The Trump administration has approved seismic tests to map for possible offshore oil deposits.
The testing which involves dragging rods that emit jet like booms every ten seconds or so … going on for days and sometimes months has a great chance of further endangering Marine mammals and disrupting the fisheries.
It looks to me that the energy sector is getting preferential treatment over all other concerns. Basically trading the benefits of one industry to the detriment of several others.
They’ll get over it. Yeah… sound propagates differently in the ocean. Some may hear it louder and some may not hear it at all. Thermoclines are funny like that. Here is a recording that was made 900 miles from its source. But… amazingly, there is still life in the ocean.
The sounds you are wringing your hands over are like a whisper in comparison.
And if you want to argue about that, we can then talk about sonar systems that have been in common use -YES… EVEN DURING OBAMA YEARS - that send out pings that require thousands of volts to create. The levels that the OP is talking about are experienced many times a day. The same level of sound is generated from undersea earthquakes at earthquake magnitudes between 4 and 5… to the tune of about 30,000 events a year. But I’m sure the OP knew that before posting this handwringing thread.
The hand wringers must be scraping the bottom of the barrel for things to be offended about.
The whales will evolve to deal with sounds like this. The ones that are better suited will affect the gene pool. Live goes on. Only man would have the hubris to believe they can change the forces of life.
Sorry, but that is a dumb argument.
Are you saying it would be equal treatment if farmers were allowed to do seismic tests or it would be equal treatment if oil exploration companies were allowed to plow the ocean?
Each industry is just doing what is necessary for them to produce the products we use.
Why even bring up earthquakes? OP and everyone knows that they are loud. You’re the only person who thinks it’s relevant. We aren’t discussing protecting marine life from the occasional loud sounds, just constant loud sounds.
If straight piped cars drove by your home every 12 seconds, that wouldn’t be the same as hearing an occasional motorcycle.
And in deflecting to sonar use in previous administrations, you seem to have forgotten that there were a ton of complaints back then too, even during Bush II. Americans just don’t like being unnecessarily mean to animals.
My wife shot her first deer several years ago with a rifle I bought her for Christmas. Her first shot was low. Three doe just stood there, wondering what just happened and, I suspect, what that next blade of grass was going to taste like. She took another shot, this time with a little more patience than before and a little less nervousness. The second shot went straight through the heart and dropped her cold.
I’d imagine that’s how the sea life will react to this sonic probing. “What was tha…mmmmmm plankton.”