The Green Blog
Excerpts from the Globe’s environmental blog.
Fate of 50 whales on hold
Every year, hundreds of federally protected humpback whales off New England delight thousands of whale watchers who go out to see the marine mammals frolic and feed. But now, some of them - or their relations - may be in danger, with a request by Greenland to kill up to 50 humpback whales over the next five years for aboriginal subsistence, according to the Plymouth-based Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.
Last week, the US chair of the International Whaling Commission, meeting in Portugal, postponed a vote on the contentious issue until a special meeting later this year - a move, the Conservation Society says, designed to avoid a vote that probably would have rejected Greenland’s request. A similar request by the country to kill humpbacks was denied last year.
At issue are how many whales Greenland’s aboriginal population needs to live on, according to news reports. Denmark, which made the request for Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory, says it underestimated the amount of meat the population gets from the fin and minke whales they are already allowed to kill.
Conservation groups say this is a thinly veiled attempt to kill more whales for their commercial value. The Whale and Dolphin Society says its doesn’t object to aboriginal whale hunting but the country didn’t even catch its allowed quota for minke and fin whales and there are reports of whale meat being sold in supermarkets to the general population and to tourists.
Today, there are up to 10,000 humpback whales in the North Atlantic and about 900 in Gulf of Maine waters off New England, according to federal estimates.
A blow-by-blow on wind power
A team at Harvard University says we can get all of our energy from wind - at least in theory.
Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers examined wind resources and determined a super-connected network of 2.5 megawatt wind turbines could meet the world’s electricity demands - even if they operated at 20 percent capacity.
The team analyzed world wind speeds every six hours and looked at non-urban, non-forested, and non-ice-covered areas where turbines could realistically be built. They determined that the contiguous United States, for example, could from an array of turbines get more than 16 times the energy it now consumes. 