Want to Save Whales? Stop Fossil Fuels Dependence.

I’ve pointed out that the talking point about offshore wind threatening whales was garbage.

As usual, when you hear the climate denial complex make a claim, you can safely and reliably assume exactly the opposite is true.

Reuters:

More than 80% of ships are speeding through “go slow” zones set by environmental regulators along the U.S. East Coast to protect endangered North Atlantic Right Whales, according to a report released on Thursday by environmental group Oceana.

North Atlantic Right Whales are on the brink of extinction, numbering just 340, with ship strikes among the top causes of death.

Oceana said it analyzed boat speeds from November 2020 through July 2022 in slow zones established by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) along the East Coast and found that 84% of boats sped through mandatory slow zones, and 82% sped through voluntary slow zones.

Quartz:

Cargo ships schlep thousands of millions of tons of cargo around the world every year, belching out 3% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions as they traverse the seas. But the real damage is done by the contents of their holds. By weight, 40% of maritime trade consists either of fossil fuels on their way to be burned or of chemicals derived directly from fossil fuels.

Baltimore Sun:

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Federal environmental and energy officials moved Wednesday to quell a growing controversy over whether work done by the offshore wind power industry is killing whales in the northeastern U.S., saying there is no evidence this is happening.

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NOAA officials said they have been studying the phenomenon of humpback whales dying at elevated rates along the East Coast since January 2016. During that period, 178 of the animals have washed ashore dead between Maine and Florida.

Postmortem examinations were able to be done on about half the animals, and of those, 40% showed evidence of “human interaction,” such as entanglement with fishing gear or being struck by vessels, said Lauren Gaches, a NOAA spokesperson. In other cases, the animals were too decomposed for an effective investigation.

In no case, authorities said, has a whale been proved to have been killed by offshore wind activity.
“I want to be unambiguous: There is no information supporting that any of the equipment used in support of offshore wind development could directly lead to the death of a whale,” said Benjamin Laws, deputy chief for permits and conservation with NOAA Fisheries Office of Protected Resources. “There are no known connections between any offshore wind activities and any whale strandings.”