Save the whales
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By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
Since the beginning of recorded time, humans have been incorrectly interpreting phenomenon in nature as notice of impending doom. Eclipses, earthquakes, tsunamis and other naturally occurring events have been declared by learned people of their time to be signaling the end of time.
We laugh at this folly of old, while modern society promulgates its own folly – climate change. Of course, climate change has a darker side, it is merely an instrument to flip us all to being socialists, communists or worse (see the recent siding of the glitterati with communist China in the basketball twitter kerfuffle).
Lists have recently popped up again citing all the dire climate predictions of the last half century or so – some of these lists have as many as 80 predictions on them, going back to about 1970. Pick your poison, supposedly educated people have predicted imminent doom from global cooling, global warming and a myriad of other evils laid at humankind’s feet.
The latest human sins, of course, are plastic straws and toilet paper made from virgin fiber. You just can’t make this stuff up.
Now, to be fair to those of you who want to dispute the following, you can find plenty of articles that do so, and I’ll let you know here and now that I have read many of them already.
But here is the story in a nutshell. Prior to about 1850, whale oil was the primary source of illumination in the home. It was very popular and very much in demand. The demand was so high, in fact, that sperm whales were facing extinction.
Of course, in the unregulated world of the time, this could have run its course and we would be looking at pictures of sperm whales, not real sperm whales which still exist today.
What saved the sperm whale? Oil. And the ability to distill kerosene. The peak year for whale oil production was 1844. In 1846, there was the first public demonstration of kerosene made from coal. Following right behind, in 1851, was the development of petroleum kerosene. The world’s first commercial refinery (distillation column) came along in 1853 and the first modern oil well in 1854.
In 1856, whale oil prices peaked and in 1858, 64% of whalers fail to make a profit.
Kerosene and kerosene lamps and streetlights took over the illumination tasks. By 1875, whale oil production had fallen to the level it had been in 1815. This is historical science and economics.
Now, as I said before, you can find all sorts of articles attempting to debunk this analysis prepared by economist James Robbins. In a November 2010 article in Forbes, contributor Warren Meyer says the man who saved the whales was John D. Rockefeller, and he further suggested there should be a picture of Mr. Rockefeller in all Greenpeace offices, as a tribute to his development of the modern petroleum industry and the saving of the whales.
I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Today, we think of Mr. Rockefeller and his Standard Oil Company in terms of gasoline, diesel and other modern products. The truth is, by the time the automobile came along, Mr. Rockefeller was in his declining years. He made his money in illumination using kerosene to replace whale oil. Now, I am not going to say he did this out of any love for whales; it was raw, cutthroat capitalism and his vision of an opportunity at hand.
But what is to say that raw, cutthroat capitalism could not save us from whatever natural phenomenon, real or imagined that face us today? As seen here, capitalism can be a great instrument to solve such problems. We don’t need socialism and a bunch of people standing around a campfire singing "Kumbaya."
Capitalistic visionaries can save the day.
HCP columnist
Since the beginning of recorded time, humans have been incorrectly interpreting phenomenon in nature as notice of impending doom. Eclipses, earthquakes, tsunamis and other naturally occurring events have been declared by learned people of their time to be signaling the end of time.
We laugh at this folly of old, while modern society promulgates its own folly – climate change. Of course, climate change has a darker side, it is merely an instrument to flip us all to being socialists, communists or worse (see the recent siding of the glitterati with communist China in the basketball twitter kerfuffle).
Lists have recently popped up again citing all the dire climate predictions of the last half century or so – some of these lists have as many as 80 predictions on them, going back to about 1970. Pick your poison, supposedly educated people have predicted imminent doom from global cooling, global warming and a myriad of other evils laid at humankind’s feet.
The latest human sins, of course, are plastic straws and toilet paper made from virgin fiber. You just can’t make this stuff up.
Now, to be fair to those of you who want to dispute the following, you can find plenty of articles that do so, and I’ll let you know here and now that I have read many of them already.
But here is the story in a nutshell. Prior to about 1850, whale oil was the primary source of illumination in the home. It was very popular and very much in demand. The demand was so high, in fact, that sperm whales were facing extinction.
Of course, in the unregulated world of the time, this could have run its course and we would be looking at pictures of sperm whales, not real sperm whales which still exist today.
What saved the sperm whale? Oil. And the ability to distill kerosene. The peak year for whale oil production was 1844. In 1846, there was the first public demonstration of kerosene made from coal. Following right behind, in 1851, was the development of petroleum kerosene. The world’s first commercial refinery (distillation column) came along in 1853 and the first modern oil well in 1854.
In 1856, whale oil prices peaked and in 1858, 64% of whalers fail to make a profit.
Kerosene and kerosene lamps and streetlights took over the illumination tasks. By 1875, whale oil production had fallen to the level it had been in 1815. This is historical science and economics.
Now, as I said before, you can find all sorts of articles attempting to debunk this analysis prepared by economist James Robbins. In a November 2010 article in Forbes, contributor Warren Meyer says the man who saved the whales was John D. Rockefeller, and he further suggested there should be a picture of Mr. Rockefeller in all Greenpeace offices, as a tribute to his development of the modern petroleum industry and the saving of the whales.
I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Today, we think of Mr. Rockefeller and his Standard Oil Company in terms of gasoline, diesel and other modern products. The truth is, by the time the automobile came along, Mr. Rockefeller was in his declining years. He made his money in illumination using kerosene to replace whale oil. Now, I am not going to say he did this out of any love for whales; it was raw, cutthroat capitalism and his vision of an opportunity at hand.
But what is to say that raw, cutthroat capitalism could not save us from whatever natural phenomenon, real or imagined that face us today? As seen here, capitalism can be a great instrument to solve such problems. We don’t need socialism and a bunch of people standing around a campfire singing "Kumbaya."
Capitalistic visionaries can save the day.