Blue Planet Prize - the absolutely unprecedented emergency

Straying yet again from the topic of this blog (trees dying from air pollution) I feel compelled to remark on the disturbing reports of so many dolphins, almost 200 now, beaching in Wellfleet on Cape Cod.  This charming little town is where my parents spend the warmer half of the year, and to watch news of the dolphins crying in the sand there compelled me to try to learn more about what motivates them to  deliberately commit suicide.  I still don't know the answer to that, but I have found out much else that has startled and saddened me.

S'okay.  We will get our comeuppance.  Eighteen winners of the Blue Planet Prize released a report today
warning humanity that we are in overshoot, face an unprecedented emergency and have no  choice but to
take dramatic action if we are to avert the collapse of civilization.

As with other tragedies relentlessly occurring in Nature, I was ashamed to have been so ignorant for so long about the plight of these mammals of the sea, and their despicable treatment at the hands of their human hunters and owners - not to mention the usual embarrassingly craven stupidity of the audience who buys tickets to laugh at their humiliation and misery.  I suppose much the same can be said for many animals in zoos and the circus.  Our exploitation seems to know no bounds.

I saw an interview with former dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry who, like Jacques Cousteau, had an epiphany and reformed from hunter to a life-long passionate protector of wildlife.  When I googled for more information I came to the movie "Lolita, Slave to Entertainment."  I'm going to post all the sections from youtube about this captive Orca below so you can watch this amazing documentary here on the blog.

My favorite quote is when O'Barry, who has been battling corporations and politicians for decades says, scornfully, "People are under the impression that the National Marine Fisheries Service are there to protect the animals.  The fact is, they are a regulatory agency.  They issue permits."  Now that succinctly expresses exactly the contempt deserved by other government agencies, chief among them, the FDA, USDA and their subsidiary the Forest Service, the Interior Department, and the EPA, who are supposed to be protecting trees and the environment and instead issue rules, regulations and permits...mountains of them - anything but actual protection!

For those so motivated, at the very end is embedded the first segment from The Cove, another documentary, about dolphins.  You can follow it to youtube where links to subsequent episodes are listed on the right.

Also, today by coincidence I saw on Apocadocs that a report was just published by scientists and philosophers asserting that whales, dolphins and porpoise are so intelligent and sophisticated and emotionally empathetic, that they deserve the same rights as humans.  If you watch either one of these movies you will have to agree they are at least as deserving a species, if not far more.  And then maybe add a few other animals as well.













The Cove