Roger Payne, Discoverer Of Whale Songs, Sounds Alarm On Ocean Pollution - Boston Globe

[hatrack]

The first gift the whales gave Roger Payne was their song, which he in turn spread to the ears of the world. He's planning to do the same with their final gift to him, the data locked inside the skin and blubber samples he gathered from 986 sperm whales on a 5 1/2-year, round-the-world journey.

His discovery, with a partner in the late 1960s, that humpback whales sing songs provided an ethereal soundtrack for the animal conservation movement, But the final gift is not going to be music to the ears. Because sitting inside those biopsy samples is the first overall baseline assessment of pollution in the world's oceans. "What we've analyzed so far," Payne said, "is shocking. It's well beyond any degree of pollutants that I thought would exist."

Payne, 72, the founder and president of the Lincoln-based Ocean Alliance, is getting ready for his Al Gore moment. Once all the samples have been analyzed - the nonprofit conservation advocacy group needs about $1 million dollars in additional funding to complete the job - Payne is going to make it his mission to spread another inconvenient truth.

"If we don't do something about ocean pollution," Payne said from the study of his hillside home in South Woodstock, Vt., "I think there's a very good chance that humanity will lose access to fish from the sea. And because seafood is the principal source of protein for over a billion people, you could easily argue that this is the largest public health crisis in the world."

EDIT

http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2008/01/07/he_sounds_alarm_on_polluted_oceans/

[tom_paine]

1. So many catastrophes and clamitities vying for largest XXXXXX crisis in the world

Maybe we should start an awards show, like the Oscars for Impending Global Catastrophes.

Maybe wake up the "Brittany Spears newshound" types with a lavish awards show with expensive production values.

:rofl: