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Response to "The Profound Role of Whales"

Letter by Joan Harrison published in The Catholic Worker (August-September, 2024)

Re: "The Profound Role of Whales" by Koohan Paik-Mander

Dear Sir or Madam:

"The ongoing atrocities of the U.S. military against whales and marine ecosystems make a mockery of any of its climate initiatives. / While the slogan 'Save the Whales' has been bandied about for decades, they’re the ones actually saving us. In destroying them, we destroy ourselves."

Thus concludes Koohan Paik-Mander's very informative article, “The Profound Role of Whales,” recently re-printed by The Catholic Worker (March-April, 2024)—an article published a few years earlier by Counterpunch under the somewhat misleading title, "Whales could Save the World's Climate unless the Military Destroys them First." The Catholic Worker title more closely fits the evidence because the saving of whales, phytoplankton, and other marine life, from military atrocities, though indisputably necessary for the continuing of life on earth, as the author successfully argues, would not be a sufficient condition for reversing the climate crisis.

The author—an environmental activist, journalist, and filmmaker—describes what she calls the "miraculous" role of whales in sequestering carbon and increasing phytoplankton—from which organisms at least 50% of Earth's oxygen derives—thus mitigating or delaying climate catastrophe. The military, however, for the sake of weapons and communication systems of war, is waging a war on whales, torturing and killing immense numbers each year, with a trajectory that implies their complete annihilation. The author’s solution:

“Clearly, a key path forward toward a livable planet is to make whale and ocean conservation a top priority.”

Yes, of course, although how much could such prioritizing help if the military is hell-bent on destroying the oceans and, thereby, us? Even the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, while indispensable, would, as the author herself suggests, not be enough for saving the planet.

A paradigm shift would also seem to be in order that centers on the way humans relate to nonhuman creatures. That, mercifully, is already in the works with the ongoing Copernican revolution for animals across the world, disseminating its insights so that finally animals may be treated in accordance with what they truly are—not food, rather, feeling beings; not property or slaves or toys or other throwaway commodities, rather, persons; not clothing, entertainment, experimental objects—not, in short, things or mere tools to be exploited for human needs, rather, living individuals with their own integrity, worth, dignity, and needs, apart from the needs of humans—ends in themselves, to borrow a Kantian expression—whose almost unimaginable suffering and premature dying are a blot on ALL humanity. Whales in particular are known to be highly intelligent, loving creatures, with a language system so complex that scientists still have not fully decoded it, and even a keen sense of their own histories, which, according to Ingrid Newkirk, they sing to their young.

The author speaks at length of carbon dioxide, yet neglects to mention nitrous oxide or methane, which are far more heat-trapping. The overwhelming quantity of those gasses—and a substantial amount of carbon dioxide—are emitted annually and worldwide by animal agriculture (https://awellfedworld.org/wp-content/uploads/Livestock-Climate-Change-Anhang-Goodland.pdf), itself long known, in this country at least, to be under military auspices. The gargantuan role of animal agriculture in climate change, however, though increasingly acknowledged, is still being suppressed by many environmentalists, climate activists, climate scientists, and the United Nations climate summits (see the documentary "Cowspiracy")—even though the UN was the agency that first broke the news with its 2006 report, “Livestock’s Long Shadow.”

The eating of fishes, moreover—who are relentlessly tortured by the fishing industry that is emptying our oceans—and the poisonous runoff from animal factories generated by meat, egg, and dairy consumption—also contribute greatly to the oceans' destruction. And so does the illegal whaling of a few rogue nations that slaughter over a thousand whales each year—not to mention many dolphins and other sea creatures—primarily for food and drugs.

There may be no way for us to combat military evils except by bringing them to light. Everyone, however, can begin to restore the oceans and the Earth by cutting down on the use of plastic, which kills massive numbers of fishes and whales each year, not to mention numerous land animals—and, above all, by leaving animals and their secretions out of our diets and making responsible food choices. 

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Posted on All-Creatures.org: August 14, 2024
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