🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1994Mar24.102010.14205@aifh.ed.ac.uk>, bridget@aifh.ed.ac.uk (Bridget Hallam) writes:
|> In article <Cn4n4B.L80@ra.nrl.navy.mil>, dacol@i7140a.nrl.navy.mil (Dalcio
|> Dacol) writes:
|> # 
|> # 	Moreover, a typical oil tanker will radiate in the same
|> # 	frequency range at levels ABOVE 200 dB, significatively
|> # 	louder than the experiments source.
|> 
|> Then how will it be possible to detect the experiment's sound source all the
|> way across 
|> the ocean, given that there's so much shipping noise??

Two points you have obviously missed here.

Firstly, the signal will be largely confined to a physical channel at about
1 km depth because of refraction due to changes in the speed of sound with
depth. That is, the signal will be below the shipping lanes and below
the region where whales live, except very close (less than 10 km) to the
source.

Secondly, because the signal will be narrow band in frequency, allowing the
use of finely tuned bandpass filters.

|> # 	Finally, whales themselves produce sounds in this
|> # 	low-frequency range at levels between 160 and 190 dB.
|> 
|> So we'll be screwing up their communication. 

Well, people are stretching to assert that whales go down to 400 meters,
while this signal will exist at about a km depth at any large horizontal
distance from the source.

So any disturbance to whales will either be very local and fixed in space
or tiny by comparison with what commercial shipping is already doing. 

Why pick on the tiny part of the problem that is caused by environmental
science? How can we decide how best to treat the enviropnment if we don't
allow ourselves to try to understand it?

Saying that we should just stop doing things that impact the environment
won't do, because that would mean we couldn't do anything. Few people will
agree to starving for the sake of the animals. So we need to understand
which parts of what we do are most harmful and how to change those parts
most effectively. To do that, we need to study the environment we live in,
not just worship it.

I understand the frustration of those who think that a call for further 
study is a delaying tactic: this has certainly happenned in the past. But
I don't understand why anyone is opposed to further study in itself. After
all, it was scientific study that identified the problems you are now
concerned about.

The reason many people are opposed to this study in particular is apparently
because of a gross misunderstanding of the level of disturbance of the
acoustic environment of the biological parts of the ocean. People who should
know better have been jumping to conclusions about this. The problem has been
exagerrated by many orders of magnitude: it is unlikely that any significant
fraction of whales will even notice this sound. Both the jumping to
conclusions and the refusal to let go of the conclusions once jumped on,
despite their lack of substantial support, are extremely alarming and
unfortunate. 

It illustrates the lack of skill in hypothesis testing of the general
public. It also illustrates the lack of trust not only between the general
public and experts (in this case in a field that has not had much contact
with the public and is thus necessarily innocent of misleading the public in
the past) but even between experts in different fields. It discourages
public discussion of scientific projects because the possibility of
misguided attack is so much larger than the possibility for genuine
communication. And in the end, it bodes ill for society and the larger
environment.

When people ask me if I'm an "environmentalist" I always hesitate. I do
believe that human impacts on the environment are the central problem of our
time and the foreseeable future.  I do believe that great efforts to address
our impact on the world are necessary.  And, like Ms Hallam, I think a big
part of the answer lies in more community and less internal combustion.

But I don't believe in jumping to conclusions or opposing things at random,
fervently, and uncompromisingly, without regard to their benefits, the costs
of the alternatives, and their importance to the big picture. This more and
more seems to be what "environmentalism" as a movement is about. 

There doesn't seem to be much of a bandwagon for an outlook that is
concerned about the environment and makes decisions rationally rather than
intuitively. Given a choice between blind complacency and wild panic about
the environment, the choice is not just disconcerting but also difficult.
It's not at all clear that wild panic won't do more damage than blind
complacency.

mt