The New Pollution

Recently, BBC news reported that whales off the coast of Canada are changing their vocalizations in response to underwater noise. While studying blue whales, researchers discovered that while seismic surveys were being conducted in the same area, the whales would increase the overall number of their calls and also shortened the overall length of each call.

These surveys are usually done to locate oil and natural gas, and use a very sharp, loud explosion to create a map much like a bat uses echolocation.

Although at first some may not realize the importance of this, whales and dolphins use their calls to locate each other and food. Without the ability to accurately call to others, the animals entire life is thrown out of balance, putting it in danger. This is especially troubling for the Western Grey Whale, whose numbers now dwindle down to about 130 known living whales.

So basically, as if dumping trash and overfishing weren't enough to completely wipe out out oceans, now we have turned to noise pollution to finish the job. BBC reports that background noise from ship propellers doubles every decade in the Pacific Ocean. Think about how much undue stress this puts on all the sea life. Just imagine if every 10 years a new airport moved in next door.

This isn't just a concern from an conservationist's point of view either. Quite a few developing country's entire economy is based on exporting fish. With the current stranglehold on the oceans, these countries will lose any small economical foothold they have gained. This would also decrease the already low amounts of food available throughout the world, thus increasing the already pressing matter of hunger.

So, in the end, we seriously need to think which is more important. We can choose to continue to exploit our resources in some sort of perverse form of manifest destiny, or we can take a step back and think about out actions. If we would just consider the long term consequences of our actions, we could fix so many of our current environmental problems

Cody Dey