Mad Max, where are you now that we need you? By Joel Hovanesian
For decades, Richard Max Strahan has fought for and succeeded many times and was front and center in his quest to save the severely endangered right whales. He was a very outspoken critic of the commercial fisherman and the fishing industry in general, claiming that they were responsible for the dwindling number of whales along the Atlantic seaboard. Your actions and ideas have helped pave the way for many regulations that possibly helped this iconic animal, the jury’s still out on that. Regulations that cost millions of dollars to implement.
Today, the right whales and all marine life for that matter are under assault from a much more sinister threat. Ocean wind farms. Plans are in motion to electrify the entire east coast of the United States with gargantuan monstrosities the likes of which have never been seen anywhere on this planet, to produce electricity and send it to shore through massive high voltage transmission lines. I won’t get into the pros and cons about how green these projects actually are and how little we know about the ramifications of doing things in our oceans that have never been vetted here in America.
But one thing I do see is the silence. Or was the past outspokenness just a ploy to destroy the people and the industry that stood in the way of these giant multinational corporations that have had their sights on raping and industrializing one of our nation’s most important and healthiest food supplies in order for them to profit at the expense of those who would become dependent upon them?
Your belief in what you were doing was admirable, even if I didn’t totally agree with everything you said and did. You stood up and spoke.
Well sir it’s time to speak again. Until we the people can be absolutely sure that these projects are safe and will cause no harm to our marine environment, we must have answers. And not from paid mouthpieces from the government or from academia with their outcome-based science. It must be done by neutral nonbiased entities who have nothing to lose or gain.
