How the Oil Industry Saved the Whales

-Blast

Thanks for the link, the article has got me intrigued about a certain local historical conundrum.

From Wikipedia



Dundee was a major whaling centre during the 19th Century producing whaling ships for the industry. Famously these ships were used in the Antarctic expeditions of Shackleton and Scott such as RSS Discovery and Terra Nova.

I’m beginning to suspect Mr Linday may have had a visit from certain representatives of those in the Whale Oil industry to enquire about the silliness of this new form of electric light as there were plenty more whales in the ocean in 1835 still to pursue. Perhaps he was convinced to move on to more personal profitable inventions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_whaling

The discovery of petroluem oil production didn't stop whaling. It just became uneconomic to pursue whales in dead fisheries.

A related question is to try to put an upper bound on the technology the dinosaurs had. That was about 60 million years ago, which is long enough for most of the evidence to disappear.

(Incidentally, they went extinct without human help. Extinction events can be natural.)

I dunno, maybe I ought to blame the zombie pirates for the declining whale population after the "no whale hunting" treaty was enacted. Aren't Norwegian pirates called Vikings, or was that Pittsburgh? I get confused on those team names sometimes.

As I ponder what the ecological burden might be should a preponderance of behemoths deplete the oceans' biological resources, I am wondering what is it exactly that the big behemoths contribute so urgently to our ecological structure that eliminating the bigger species should be of such grave concern. Then again, these are semi-sentient creatures, and who knows, maybe someday some big concrete cylinder will come hurling through space casting it's interrogative melody toward our globe, wreaking havoc with our weather system, and throwing us back to the stone age, all because there was no one here to answer it's mournful tune??? Naw, that could only happen in the movies...Dammit Jim, where's that pointy eared demon when you need him?

Like that TV show "Dinosaurs" from a while back?

And don't forget what Star Trek has taught us about Saurian culture, including the Brandy that they are sooooooo famous for!

Now Now, so much anthropocentric egotism.

"Save the Planet"? That simply means save humanity from its own folly, the planet will carry on

Apart from a few species dependant on humans - lapdogs or parasites (is there a difference?)- most creatures would be better off without us.

It is human conceit that we and our atifacts are worth preserving.

I am waiting for the leaning tower of Pisa to fall and for Venice to sink (it would make a great dive site)

BOD.... You sir, are a moron...