inside the Far-Right Conspiracy to Cover Up Climate Change. Geoff Dembicki. Greystone Books, 2022. A journalist looks at the role of the oil companies, particularly in Canada and the United States. The oil companies like Exxon and the Koch brothers are highlighted, but there are plenty of ideologues, politicians and other special interests involved.
The Parrot and the Igloo; Climate and the Science of Denial. David Lipsky. W.W. Norton and Company, 2023. A bit idiosyncratic in style, but a colorful and insightful look at the topic with eye-opening stories.
