Here’s another one of those things I discovered when I was looking at something else, and serendipity kicked in. This comes from comment in Chris Mooney’s Twitter feed highlighted by Tom Nelson.
In another laughable Cool Hand Luke “you gotta get your mind right“ essay at Mother Jones, Mooney complains that “emotions come faster than the “rational” thoughts” when it comes to climate blogs. He writes:
In the context of the psychological theory of motivated reasoning, this makes a great deal of sense. Based on pretty indisputable observations about how the brain works, the theory notes that people feel first, and think second. The emotions come faster than the “rational” thoughts—and also shape the retrieval of those thoughts from memory. Therefore, if reading insults activates one’s emotions, the “thinking” process may be more likely to be defensive in nature, and focused on preserving one’s identity and preexisting beliefs.
I about fell out of my chair laughing when I saw this ad image that went with his story:
The advertisement for the National Resources Defense council has two images:
![NRDC_YearEnd_Stop-BadGuys_DonateNow_300x250[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/nrdc_yearend_stop-badguys_donatenow_300x2501.jpg?quality=83)
Photoshopped for emotional effect much? Here’s the other ad:
![NRDC_YearEnd_Statistic-Belugas_DonateNow_300x250[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/nrdc_yearend_statistic-belugas_donatenow_300x2501.jpg?quality=83)
Research for the Beluga whale population reveals this from the NOAA fisheries office of protected resources:
Population Trends
In the U.S., there are 5 distinct stocks of beluga whales–all in Alaska:
- Cook Inlet
- Bristol Bay
- Eastern Bering Sea
- Eastern Chukchi Sea
- Beaufort Sea
Of those, the Cook Inlet is the only endangered population. It is the most isolated stock; genetic samples suggest these whales have been isolated for several thousand years. The Cook Inlet stock has been severely reduced in numbers over the last several decades. NMFS estimates this population numbered as many as 1,300 in the late 1970s. The current estimate is about 325 beluga whales in the Cook Inlet.
“Of those, the Cook Inlet is the only endangered population.” That’s a pretty glaring lie of omission, don’t you think? Here’s a thought; maybe they just moved to a different location. After all, whales have been known to migrate vast distances. Their range (from NOAA) seems to indicate they aren’t static:
Beluga Whale Range Map
But wait there’s more! At the link the ad goes to at NRDC we see these images:
On the link upper right, Stop Big Oil’s Attack on Whales campaign page » we are directed to a page which shows this image of the whale sans the stop sign:
Note the background for the whale image and how the water and sand/gravel looks. Some image research reveals the image to be part of a series taken by photographer Flip Nicklin. On the presentation page at Animals and Earth, we see this image from the series along with the caption:
And here’s the one NRDC used:
Since NRDC doesn’t credit Nicklin in their advertisements, I sure hope they have permission to use the photos.
So, not only does NRDC not tell the reader that only one population has any notable changes, that the 284 Belugas remain is a false number not representative of the whole global population, perhaps only the Cook Inlet population, the photo they use isn’t even FROM Cook Inlet.
Rational readers might find all that a bit incongruous, perhaps even false advertising.
In another hilarious twist of irony, there’s this ad on the story by Chris Mooney at Mother Jones.
I have to wonder if I give them $5 will they bar Chris Mooney from writing junk stories about emotions and science and take NRDC advertisements off their web site? Inquiring minds want to know.
Mooney…
How apropos
Doug Huffman says:
January 10, 2013 at 12:22 pm
“Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow has his details on fast system-1 intuition and system-2 error-filled rational thought. Kahneman and Amos Tversky collaborated with N. N. Taleb on Black Swans and randomness.”
Do the Black Swans get stranded often? I hear they’re pretty rare. Damn Big Oil.
I was amused when I saw Whales as a topic here today… the FRONT PAGE lead item in today’s Calgary Herald (the “mainstream” newspaper) is about a dozen Orcas (Killer Whales) trapped in ice. They’ll die, said the article. They need to be rescued, and natives in the area are weeping.
As I read in, I realized this was actually a politically motivated hit piece on the current Conservative Government. Apparently they’ve reduced funding for the only agency that could have saved these poor whales, now there are no ice breakers around to help out.
The whales don’t seem to mind, two more articles at http://www.calgaryherald.com have appeared explaining that the whales swam away. Crisis: averted by activists being concerned!
And lest we forget, mankind’s prosperity depends 100% on the following:
“If it can’t be grown, it’s gotta be mined.”
So Mr Mooney believes that people’s views on climate science are heavily influenced by genetic programmed for attempted survival, not necessarily accuracy. Presumably that also applies to his views on the subject? If not, why not?
Followed the link
Oh, you mean like the piercing noise in save-the-whales, Star Trek IV movie. Eh .. you got some actual evidence for that, Pierce? Or is it just assumption.
BTW: environmentalists in Hong Kong were concerned about the effect of noise on a rare species of dolphin from the construction of Tsing Ma bridge (which is kind of silly as HK is already one of the busiest harbours in the world). So the contractors installed an air bubble curtain to block the spread of noise. It dampened the noise, scientists wrote papers, everybody was happy. But the dolphins most of all.
What these papers and the environmentalists don’t tell you (I heard it directly from someone working on the project, so no link and only anecdotal) was that the dolphins liked the bubbles. They approached the curtain and appeared to play in it as if it were a jacuzzi.
The noise of piling or quarrying would annoy anyone, whales and dolphins included, especially if it were close by. But people (and probably cetaceans, for all anyone knows) just learn to deal with it, till the noise goes away.
Mooney a dripping mass of projection.
I read some of the comments on his article.
Mutual Admiration Society?
Grew up in the area, over 30 years, the upper Inlet is really silty. I sport fished it, commercial fished it, worked on the oil refineries and the platforms. And worked doing the discharge metering for the return water (for a local instrumentation company.)
All the discharge from the platforms is cleaned, tested, and far cleaner then the water it is going into. I know what was put in, I helped spec it. The platforms have almost no impact, except to open holes in the ice for them to breath through. The ice can get 6-10ft thick in a cold snap, and there won’t be places to get air for square miles. The platforms break that up.
I really don’t have an appropriate comment as to the total fail that ad is.
68% of those contributing to save these whales are worried given the connection to the Beluga Caviar supply.
57% (of the 100%) are wondering if Big Fisheries are somehow complicit,
34% are worried this may impact prices and/or available supply.
(Note there is an overlap that is ashamed their selfish desires for tasty caviar are hurting these noble creatures, and will be extra generous with their donations. Of course they are blameless and had no idea this was going on, as their suppliers had assured them the caviar was humanely harvested from free-range non-endangered stock.)
@kadaka – LOL – And what percent realize that Beluga Caviar does not come from whales? No caviar does.
DirkH: ‘Do the Black Swans get stranded often? I hear they’re pretty rare.’
Black swans are in abundance here in Australia – we have nothing but black!
NIce post, Anthony. But it’s OK to make things up in a good cause. Virtuous corruption.
The pix point out that the whales are beached at low tide . Is there any indication that they are not just sunning themselves ? Gene Selkov says they like to get out on the gravel .How long are they going to be exposed ? Maybe it’s worth it to them .
Not that they really like to get out of the water, but they seek coarse sand and clean gravel that can only be found on sand banks and in river mouths. Away from the surf or vigourous river currents, the sand is quickly silted up. I presume it is hard for them to avoid getting beached once in a while if they are so attracted to shallow waters, so either it is not a problem for them, or a trade-off. They also fish in the rivers and can get trapped there when the water goes low. I’d say going upriver must be more perilous for them than having a short rest at low tide.
behttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH1tjwBhlCE
The ‘You can trust NRDC!’ claim looks a bit doubtful. Perhaps time for Charity Navigator do a reassessment…
Big sea creatures getting stranded is not a rare occurrence.
Shores are not always uniform slopes. Tides vary. Since they often flock together there’s a high risk that more than one will get trapped at the same time. If they follow a school of fish or otherwise like to feed close to shore there is risk (for example, one type of small whale type creature deliberately washes fish into shallows then somehow/sometimes eats them – best to do that on a rising tide)
Sometimes they get trapped by ice shifts in the Arctic.
Good thing humans are around to help them, many times. (Sometimes all they need is covering to reduce the effect of the sun (as they are air breathing creatures).)
Sunning themselves is worth checking, but not likely in those pictures.
I have watched seals on the wet coast keeping themselves out of the water as long as possible, by arching their body as the tide rises over the rocks they were on.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
January 10, 2013 at 1:15 pm
Please, PLEASE tell me you forgot the /sarc tag… I beg of you!
As with most things here in AK, we are able to screw things up just by doing what we do on a daily basis. But to really turn it into a disaster takes help from the feds.
Belugas have been hunted in Cook Inlet for as long as there have been people up here. Whaling is now controlled by NOAA. Sometime in the mid-1990s, they decided that they could really open up whaling by the natives and did so for a couple years which crashed the estimated population from around 1200 to less than 500. It was a great time for the whaling natives, as we ended up with people from across the state in the Inlet getting free meat an muktuk. Some of it was sold on the highways out of vehicles. Someone in NOAA finally figured out that they had taken too many whales and stopped the gross whaling. Since then, the whaling captains have only taken a couple every year.
Estimated numbers continued down to around 300. Local greens got involved and forced a listing as endangered as a vehicle to shut down oil and gas exploration in Cook Inlet where it has been going on since the 1950s with no ill effect.
Whale numbers have rebounded a little, but there is a running argument between the feds / greens and local whaling captains who claim the numbers of whales are being deliberately undercounted while the beginning population was deliberately inflated. Cook Inlet is nasty silty gray water, so a real census is difficult at best. We also have several pods of killer whales in the Inlet and they feed on beluga. It is not uncommon to see several tens of whales stranded on the mudflats near Girdwood having beached themselves at low tide to escape orca. I have seen over 50 a time or two. They refloat and escape when the tide rises.
Beluga eat salmon, so their presence at various places in Cook Inlet are a good sign for local fishermen chasing salmon themselves.
This is not a development caused problem. This is and was entirely caused by mismanagement of beluga whaling in Cook Inlet by native whaling. And we now get to deal with a critical habitat where we can’t kill the things that are snacking on the beluga either (orca). Cheers –
He’s right of course – I used to believe in the pseudoscience because of an emotional response.
When my brain actually kicked in I realised I no longer believe a word of their snake oil.
Don’t you have the equivalent of our Advertising Standards Authority over there? Here adverts must be “Legal, decent, honest & truthful”. Complaints against those that are not are often upheld with advertisers being fined and forced to withdraw misleading adverts. This covers all media including online.
If that had appeared on a UK publication I’d have fired off a complaint just to be vexatious.
Fascinating educational thread about Beluga whales. Thanks, Anthony and commenters, especially those with local knowledge. Is there nowhere in the world that WUWT doesn’t reach? It sure must keep Anthony and his guest posters on their toes. 🙂
Anyway, from what people have said, it’s not surprising that they are not a numerous species. All that wallowing around in the shallows is pretty risky, especially if there are predators like orcas around.
I guess that’s what’s “wrong” with me. I have slow emotions. I’ll end up thinking and thinking and puzzling something out… and only after I’ve got a handle on it does an emotional state form. After all, how can I know to choose between anger, pity, fear, whatever; unless I’ve figured out if they are attacking me, just damn fools, or raving idiots with real power? Takes time to work that kind of thing out, so I’m usually just “contemplative / aware” until I reach an end point of understanding.
Don’t know how else to explain it. It’s just a “centered and processing data stream” emotion pended state. Maybe that is it’s own emotion. “Pended”. One some folks lack…
Oddly, in Karate class we spent a fair amount of time learning that state. Some folks had a hard time with it. “Be an empty vessel” (Karate is ’empty hand’ and also metaphorically the empty vessel…) For me it just seemed natural. Didn’t see what the big deal was.
In Aikido we had even more emphasis on the whole idea. “You chose not to fight. Let your opponents energy fight with himself.” and “Be centered and at peace.” “Return your opponents energy and un-centeredness to them. Do not let it disturb you.” (Many Aikido movements blend with the energy flow from an opponent and lets it flow back into the attacker, causing them to fly off a ways 😉 It’s really fun 😉 😉 It’s the one that looks like folks in big black culottes doing a turning dance… then someone goes flying…)
It is hard to explain how you can have a fist or foot headed right at your face and be completely emotionally unengaged, but that is the state; and I’ve been in it. There’s an odd experience (that I first really had at 7th colored belt, Purple in my dojo) when you are just an observer as your body engages with your opponent. Being “of no mind” as the lower brain levels decide to block, or kick, or catch a kick. Very peaceful, in a strange kind of way.
Perhaps if we bought the warmers all a membership in a nice eastern philosophy dojo somewhere they would learn to not emote first and think later. To realize that they can be at peace and not subject to emotional pleas and ‘tear jerk’ fear campaigns.
I think I need to revisit the “empty vessel” philosophy again…
johanna says:
January 10, 2013 at 2:11 pm
… All that wallowing around in the shallows is pretty risky, especially if there are predators like orcas around.
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I saw a headline today about some orcas that were stranded under some ice but now appear to be in the clear. I didn’t actually read the details to see how too much ice was somehow our fault.
Polar bears have (or will have) too little ice. Orcas have too much. What’s a Mother Gaia to do?
How can the whales be stranded at low tide? Sea levels are rising, aren’t they? /sarc
Tim Ball: ‘How many Jonahs will swallow it’
Hmm, thought he WAS swallowed! The story of Jonah is very instructive in the context. Worth a read. What is very apposite is that when (after his being swallowed event) he finally tells Ninevites to change their ways – they do! This really riles ol’ Jonah – who wanted to see their destruction and was hoping for a ringside seat. In the early days of the green movement, on the whole industry genuinely began to clean up when asked to. As Patrick Moore remarked, “If people do what you ask, it’s pretty hard to carry on being confrontational” – but they did, so he left.
“So we only care about WHITE whales and WHITE bears. I guess whales of color will just have to fend for themselves. … Umm … I guess they already do.”
And don’t forget “black” carbon is evil.
These guys sound awfully racist, especially when you consider what proposed energy policies will do to third world countries.
/sarc, sort of anyway.
Roscoe, I hear you about the snake oil… but in this case it’s Whale Oil… great for lamps as I understand it. Good thing our civilization came up with better solutions, whether that’s electricity or kerosene from those evil fossil fuels.
When it comes to beggars, it’s ALWAYS about emotions. From street level to boardrooms, begging is begging and it USED to be considered an embarrassing situation to be in. Now it’s a standard method to raise funds for lefty causes.
Why? Well, the same things that makes someone a lefty makes someone gullible enough to finance things like NRDC, Greenpeace, WWF, and so, so many more. They scour the world for images that jolt emotions, images of animals in distress or starving children, and as these ads demonstrate, if they can’t find a suitably emotional image they just make one up.
Yet another thing the Internet should be opening people’s eyes to, but currently they are using the Internet to advance their cause.