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The oldest whales in the ocean were alive before 'Moby-Dick' and have the harpoons to prove it

These gentle giants have lived through history.

via PIxabay

A humpback whale swimming.

You're probably familiar with the literary classic "Moby-Dick." But in case you're not, here's the gist: Moby Dick is the name of a huge albino sperm whale. (Get your mind outta the gutter.) There's this dude named Captain Ahab who really really hates the whale, and he goes absolutely bonkers in his quest to hunt and kill it, and then everything is awful and we all die unsatisfied with our shared sad existence and—oops, spoilers!

OK, technically, the narrator Ishmael survives. So it's actually a happy ending (kind of)!

whales, Moby Dick, poaching endangered species, sperm whale, old drawing, whalers Illustration from an early edition of Moby-Dickvia Wikimedia Commons

Basically, it's a famous book about revenge and obsession that was published back in 1851, and it's really, really long.

It's chock-full of beautiful passages and dense symbolism and deep thematic resonance and all those good things that earned it a top spot in the musty canon of important literature. There's also a lot of mundane descriptions about the whaling trade as well (like, a lot). That's because it came out back when commercial whaling was still a thing we did.

In fact, humans used to hunt more than 50,000 whales each year to use for oil, meat, baleen, and oil. (Yes, I wrote oil twice.) Then, in 1946, the International Whaling Commission stepped in and said "Hey, wait a minute, guys. There's only a few handful of these majestic creatures left in the entire world, so maybe we should try to not kill them anymore?"

And even then, commercial whaling was still legal in some parts of the world until as recently as 1986.

And yet by some miracle, there are whales who were born before "Moby-Dick" was published that are still alive today.

What are the odds of that? Honestly, it's hard to calculate since we can't exactly swim up to a bowhead and say, "Hey, how old are you?" and expect a response. (Also, that's a rude question — jeez.)

Thanks to some thoughtful collaboration between researchers and traditional Inupiat whalers (who are still allowed to hunt for survival), scientists have used amino acids in the eyes of whales and harpoon fragments lodged in their carcasses to determine the age of these enormous animals—and they found at least three bowhead whales who were living prior to 1850. Granted those are bowheads, not sperm whales like the fictional Moby Dick, (and none of them are albino, I think), but still. Pretty amazing, huh?

Bowhead whales reach an average length of 35 to 45 feet, and they are believed to live over 200 years. One of the big reasons for their longevity is that they have genes that may allow for the repair of damaged DNA. Researchers believe that the bowhead is the whale with the longest lifespan. Baleen whales have been found to live longer than toothed cetaceans such as the sperm whale or orca,

bowhead whales, whaling, whaling history, ancient whales, balaena mysticetus, baleen whales A bowhead whale.via Wikimedia Commons

This is a particularly remarkable feat considering that the entire species was dwindling near extinction.

Barring these few centenarian leviathans, most of the whales still kickin' it today are between 20 and 70 years old. That's because most whale populations were reduced to 10% or less of their numbers between the 18th and 20th centuries, thanks to a few over-eager hunters (and by a few, I mean all of them).

Today, sperm whales are considered one of the most populous species of massive marine mammals; bowheads, on the other hand, are still in trouble, despite a 20% increase in population since the mid-1980s. Makes those few elderly bowheads that much more impressive, huh?

bowhead whales, whaling, whaling history, ancient whales, balaena mysticetus, baleen whales, bowhead bones A bowhead whale skeleton.via Emoke Denes/Wikimedia Commons

Unfortunately, just as things are looking up, these wonderful whales are in trouble once again.

We might not need to worry our real-life Captain Ahabs anymore, but our big aquatic buddies are still being threatened by industrialization — namely, from oil drilling in the Arctic and the Great Australian Bight. In the off-chance that companies like Shell and BP manage not to spill millions of gallons of harmful crude oil into the water, the act of drilling alone is likely to maim or kill millions of animals, and the supposedly-safer sonic blasting will blow out their eardrums or worse.

This influx of industrialization also affects their migratory patterns — threatening not only the humans who depend on them, but also the entire marine ecosystem.

And I mean, c'mon — who would want to hurt this adorable face?

bowhead whales, whaling, whaling history, ancient whales, balaena mysticetus, baleen whales A bowhead whale poking its head out of the water.via Kate Stafford/Wikimedia Commons

Whales might be large and long-living. But they still need our help to survive.

If you want another whale to make it to his two-hundred-and-eleventy-first birthday (which you should because I hear they throw great parties), then sign this petition to protect the waters from Big Oil and other industrial threats.

I guarantee Moby Dick will appreciate it.

This article originally appeared ten years ago.

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whales

Democracy

Gas prices have fallen for 70 days in a row, the longest streak since 2015

Good news for our wallets.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Prices at the pump have dropped for more than two months straight.

When the summer of 2022 began, prices at the gas pump were pretty dire. Hitting a record nationwide average of $5.02 per gallon on June 14, gasoline became a bigger chunk of every family's budget and was particularly painful for people who had planned summer road trips to save over flying.

But since that peak, prices have steadily dropped to an average of $3.89 per gallon as of August 23. In fact, the price of gas has fallen every day for 70 days straight, which is the longest consecutive downward streak since January of 2015, according to Bloomberg. Prices vary by location, of course, but that prolonged drop is great news for our pocketbooks.

\u201cBREAKING: Gas prices have FALLEN for 70 straight days \u2014 according to AAA, the national average is now $3.89/gal.\u26fd\ufe0f\u201d
— Jon Cooper (@Jon Cooper) 1661253827

Why are prices dropping, though? It depends on who you ask.

The Biden administration has touted the president's policies for the price decline, but the reality is a lot more complicated. Every president is quick to take credit for lowering gas prices and every political opponent is quick to blame them for rising gas prices. Unfortunately, our penchant for partisan side-taking tends to push us to follow suit.

But presidents actually have very little control over gas prices or the factors that influence them. Global crude oil prices, which have the greatest influence on prices at the pump, are mostly out of a president's control.

“No administration really has a lot of sway over gas prices,” Andrew Gross, a spokesman for the AAA, told Factcheck.org. Severin Borenstein, faculty director of the Energy Institute at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, told Politifact, “By far the biggest driver is the price of crude oil, which is driven by supply and demand factors. A strong global economy, which presidents can influence slightly, is likely to increase demand and drive up prices."

The global economy and crude oil prices have been affected by all kinds of things, from the COVID-19 pandemic driving down demand in 2020 to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, causing instability in the global energy market. President Biden has also released record amounts of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try to mitigate the price spike, but gas prices have been up all over the world, and even with our prices remaining higher than average, our gas prices are still lower than most of the world.

The truth is complex. Lower gas prices are certainly good for our individual, immediate bottom line, of course, but focusing solely on our own savings ignores a host of other implications. For instance, higher gas prices can cause people to drive less, which is actually a positive for the environment. On the other hand, people who can't afford those higher prices but who have no choice but to buy gas suffer disproportionately from higher prices, making price fluctuations an equity issue as well. Sometimes low gas prices can be a bad sign, as was the case during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And despite the long streak of falling prices, industry experts and former government officials say that prices could go back up again. So for now, let's just say yay that prices have been falling for a while, celebrate saving some money and keep working on ways to lessen our dependence on oil and gas so these prices aren't as big a factor in our lives.

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gas price drop

Skilled workers make our world work. They deserve our respect — and protection.

True

Every single day, workers in America are risking their lives to make a living.

Mundane moments in our lives that we take for granted — that lights come on when we flick switches, that roads are safe to drive on, that toilets flush away dirty water and taps supply clean — occur because of skilled trade workers, some of whom risk their lives in potentially deadly situations just to make them happen.

Despite the essential work they do every day, skilled workersaren't often given much credit in our culture. They're overlooked or underestimated.

Working in skilled trades isn't something a person can wake up one day, put on a hardhat, and start doing. The vast majority require a two-year diploma from a vocational school. Others are more in depth, adding apprenticeships and on-the-job training before workers can be certified to do it on their own.

Working as anything above an entry-level steward on an oil rig, for example, usually requires a diploma in welding, basic mechanics, or heavy equipment operations plus specialized courses in marine firefighting and emergency response. Workers must be physically strong, highly-skilled natural problem-solvers — able to do their tough, essential jobs perfectly on a moving, floating deep-sea drilling platform in all kinds of bad weather and treacherous conditions.

Most of the time, there are extensive safety protocols in place to keep workers out of harm’s way.

Coupled with strong leaders empowering workers to speak up about problems, sometimes they make a big difference.

Other times, like in the case of 2010’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, they fail horribly.

The Deepwater Horizon drilling platform burns on April 20, 2010. Image via U.S. Coast Guard.

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon was finishing up work on the deepest oil well ever drilled on our planet. The project was behind schedule and over budget. A chain of decisions, spurred largely by off-site executives wanting to save further money and time, led to a catastrophic explosion, a massive fire, and the largest oil spill in American history.

11 people — nine crew members and two engineers — lost their lives the day the Deepwater Horizon exploded.

Their shocking, preventable loss is unfortunately not unique to this one disaster.

In 2014, the most recent year for which there's data available, 4,821 workers died on the job in the United States. Some of these were the result of freak accidents. Others could have been prevented through tougher safety regulations and training, along with leaders committed to fostering cultures focused on inclusivity and safety.

That kind of workplace is possible. Paul O'Neill, the former CEO of Alcoa, famously built his entire business strategy on improving worker safety — a focus that both saved lives and helped his company succeed. That latter aspect, he says, was never his primary goal. Speaking to students at Harvard Business School, he reflected on his decision:

"I told the financial staff that if anyone ever calculated how much money we were saving by being safe, they were fired. I didn't lay down rules like that very often, but I'll tell you why I did it: because I didn't want [employees] to think they were being asked to do something because management was trying to think how to save money. I didn't care, and I was prepared to accept the consequences of spending whatever it took to become the safest company in the world."

Image via Participant/Deepwater Horizon.

Six years later, the effects of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill still linger.

This disaster caused catastrophic damage to the environment, to communities along the Gulf Coast, and to 11 families in particular who lost loved ones that day.

At the same time, it should be a wake-up call about so many things, especially about the conditions we expect for ourselves and our fellow workers who provide essential contributions to our daily lives.

When things go spectacularly wrong on a work site, skilled workers are often the last line of defense preventing a mistake from becoming a full-blown disaster. If management doesn’t listen to workers on the front line, people get hurt. Guaranteeing their safety is ensuring our own.

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Heroes

What you should know about the historic Native American battle happening now.

It's the summer of 2016, and thousands of American Indians from the northern Great Plains just came together to protect their sacred land ... again.

If this scene sounds familiar, that's because it is. During the Great Sioux War of 1876, a united legion of Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho stood their ground near a river against a U.S. Army regiment led by Col. George A. Custer. American Indians called it the Battle of Greasy Grass or Victory Day, but U.S. history books tend to remember the Battle of the Little Bighorn as Custer's Last Stand.

Photo by Tom Stromme/The Bismarck Tribune via AP.

This time, however, American Indians are not fighting against military occupation. They're fighting against an oil pipeline, for the sake of water.

The Dakota Access Pipeline is a proposed $3.7 billion project, spanning more than a thousand miles from North Dakota to Illinois. If completed, it would be the largest crude oil line in the region — just seven miles shorter than the failed Keystone XL project — with the capacity to transport nearly half a million barrels of oil a day.

The pipeline was originally going to cross the Missouri River just north of Bismarck. But North Dakota citizens were worried about the potential damage to their water supply, so the pipeline was rerouted.

— (@)

Under the new plan, the pipeline would cross the river less than one mile upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.

Never mind the fact that the United States has abused and pushed American Indians onto reservations that represent just a fraction of their ancestral property. Nearly half of the 9,000 people living on that 3,500-square-mile reservation live in poverty today.

They all rely on the river's water for nourishment and survival, not to mention its cultural and religious importance. Construction of the pipeline would also disturb sacred grounds and burial sites in the area.

"Our state of being is not our fault. ... And now again, even what little we have left is under attack," Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Dave Archambault II said in a statement. "To poison the water, is to poison the substance of life. Everything that moves must have water."

Photo by Tom Stromme/The Bismarck Tribune via AP.

"This pipeline’s construction is being carried out without the Tribe’s free, prior and informed consent," the tribal council wrote in an appeal to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The Standing Rock Sioux, along with other tribes in the area, first tried to file a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. They also collected more than 200,000 petition signatures demanding an end to the construction.

Whenthe petition didn't work, the Standing Rock Sioux turned to the United Nations for help, citing human rights violations infringing on the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Legal processes take time, however. So while the tribes were granted a hearing in Washington, D.C., their court date wasn't scheduled until Aug. 24 — two weeks after construction was slated to begin.

— (@)

Despite the Standing Rock Sioux's best efforts, ground was broken on the Dakota Access Pipeline on Aug. 10.

But that was about as far as the project got.

Photo by Tom Stromme/The Bismarck Tribune via AP.

The Standing Rock Sioux decided to protest. It started as a small prayer camp of about 50 people, some of whom had been there since April.

Within a week of the project's groundbreaking, the Sacred Stone Camp near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, had swelled to more than 1,000 protesters, including members of more than 80 tribes from across the country, along with other non-Native activists. By the time the court date rolled around, estimates of the protesters' numbers rose as high as 4,000.

The company behind the pipeline was, obviously, less than thrilled. At first, it sought a restraining order to quell the demonstration, but eventually it agreed to halt the project until the court decision could be made.

As inspiring as it is to see so many people come together to help protect the planet, the state's response to the halted project was ... less than great.

The closest the protest ever came to conflict were a few traditional mock charges performed on horseback to hold back the police line. But no violence occurred.

— (@)

Unfortunately, this was not enough to sate the concerns of the police and other authorities, who, protesters say, mistook their sacred ceremonial pipes for pipe bombs, and alleged that a protester shined a laser pointer at a surveillance aircraft that was flying overhead, among over accusations.

More than 20 arrests were made, and North Dakota state officials used emergency relief funds to remove drinking water and other resources from the protest site.

By the time the federal court date rolled around on Aug. 24, another protest movement had formed in Washington, D.C.

— (@)

The court session ultimately ended with no decision and a date to reconvene in September. So the outcome is still unwritten.

It was a frustrating result after weeks of mounting tension. But it means that all is not lost, and that there is still hope to save the Standing Rock Sioux's land. Construction at the protest site will supposedly continue to be halted, although it's not clear if that will be case for other parts of the projected pipeline path.

Meanwhile, human rights observers from Amnesty International announced they would be standing watch at the Sacred Stone Camp to ensure there were no more brutal police oversights depriving protesters of their legal rights to water or to assembly.

It's a small victory. But in a battle this big, it's better than nothing.

— (@)

Environmental preservation isn't just an American Indian issue, of course. And it's not just about oil and water.

The future of the planet affects all of us, which is why this protest movement is so important. 2016 is already well on track to supplant 2015 as the warmest year on record, and the heat is only turning up from here.

As Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Dave Archambault II said in a statement: "This is not just a Lakota/Dakota issue, this is a human issue. ... We have to speak for those who are not here — our ancestors, for those children who are not yet born. Our ancestors left sacred sites for us. We have to speak for them. Children not yet born will not live without water."

I was taught to leave things better than I found them. We need to take action soon, or we'll be leaving a disaster behind for the generations to follow.

Learn more about the struggles at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation straight from the protest lines in this video:

Heroes

The haunting reason these sculptures were designed to sink slowly into the mud.

This ghostly statue marks the site of a often overlooked, but devastating natural disaster — one that is sadly still ongoing.

Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images.

In 2006, steaming hot mud erupted, without warning, from a rice paddy in eastern Java, Indonesia, sweeping through a dozen nearby villages.

Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images.

20 people were killed, and thousands more were forced to flee their homes permanently.

Footprints in a house overwhelmed by the mud flow. Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images.

The statues were erected by sculptor Dadang Christanto in 2014 to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the tragedy.

Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images.

Since they were installed, the sculptures have have been sinking slowly — by design.

"They were not in mud when they started," Christanto told Australia's Saturday Paper in 2015. "And in one year they are nearly submerged. They will disappear. It is not just the environmental disaster but the social disaster."

May 30, 2016, marked the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the deadly mud flow.

Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images.

While there have been no more fatalities, mud continues to pour out of the volcano to this day.

There's also strong evidence that the disaster was manmade.

Activists stage a protest on the fifth anniversary of the disaster. Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images.

A 2015 report published in Nature argues that the gas needed to trigger the eruption could only have been unearthed by a nearby oil and gas drilling operation.

"We're now 99 percent confident that the drilling hypothesis is valid," Mark Tingay, the paper's lead author, told The New York Times.

(Other experts continue to disagree, arguing that the mud flow could have been caused by an earthquake.)

Like the Deepwater Horizon spill, this eruption demonstrates how lack of attention to the potential side effects of drilling can have disastrous consequences.

The nearly 40,000 Java residents who were forced to flee their homes have endured an often painful resettlement process. Many initially took shelter wherever they could find it — often in local markets.

"We couldn't shower, we couldn't wash our clothes," Sadli, a factory worker who was displaced by the mud flow, told the Chicago Tribune. "For every toilet, there were dozens of people constantly in line."

Some victims were eventually compensated. Others are still waiting.

When Lapindo, the company in charge of the drill operation allegedly responsible for the eruption, proposed installing two new wells near the site of the disaster, protests erupted and shut down the project.

Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images.

That isn't to say we should stop drilling for oil and gas altogether.

Icky as oil can be, we need it for the time being, and natural gas can be an alternative to far dirtier sources of power.

But the statues serve as a kind of warning: When we mess with nature without taking the proper precautions, we don't just put our environment at risk.

An artist paints at the site of the sinking statues. Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images.

We have a small favor to ask of you

oil

These gentle giants have lived through history.

Basically, it's a famous book about revenge and obsession that was published back in 1851, and it's really, really long.

And yet by some miracle, there are whales who were born before "Moby-Dick" was published that are still alive today.

This is a particularly remarkable feat considering that the entire species was dwindling near extinction.

Unfortunately, just as things are looking up, these wonderful whales are in trouble once again.

Whales might be large and long-living. But they still need our help to survive.

Good news for our wallets.

Every single day, workers in America are risking their lives to make a living.

Despite the essential work they do every day, skilled workersaren't often given much credit in our culture. They're overlooked or underestimated.

Most of the time, there are extensive safety protocols in place to keep workers out of harm’s way.

11 people — nine crew members and two engineers — lost their lives the day the Deepwater Horizon exploded.

Six years later, the effects of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill still linger.

It's the summer of 2016, and thousands of American Indians from the northern Great Plains just came together to protect their sacred land ... again.

This time, however, American Indians are not fighting against military occupation. They're fighting against an oil pipeline, for the sake of water.

Under the new plan, the pipeline would cross the river less than one mile upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.

"This pipeline’s construction is being carried out without the Tribe’s free, prior and informed consent," the tribal council wrote in an appeal to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Despite the Standing Rock Sioux's best efforts, ground was broken on the Dakota Access Pipeline on Aug. 10.

As inspiring as it is to see so many people come together to help protect the planet, the state's response to the halted project was ... less than great.

By the time the federal court date rolled around on Aug. 24, another protest movement had formed in Washington, D.C.

The court session ultimately ended with no decision and a date to reconvene in September. So the outcome is still unwritten.

Environmental preservation isn't just an American Indian issue, of course. And it's not just about oil and water.

Learn more about the struggles at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation straight from the protest lines in this video:

This ghostly statue marks the site of a often overlooked, but devastating natural disaster — one that is sadly still ongoing.

In 2006, steaming hot mud erupted, without warning, from a rice paddy in eastern Java, Indonesia, sweeping through a dozen nearby villages.

20 people were killed, and thousands more were forced to flee their homes permanently.

The statues were erected by sculptor Dadang Christanto in 2014 to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the tragedy.

Since they were installed, the sculptures have have been sinking slowly — by design.

May 30, 2016, marked the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the deadly mud flow.

There's also strong evidence that the disaster was manmade.

Like the Deepwater Horizon spill, this eruption demonstrates how lack of attention to the potential side effects of drilling can have disastrous consequences.

Some victims were eventually compensated. Others are still waiting.

That isn't to say we should stop drilling for oil and gas altogether.

But the statues serve as a kind of warning: When we mess with nature without taking the proper precautions, we don't just put our environment at risk.

We put ourselves at risk too.