In his 2015 State of the Union address President Obama was perhaps rash to state unequivocally that the ‘debate was settled.
In his 2015 State of the Union address President Obama was perhaps rash to state unequivocally that the ‘debate was settled. Climate change is a fact …’ It provided deniers an immediate opening to counter that science is never settled, which of course is indisputable. Scientific conclusions can only be based on the available evidence, balance of probabilities, etc and are most convincing when mainly or overwhelmingly pointing in one direction.
At issue is what determines when we as a society can trust science to offer an acceptable certainty upon which we can base decisions. For example, apart from some weird minority sects, we all go along with the research and practical experience that shows anti-polio vaccinations are a worthwhile protection, but Covid-19 not so much. A significant swathe of people in many countries proved unpersuaded by the medical evidence. The current parliamentary inquiry into the UK government’s handling of the Covid crisis under Boris Johnson has revealed a chaotic response. Medical counsel was weighed against alternative explanations of the virus as well as political and other self-serving considerations. In the US, the president of the time at one point advocated swallowing disinfectant as an antidote to Covid.
Such goings-on illustrate the vulnerability of science, and the trust we are prepared to place in it. Overcoming doubt about scientific hypotheses through research, experiments, tests, pilot studies, etc are all part of building scientific knowledge. In practice the process is literally not a perfect science. Findings are challenged, mistakes are made.
In the medical field, the dispensing of Thalidomide medication to pregnant women to counter nausea caused terrible birth defects. It took a major newspaper campaign, among other things, to expose the tragedy. That was in the pre-internet days of the Sixties and Seventies.
Today public discussion of science topics has changed dramatically. The internet makes an incredible amount of information on just about every subject you choose instantly accessible, from the authoritative to the bogus. Sticking with medicine, who hasn’t checked out online a doctor’s diagnosis, indeed who hasn’t used the internet for a bit of self-diagnosis of some ailment or other.
The point is that we can all become instant experts, and instant critics in the science sphere. The evolution of social media has magnified the trend enabling everyone to express their views with no filter on their validity. Hence we have a much-discussed information crisis with everyone challenged to know whom to trust. Traditional media sources based on at least some semblance of journalistic research and verification of the facts are in serious decline as a guide. This is not just because of the sheer volume of competing news and opinion feeds out there – Twitter (X), emails, Instagram, Facebook and so on. Rapid dissemination of huge amounts of material also takes its toll on a clear narrative.
Most significantly this loose structure is open to obvious manipulation by vested interests, e.g., perpetrating fake news, flooding media with false/bias opinions, distorting the consensus, etc. We may often suspect governments and business interests are culpable, but often it requires a whistleblower to reveal the extent of involvement.
Needless to say, geoscience is not immune from this world of disinformation. Objections to recent proposals by Danish company Ørsted to install two offshore wind turbine developments off the coast of New Jersey because of potential danger to whales provide a classic example of how science can be questioned in spite of seemingly incontrovertible evidence. According to The Guardian newspaper, ex-president Trump at a 2024 presidential campaign rally in South Carolina on 24 September, had clearly judged the issue. He attributed a wave of recent whale strandings on the US East Coast to ‘windmills’ driving the mammals ‘crazy’ and ‘a little batty’. He noted ‘You wouldn’t see that once a year – now they are coming up on a weekly basis’.
Trump was correct in his observation that stranding of whales has become a more common phenomenon in recent years. He would have known that last December, 30 New Jersey coastal mayors called for a moratorium on offshore wind activity, prompted by the ninth dead whale to be washed ashore in the state that month.
For those familiar with the marine seismic industry’s challenges to comply with increasingly strict mammal protection regulations to enable surveys in offshore regions around the world, this is well travelled territory. It requires minimal reference to know that the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and predecessor authorities have played an important role in establishing the guidelines for seismic vessels working in US territorial waters, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico.
In the New Jersey case, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) made clear in a statement nearly a year ago that any surveys for offshore wind companies have been focused on collecting data for future projects and ‘produce much smaller impact zones (compared with seismic) because in general they have low noise, higher frequency and narrow beam-width’.
A noted marine environmental researcher Dr Douglas Nowacek of Duke University, currently engaged in a five-year study on offshore wind energy and its impact on wildlife, was quoted by Factchek.org as stating that ‘there’s basically zero chance that those surveys have caused any mortality.’
According to the NOAA, explanation for the death or stranding of an increasing number of different species of whales (humpbacks, North American right whales and minke whales) can most probably be put down to vessel strikes and entanglement with fishing gear. The conclusion was based on the evidence of some 40% of carcasses it was possible to examine. This fits with a number of factors that may be in play, some predating the relatively few offshore turbines so far installed off the US east coast.
First, climate change is said to be warming the oceans and altering the distribution of available nutrition in the ocean. Whales are apparently moving out of protected areas and closer to shores which make them more vulnerable to vessel strikes and fishing gear entanglement. Secondly, New York and New Jersey ports have reported significant growth in shipping activity meaning more vessels and potential collisions with whales. Thirdly, the whale population in the case of humpbacks in the mid-Atlantic has grown, thereby increasingly the likelihood of mishaps.
With such a clear rebuttal of the claims made against offshore turbine-related surveys available, the Trump allegations need some context from which, depending on your appetite for conspiratorial explanations, conclusions can be drawn. However, let’s not forget that the whole episode points to a serious disregard for scientific findings which seemingly goes unbridled.
Trump may well have taken his cue from a Fox News interview earlier this year between the now dismissed news commentator Tucker Carlson and Meghan Lapp, fisheries liaison for Seafreeze, the largest producer and trader of sea-frozen seafood on the US East Coast. Lapp referred to offshore wind developers as ‘essentially carpet bombing the ocean floor with intense sound’ and expressed her fears for the area’s fishing business and those who depend on it. Carlson noted ‘Whales use sound to navigate. So why wouldn’t that be affecting or killing them? You’re applying the principles of science,’ adding that offshore wind was the ‘DDT of our times’ referring to the toxic pesticide that was banned in 1972.
As a spokesperson for the fisheries business, Lapp has since repeated the gist of her argument at a packed public hearing in Wildwood, New Jersey, in March and in various subsequent interviews, also echoing concerns over the practicality of fishing around wind turbines. Locals have also complained that the turbines will spoil views from the New Jersey coast.
It is no surprise that the controversy has been overtaken by politics. Local Republican Party representatives and organisations such as the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), said by opponents to be fossil-fuel friendly, have weighed in with support. They have spotted an opportunity to attack President Biden’s renewable energy policy which envisages substantial expansion of windpower, rolling out 30GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030.
The emotional charge of whales dying on the beach has turned out to be an achilles heel for those who want to stick to the rational, science-based explanation. It is impossible to adequately deny the coincidence of marine surveys and the increased strandings, and it is pretty easy to drum up public sympathy.
Coincidence or not, Ørsted, the biggest company in the business worldwide, last month cancelled its plan for the two big Ocean Wind I and II developments off the New Jersey coast incurring an estimated impairment cost of more than $3 billion. High inflation, rising interest rates and supply chain bottlenecks were given as reasons for the cancellation. The company is now faced with sorting out generous state subsidy arrangements agreed with New Jersey Democrat Governor Phil Murphy, who had been a strong advocate of the projects and the opportunity for renewable energy investment. For the record, Ørsted last month also quit a consortium with Fred Olsen Renewables and Hafslund Eco developing windpower offshore Norway, citing ‘a prioritization of investments’ in its portfolio.
It is tempting to dismiss the New Jersey fracas and turning science evidence into a political football as a peculiarly American phenomenon born out of hopelessly polarised politics. Yet a similar debate over the impact of seismic on marine life is underway in southwest Victoria, Australia. A local environmental group is protesting against a ConocoPhillips survey plan in the Otway Basin, currently at the consultancy stage, based on the noise factor, despite decades of regulated seismic surveys having been carried out offshore Australia.
The problem is that the science is never totally settled, and that applies to the much bigger issues such as climate change mitigation and protection against pandemics.
The process is literally not a perfect science
An opportunity to attack President Biden’s renewable energy policy
