Whales · Eco-Chick

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Success for the Sea Shepherd; Japanese Whalers Head Home Short

In a statement made yesterday by the Institute of Cetacean Research, Japan announced that it made it back to the mainland with only 679 whales slaughtered, as opposed to their annual minimum of 985 killed. The Japanese fleet pointed to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as the primary cause for their failure in the annual hunt.

Criticized for their tactics, mocked for their motley crews, and adored for their perseverance, the Sea Shepherd holds true to the course, regardless of public intrigue. Paul Watson, noted demagogue, eco-anarchist, and purported “eco-terrorist” (a creative use of language in our opinion), leads activists out to sea on anti-whaling campaigns to intervene in the unlawful acts of poaching. Animal Planet has been recording the campaigns for the past two years, producing the popular television show Whale Wars. The show has brought international attention to the Japanese whaling fleet that slaughter the approximate one thousand whales annually in the name of ‘research.’

Regardless of opinion and conjecture, the Sea Shepherd and her crew place themselves in harm’s way to act on behalf of mammals that are unable to avoid the nets and explosive harpoons that determine their existence. According to the Japanese, the direct interventions of the Sea Shepherd are what caused the fleet’s inability to meet their quota this year. The whales are supposedly killed for scientific research but it is well known that the meat is packaged on the ships at sea and sent back to Japan for consumption.

According to Watson:

“We continue to speak the one language these whale pirates understand,” said Captain Paul Watson. “Profit and loss: we need to keep their losses up and their profits down. We will eventually beat these killers with aggressively applied economics.”

Go Sea Shepherd!!! Congratulations.

conservation, consumption, farm, Home, meat, opinion, Outdoors, tv, whales

Supreme Court Chooses Navy Over Whales

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by Kimberly Jordan Allen · 11/13/08

The Supreme Court chose the Navy over marine mammals in a dispute involving the military use of sonar in the Pacific. Environmentalists have long voiced concern regarding sonar, which has been shown to affect whales, dolphins, and other ocean species that use sonar for communication and navigation.

It has been argued that the sonar interferes with the whales’ ability to navigate and surface without getting the bends. One species, known as the Beak whale, has been found particularly susceptible to the sonar, which can cause the whales to beach themselves. The NRDC had sued the US Government and received some restrictions regarding testing and implementation of sonar equipment, but President Bush had stepped in to permit the military training and exempt the Navy from environmental stipulation.

An appeals court had rejected this move, which drove the government to seek assistance from the Supreme Court. Yesterday, the Courts deemed that the testing must go on in order to have an adequately trained military. Chief Justice, John Roberts noted, “To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.”

military, whales

Oscars Still Light Green

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by Starre Vartan · 02/26/07

Well, the Oscars are over, and while there’s just no way that a party this big can be environmentally-friendly, efforts were made to make this Oscar greener than ever (though the website doesn’t detail exactly how impacts were reduced), it says:

This year, the Academy, the Oscar telecast producer Laura Ziskin and the entire production team endeavored to select supplies and services with a sensitivity toward reducing the threats we face from global warming, species extinction, deforestation, toxic waste, and hazardous chemicals in our water and food.

Independently, some stars did try to reduce their impact where they could, most notably by getting to the big event in a hybrid or other kind of alternative transportation (I’d love to see biodiesel shuttle buses in the future!), in a campaign by Global Green called Red Carpet/Green Cars.

And of course, Al Gore’s speech got a lot of claps and supportive hollers at the party I went to last night. Serious….and funny!

From this Reuters article, following is a list of some of the leading green celebrity players (and I have to mention, where are the women? This list is really dominated by the guys….):

- ROBERT REDFORD: 30 years on board of Natural Resources Defense Council,
founder of Sundance Preserve, winner of 1993 Earth Day award, 1987 United
Nations Global 500 award. In April 2007, launches weekly three-hour slot
called “The Green,” dedicated entirely to the environment, on his Sundance
TV channel.

- LEONARDO DICAPRIO: started the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation in 1998 to
promote environmental issues, drives a hybrid car, currently writing and
producing a feature length documentary on global warming called “11th Hour.”

- BRAD PITT: co-creator of design competition to build 20 affordable,
reduced energy, environmentally friendly homes in New Orleans.

- STING: founder in 1989 of Rainforest Foundation to protect rain forests
and their indigenous peoples.

alternative transportation, awards, biodiesel, brad pitt, business, car, carbon, cars, celebrities, climate change, community, conservation, corn, deforestation, design, diesel, earth day, emissions, Energy, farm, Food, gadgets, garden, Global Warming, Hair, Home, liver, Los Angeles, media, Music, New Orleans, News, oil, party, produce, rainforest, reduce, resources, restaurant, singer, skin, spa, sport, Tea, transportation, travel, tv, urban, waste, water, whales, women

Global Warming is Bad, but Wal-Mart is Good

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by Starre Vartan · 12/22/06

I thought all you Eco Chicks should really check this Op/Ed from the NYTimes out in case you haven’t seen it….

December 22, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
And the Color of the Year Is …
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

I know that you should never generalize about global warming from your own weather, but as a longtime resident of Washington, D.C., it’s hard not to, considering that it’s been so balmy this winter season I’m half expecting the cherry blossoms to come out for Christmas. In fact, my wife was rummaging through her closet the other day and emerged to tell me she needed a whole new wardrobe — “a global warming wardrobe,” clothes that are summer weight but winter colors.
For this, and other reasons, had I been editing Time magazine I would not have opted for the “you” in YouTube as Person of the Year — although that was very clever. No, I’d have run an all-green Time cover under the headline, “Color of the Year.” Because I think that the most important thing to happen this past year was that living and thinking “green” — that is, mobilizing for the environmental/energy challenge we now face — hit Main Street.
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Good News Bears

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by Starre Vartan · 07/12/06

OK, so this post has nothing to do with bears, but it does have to do with good news.

Green Revolution is Heralded for Scotland – “ALL new property developments in Scotland will need to produce some of their own electricity through a micro-renewable generating plant, under one of Britain’s most radical energy initiatives unveiled by Scottish ministers yesterday.” Go Scots!! See more here. Thanks to RemyC for the link.

U.S. Navy Ordered to Shove It- “Two weeks ago, NRDC attorneys raced to court to block the U.S. Navy from unleashing a barrage of ear-splitting sonar into the waters off Hawaii as part of a massive military training exercise. Whales exposed to mid-frequency sonar have repeatedly stranded and died on beaches around the world — but the Navy refused to adopt even common-sense measures during peacetime exercises to help protect marine life from this deadly threat.

In an infuriating attempt to avoid our lawsuit, the Navy took the unprecedented step — on the eve of the Fourth of July weekend — of declaring itself exempt from the primary U.S. law that requires measures to protect marine mammals. But the court sided with us and found that the Navy’s planned sonar use violated a second key environmental law as well, noting that NRDC had submitted “considerable convincing scientific evidence” of the dangers of sonar to marine life.

The judge prohibited the Navy from going forward with its sonar use as planned and ordered the Navy to sit down with NRDC and decide on a set of protective measures to be put in place during the month-long exercise. In the settlement reached last Friday after days of tough negotiation with our attorneys, the
Navy will be required to create a sonar-free buffer zone around the newly established Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, as well as significantly improve its monitoring of marine mammals during sonar drills and
implement other important safeguards.” Yay Judge!! See background video narrated by Pierce Brosnan here.

A Bright Side to Hurricane-Ravaged Gulf Coast? - A host of environmental groups are working to use Hurricane Katrina’s impact to clean up, green, and fund environmental projects in historically ignored (environmental racism, anyone?) areas of New Orleans and in Mississippi.

“DeJean is optimistic about the future. “Nobody paid attention to Gert Town before the hurricane,” she says. “Now we have people calling us and asking if they can work with us. And we do have some input into how we want our communities to look not just for today, but long range. We want our community revitalized, and I think the chances of that are good.

And Rolfes thinks Katrina has shifted the ground not just literally but politically too. “In Saint Bernard Parish, for years there’s been this untenable situation in which people actually share a fence with a refinery. Before Katrina it would have been unthinkable to talk about putting in a buffer zone between the residential area and the industrial area because people just accepted that situation. Now individuals and even the local government recognize that a buffer would be a good policy. And I think we’re going to get one.” Read about all the positive environmental changes in E Magazine here.