A month ago, Public released our first documentary, Thrown To The Wind, by journalist and filmmaker Jonah Markowitz. Thrown To The Wind reveals the reality behind the specious claims of an industry that has long billed itself as a boon to the natural environment. Our film exposes the price the world is actually paying for the industrialization of our oceans by offshore wind corporations: the killing of whales and the potential extinction of an entire cetacean species.
We founded Public to do precisely this kind of journalism: independent, uncompromising, evidence-based reporting that the mainstream media is too industry-captured and too ideologically blinkered to undertake. Those of you who are paying for Public make that possible. Without your support, we couldn’t do any of this.
Today, we’re releasing Thrown To The Wind widely, without the paywall. It’s imperative that this film reach as wide an audience as possible, to maximize its real-world impact. The survival of the North American Right Whale may depend on it.
While we want as many people as possible to watch our film, we owe a special thanks to those of you who pay for Public. Both filmmaking and investigative journalism are expensive. You’re what makes it possible. Thank you.
Read Original Article on Public.Substack.com
Why This Documentary May Save The Whales
Filmmaker discovered high-decibel sonar levels while shooting “Thrown To The Wind,” about why the wind industry could make the North Atlantic Right Whales extinct
The increase in whale, dolphin, and other cetacean deaths off the East Coast of the United States since 2016 is not due to the construction of large industrial wind turbines, US government officials say. Their scientists have done the research, they say, to prove that whatever is killing the whales is completely unrelated to the wind industry.
But now, a new documentary, “Thrown To The Wind,” by Director and Producer Jonah Markowitz, proves that the US government officials have been lying. The full film, which is at the bottom of this article, documents surprisingly loud, high-decibel sonar emitted by wind industry vessels when measured with state-of-the-art hydrophones. And it shows that the wind industry’s increased boat traffic is correlated directly with specific whale deaths.
The documentary may not stop the industrial wind projects from being built. After all, the wind projects were going forward despite urgent warnings from leading conservation groups and a top scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
But “Thrown To The Wind” exposes the reality that the US government agencies, and the scientists who work for them, either haven’t done the basic mapping and acoustic research to back up their claims, have done the research badly, or found what we found, and are covering it up.
There appear to be at least two distinct mechanisms by which wind industry activities are killing whales. The first is through boat traffic in areas where there hasn’t historically been traffic. And the second is through high-decibel sonar mapping that can disorient whales, separate mothers from their calves, and send them into harm’s way, either into boat traffic or poorer feeding grounds.
Whatever the case, “Thrown To The Wind” blows the lid off a major scientific scandal and will have an exponentially larger effect than past warnings.
