Hank Hertzberg tops off my depressing tour through the latest news by parsing a recent article in the Washington Post, in which the Navy finally admits that, okay, MAYBE their sonar is kind of a bummer for whales.
The wave of sound sent out by a modern sonar is no little “ping”—not if you’re a whale. If you’re a whale, and you’re listening your way through the pitch-black depths where no light penetrates, subtle sounds, including your own built-in sonar, give you a detailed readout of the layers of increasingly cold water, the texture of the sea floor, and the moving flow of seaborne animal and plant life. The sudden sonic invasion of an extremely powerful, unnatural, deafening sonic assault would be a horror—or so we may reasonably conclude from the fact that whales subjected to such onslaughts have in their panic shot up so quickly to the surface that they die of the bends.
Sounds just like my reaction whenever I hear the president trying to form a sentence.
From what I've heard lately, this may be the least of the Whale's worries.
Posted by: JohnT | 17 October 2007 at 12:01 AM
Where'd the cheese go? (and where's Max Power?)
Posted by: M | 27 October 2007 at 10:38 AM