Congressman Jeff Van Drew has found an issue that resonates with voters: whales.
https://www.nj.com/opinion/2023/03/jeff-van-drew-is-telling-a-whale-of-a-tale-sheneman.html
Dear Editors
Response by Sherri Lange
Re your piece by Mr. Sheneman. See link above.
I read with some dismay, the opinion of Mr. Sheneman, expressing that Congressman Jeff Van Drew is perhaps using an issue of deaths of marine life, to advance popularity, or “leverage” the strandings. To us, it’s a bizarre notion.
We work closely with New Jersey people and along the coast, and indeed way beyond, as this has become an international concern, and we respectfully disagree with the writer of these comments. Our colleagues in Spain, UK, Germany, France, to name a few, are following the New Jersey whale deaths daily. They will be equally disappointed in this perspective.
This is frankly, a cynical and unnecessary opinion, at a time when we indeed need to do further research and use similar documented stories of loss of wildlife internationally, to help us truly get a grip on the environmental costs of offshore wind. (The costs and gouging of public purses aspects, aside.)
The writer says:
“… there’s already a fair amount of study on the matter and the scientific consensus is that the sea floor surveys being conducted in advance of construction aren’t what is affecting the whales. The most likely culprit is climate change, the very thing the wind farms are designed to ameliorate.”
The truth is that Eleven Million dollars has been allocated to more study: This is following inconclusive studies from a European perspective, that showed enormous gaps in understanding, and a comprehensive list of “to dos” in the field of marine life impacts from sonar testing, and offshore wind turbines. Dr Helen Bailey’s excellent study from 2014, showed many gaps and she outlined those concretely, although admitting the enormous difficulty of doing those studies.
The facts also show that this pile up of dead whales and porpoises, and other wildlife, shows a pattern that is hard to ignore: impossible to dismiss as in the regular line of “business.” When do coincidences, become patterns, related to real time activities on the seafloor? This is not a matter of “reading between the lines”; the evidence to our mind, and the minds of many, could not be more clear. Even a child could make this connection. Even NOAA has admitted these are “unusual mortality events.”
The “unusual mortality” data is astounding. Basically the humpback death rate roughly tripled starting in 2016 and continued high thereafter. You can see it here.
We have to question why the offshore activities related to wind turbines has not already ceased. It’s unconscionable. The climate fear mongering has to stop: we are killing the planet’s wildlife in order to save it? Makes zero sense at all. Whatever your perspectives about the climate cult, and that narrative is quickly eroding, you must admit that the senselessness of whale deaths, to name but one impacted species type, is ugly, arrogant, and certainly disgusts normal kind and generous wildlife preservers.
Congressman Van Drew is to be congratulated for his forward-thinking approach: calling for a full stop until more is known. I’d bet my bottom dollar, that that full impact will never be known, and that the impacts that accrue, if this debacle is allowed to continue, will be devastating to all concerned. Repeat: to all concerned.
The “culprit” is NOT climate change. Believe me.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Sherri Lange
CEO North American Platform Against Wind Power
Great Lakes Wind Truth
www.na-paw.org
www.greatlakeswindtruth.org
