Shellenberger opined in mid-August 2023 that scientists, journalists, and the wind industry are behind the imminent extinction of the North Atlantic Right Whales. They should be ashamed of themselves.
A dead whale washed ashore on Takanassee Beach in New Jersey in the early evening yesterday. Police blocked off the area so tractors could be brought in to remove it. “We were sitting on the beach yesterday, and I noticed it when people started running up to it,” said Soraya Nimaroff, who lives nearby. “I’m very sad. It is very sad.” Yesterday marked the 60th known whale death on the East Coast since Dec 1, 2022. Whale strandings have increased markedly since 2016. The North Atlantic right whales are headed for extinction. Their population has dropped to 340. There have been 200 humpback strandings and 98 strandings of right whales since 2017.
“It caused us concern enough to ask, ‘What is happening?’” said Cindy Zipf, executive director of the Long Branch-based nonprofit Clean Ocean Action (COA). “We looked into what was different about this December and early January.”
The only thing she and other researchers found was offshore wind exploration. “We looked at shipping, and shipping didn’t seem to be any different,” said Zipf. “The same fishermen were fishing. And the only thing we noticed was the number of IHAs that had been issued.”
IHAs are “incidental harassment authorizations,” or permits to harass whales. In the period since June 2022, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has, bizarrely and cruelly, given the wind industry 12 separate, 1-year IHAs, that collectively permit the harassment of 190 critically endangered right whales. Another ten applications for additional IHAs are currently pending.
Blunt and sharp force trauma, according to NOAA, killed the humpback whale found floating in Raritan Bay on May 31. Scientists found lacerations and broken bones across her body. U.S. government officials insist that the increase in whale deaths has nothing to do with the wind industry’s high-decibel pile driving and boat traffic in previously pristine waters.
But they’re lying. And now we have the proof. In fact, the government didn’t even do the necessary research. We did. And the results are incontrovertible. And soon, everyone will see that. Our research shouldn’t have been necessary. Industrial wind projects “could have population-level effects on an already endangered and stressed species,” warned a top US government (NOAA) scientist last year. "Population-level effects" include extinction.
The scientist warned that "oceanographic impacts from installed and operating turbines cannot be mitigated for the 30-year lifespan of the project unless they are decommissioned." His warnings were ignored. Under pressure from the White House, the US government has ignored its top scientist and pushed forward to industrialize the oceans and risk the extinction of the North Atlantic Right Whale.
The wind industry spent years bribing the US government, scientific organizations, aquariums, and the news media to lie to the American people. Wind energy companies and their foundations have donated nearly $4.7 million to at least three dozen major environmental organizations.
Lisa Linowes, the cofounder of Save The Right Whales Coalition, has made public a report and a database documenting the conflicts of interest she discovered. Here are the highlights:
- The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a granting organization, took up to $1 million from wind energy companies Avangrid and Shell, and then distributed it to other environmental groups. In August 2020, the National Audubon Society received a $200,000 grant from the New England Forest and Rivers Fund.
- The same year, the Nature Conservancy received a $165,218 grant from the New England Forest and Rivers Fund. The Nature Conservancy has supported offshore wind since at least 2021.
- NJ Audubon has partnered with wind farm developer Atlantic Shores, a joint venture between Shell Oil and EDF Renewables. Ocean Wind, another wind energy developer, has sponsored NJ Audubon’s World Series of Birding event multiple times.
The wind industry has also made hefty donations to scientific organizations:
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute received a donation of $500,000 from Ørsted in or after 2018. Woods Hole has endorsed offshore wind since at least 2019.
- The New England Aquarium received a donation pledge of $250,000 in 2018 from Bay State Wind. In 2019, Vineyard Wind donated an undisclosed amount to the Aquarium. Similarly, in 2020 offshore wind developer Equinor was cited as a donor in the Aquarium’s annual report. The Aquarium has supported offshore wind since at least 2021.
- In October 2020, Mystic Aquarium featured an exhibit promoting offshore wind. In June 2021, Ørsted and Revolution Wind donated $1,250,000 to Mystic Aquarium to create new pro-offshore wind exhibits and also to research the effects of offshore wind turbines on marine mammals and sea turtles.
Everyone involved in this epic scandal should be ashamed of themselves. Scientists who knew better created and helped spread disinformation — deliberate lies — about the science. Scientists representing many of the same environmental groups supporting the industrial wind energy projects wrote in a 2021 letter that “the North Atlantic right whale population cannot withstand any additional stressors; any potential interruption of foraging behavior may lead to population-level effects and is of critical concern.” But they then stood by as their organizations sold them, and the whales, out.
Journalists working for news media corporations that are taking money directly from Orsted wind energy company have been spreading disinformation— deliberate lies — that the grassroots activists trying to save the whales are “climate deniers” and secretly financed by fossil fuels. They are grotesque lies.
This is the biggest environmental scandal in the world. The documentary film that we will soon release shows definitively that the wind industry is causing the deaths of whales and other cetaceans.
Everything is about to change. When people see the evidence, the American people, their policymakers, and the courts will end this awful destruction of wild nature. The government officials, scientists, and journalists who have been involved in promoting this project should quit their jobs and become whistleblowers before their work kills any more whales.
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