Pratica di Shadowing: Save the Whales! | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW - Impara a parlare inglese con i video
Creazione lezione...
1
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
2
Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
3
I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too.
4
And we are going crunchy, granola even today, talking about saving the whales, which, Chuck, I don't know about you,
5
but for me, that was like a big part of my childhood.
6
So this is a little bit nostalgic for me.
7
Yeah, I mean, if you're insinuating I grew up under a rock in the 1970s, that is not the case.
8
You did live on a gravel road.
9
That's true.
10
There were rocks involved.
11
I lived among rocks.
12
But yeah, I mean, I would go out on a limb and say that,
13
well, this article says Save the Whales is one of the most successful environmental conservation movements in history.
14
But from my mouth to thine ears, I'm going to say I think the Save the Whales campaign
15
is one of the most effective marketing campaigns across any genre in history.
16
Wow.
17
Wow.
18
It was that ubiquitous.
19
Yeah, it was super ubiquitous.
20
I think you caught more of it than me, even.
21
Like, the stuff that I caught was a little bit of the after wash.
22
I don't know.
23
Like, remember that thing?
24
You were living a—well, no, it was still a thing.
25
Yeah, yeah.
26
But I think the peak, I missed the peak and you were living right through it.
27
Because the 70s were like when this really started to ramp up big time.
28
And I'm sure plenty of people out there have heard Save the Whales.
29
And it is like a pretty ubiquitous slogan.
30
Used to be even more ubiquitous, like we're saying.
31
But despite that, there wasn't like one person or group that you're like, yep, they started Save the Whales.
32
It almost just kind of bubbled up into the collective consciousness.
33
and a bunch of different groups kind of started doing the same thing, sometimes working together, other times doing it independently.
34
But the whole goal was to preserve declining whale populations from extinction,
35
and they all were kind of under the same banner of save the whales.
36
Yeah, and we're going to talk a little bit about the actual saving of the whales.
37
We're going to talk a little bit about that campaign slogan and how that was a thing.
38
But if you want to talk about just the word, save the whales, that did not come about in the 1970s.
39
That became a thing.
40
And I mean, the phrase dates back to the 1800s, like the 1880s.
41
But it really became a thing in the 1920s when whale conservation was first a little flicker on the radar of, I mean, what would be early conservationists.
42
But in 1928, there was a mammologist group that had a Save the Whales meeting in Washington,
43
D .C., and that's when it really kicked off as far as, like,
44
you know, there were buttons and there was a satirical poem written about how ubiquitous it was in the 1920s and 30s.
45
So it was definitely a big thing early on.
46
Yeah, and in those articles, I think Anna helped us with this one.
47
She dug up some articles from the 20s about those meetings, And they were likening saving the whales to the bison populations that almost went extinct,
48
you know, just a few decades before.
49
So the lesson was learned by some.
50
And they're like, these whales aren't going to be around much longer either.
51
And it wasn't just the U .S.
52
It spread around the world like other countries started kind of their own save the whale initiatives.
53
It was clear that we were over whaling.
54
And yet, despite that, in the 1920s and 30s, whaling was still generally antiquated.
55
It was still the kind of whaling that you think of like New Bedford, Massachusetts, like the salty old sea dog with the peg leg and a spear in his other hand,
56
a pipe, maybe even a parrot, like out there whaling with a harpoon that he's using with his hands.
57
They killed a lot of whales like that, but it was nothing compared to the industrial whaling that started in like the middle of the 20th century.
58
Yeah, I mean, they started having, you know, literal cannons mounted on the side of a ship that would shoot exploding harpoons.
59
And by the 60s, they were taking 80 ,000 whales a year.
60
Blue whales neared extinction, plenty of others in like grave danger.
61
I am taking my first trip to Nantucket this summer.
62
And that is, they have a whaling museum there that I'm going to go to.
63
I've never even been to that part of the country, really.
64
So I'm eager to go and not to celebrate whaling, but just as a sort of historical museum kind of thing.
65
Emily has already said that she won't be going.
66
No, I can understand that.
67
It would be kind of hard to take for sure.
68
Yeah, but I mean, I imagine it's fairly interesting.
69
It's just a blip in time.
70
But it's not, I doubt if they're trying to sell you on whaling.
71
Or at least I hope not.
72
Right, right.
73
Remember when.
74
Yeah.
75
That's great about Nantucket.
76
That is like to dirty limericks what Enya is to crosswords.
77
Wow.
78
Yeah.
79
Yeah.
80
That's a nice pull.
81
So a good comparison here is like, like I said, New Bedford, Massachusetts, that area, Nantucket, Cape Cod, I guess.
82
Sure.
83
They, they, this was like the seat of whaling internationally in like the mid 19th century.
84
And over this, basically this decade of American dominance of whaling, they took 100 ,000 whales.
85
Now, what you're saying is that by the 60s, they're taking almost that amount in one year, not a decade.
86
That's how much it had gotten stepped up.
87
And if the people in the 20s
88
and the 30s were worried about whales going extinct before using the kind of antiquated original whaling techniques, this new stuff was really a threat to them.
89
Yeah, for sure.
90
And, you know, the 70s, it sort of merged with the post -60s crunchiness to really become a big thing.
91
But going back to the 30s, in 1930, on the nose, the League of Nations got together and established the Bureau of International Whaling Statistics just
92
so they could see if it truly was a bison situation.
93
And a year later, they're like, yep, it's pretty bad.
94
They're declining big time.
95
And so 22 nations signed an agreement at the Geneva Convention that year for the regulation of whaling to put some limits.
96
And that was kind of the first move was in 1931.
97
You know what else I saw, too?
98
It's something else that saved the whales in the first, I guess, first half of the 20th century was the invention of the light bulb
99
because people didn't need whale oil for lamps anymore.
100
Yeah.
101
I mean, I guess we should say that they whaled because that blubber was oil for lamps and people also ate it.
102
And also, you know, we're not going to not talk about indigenous populations where it's, you know, they depended on that stuff for sustenance and some still do.
103
So, yeah, that's why they whaled.
104
Well, also, that's why some of these early, I guess, international agreements on conserving whale stocks were created,
105
not because they're like whaling's wrong.
106
They were like, we need to be able to keep whaling in the future.
107
So let's not overdo it now.
108
Now, let's figure out what is a sustainable amount.
109
That's what the earliest agreements were for.
110
Yeah, let's stop whaling some so we can keep whaling.
111
Exactly.
112
So that was the first one, 31.
113
37 came along and 10 nations signed on to another one called the International Agreement for the Regulation of Whaling.
114
Also put some more limits.
115
It banned blue humpback, fin, and sperm whales under certain lengths.
116
But it was still declining.
117
So in 1946, the International Whaling Commission, they just keep starting these commissions and getting member countries on board.
118
And it's really not making much of a difference.
119
Right.
120
And they did that in 46 again with 14 member nations.
121
But the 46 one, you know, aligned or I guess the 37 aligned with World War Two.
122
So they they were like, we can't go without this oil like at this time.
123
So it just it didn't really have any teeth.
124
Yeah.
125
Not not only that, they needed like meat.
126
So they they weren't in a position in the world wasn't in a position after World War II to be like, no, let's not let's stop taking this meat like like whale
127
meat fed a lot of people who didn't have access to other kinds of protein from World War II.
128
So, yeah, those agreements were kind of like, no, this this isn't going to work right now.
129
And then as things started to ramp up, because now there was a much bigger market that hadn't been there before for whale meat, like a global market.
130
That's why it became this industrial factory farming, like, version of whaling, right?
131
So, because there was just a lot more money to be made.
132
So the people who finally started the Save the Whales campaign of the 70s had a really huge hill to climb.
133
The biggest hill anyone who was against whaling itself ever had to climb in the history of whaling.
134
Yeah, for sure.
135
But it was, like I said, kind of the right time coming out of the 60s.
136
There were a lot more just sort of environmental concerns popping up.
137
The EPA was a little more in the limelight.
138
And it was just there was more awareness of that kind of thing.
139
And there was a big perspective shift that happened that was much, much different from those earlier ones, like you were saying, where it was like, let's conserve so we can keep whaling.
140
Like, this was a legitimate like, hey, these things we're realizing are intelligent.
141
And that started happening in the 1950s, like finding out that whales were smart.
142
Yeah.
143
Thanks to a Navy engineer named Frank Watlington was a really big change.
144
Well, yeah, he he liked to I almost have the sense that it was in his spare time record with a hydrophone,
145
the underwater sounds of the Navy like shooting off bombs.
146
And he accidentally caught some whale songs of some baleen whales.
147
And he was like, this is I've not heard stuff like this before.
148
It seems like there's a pattern to it or a rhythm or they keep coming back to like a chorus.
149
I don't know.
150
So he gave it to some marine biologists who actually took it and released it as an album in 1970, Songs of the Humpback Whale.
151
Have you listened to it?
152
Oh, yeah.
153
Like most of my adult life.
154
Yeah.
155
It's just so mellow.
156
It's so ambient that you're like, wait, did they add some synth here?
157
And no, it's just nothing but whale songs, right?
158
Yeah.
159
Brian Eno had nothing to do with it.
160
Right.
161
So I can't imagine this was released in 1970.
162
I can't imagine between 1970 and 1980 how much acid was dropped listening to the album songs of the humpback whale.
163
Man, it was like made for it.
164
So maybe I think this has got to be fair use.
165
We can just play a short snippet just so people can hear a piece.
166
Yeah?
167
Okay, sure.
168
Let's give it a shot.
169
All right, here we go, everybody, with Songs of the Humpback Whale on SYSK.
170
Here is part of the same song played at its natural speed and pitch, just the way other whales hear it.
171
All the sounds are made by one whale, both the high squeaky tones and the low rumbly ones.
172
wow what an album right yeah i mean it's uh the only multi -platinum album of Animal Sounds, which is completely believable.
173
Yeah, I can't imagine there's too many more.
174
Yeah, I mean, it actually became a huge hit.
175
It's the only multi -platinum album of Animal Sounds, which I guess now they think about it is completely believable.
176
Right, but if you just go listen to it, it's only like a half hour or so long.
177
I think it's a, it says Songs of the Humpback Whale, but there's so many different songs that I'm like, there's gotta be different species involved.
178
It's just neat, just go listen.
179
Yeah, it's super cool.
180
And the whole point of it all was is that it raised awareness.
181
People were all of a sudden like, wait, these like scientists said, I think they're communicating here and they're super smart, like Chuck would later say in a podcast.
182
And so Save the Whales campaign all of a sudden had a had a kind of different rallying cry, which is like, hey, we're you know, these aren't just big, dumb logs floating around in the ocean.
183
These are really super smart animals to be protected.
184
Right.
185
And so in environmental ease, they became ambassador animals for the ocean as a whole.
186
This is now an animal that you can make people care about.
187
And now we have to go get the word out.
188
And by saving whales, you're also going to save everything else in the whales ecosystem that you're working to preserve.
189
That's right.
190
Should we take a break?
191
Yeah, I was about to say the same thing.
192
So Jinx, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
193
You owe me nine Cokes.
194
Oh, gosh.
195
All right.
196
I'm going to go to the store and we'll be right back.
197
all right we're back everybody after a delay that you don't need to even know about, right?
198
It's our business.
199
Yeah, none -ya.
200
So Save the Whales is kicked off in the 70s, and I think you mentioned earlier on, it's, you know, sometimes it was in parallel with one another.
201
It wasn't like just one group doing this, but everyone got on board with those same three words because it was a very unifying thing.
202
And this is sort of a loose timeline of how it started, And it kicked off in 1971
203
when the Animal Welfare Institute got together with the Fund for
204
Animals to officially launch the 1970s version of the Save the Whales campaign.
205
And they started doing things like, you know, going to teachers' conventions, you know, sending out, you know,
206
information and mailers and placing ads and saying like, hey, maybe we should boycott whaling nations, that kind of stuff.
207
Right.
208
Yeah.
209
In just a few years, they started a pretty big boycott.
210
I think in 1974, they said no Japanese goods, no Russian goods.
211
Yes, we're even talking about vodka.
212
They had to say that a lot.
213
Yeah.
214
And I think 18 other groups signed on.
215
And I think five million Americans said, yes, no Russian goods, no Japanese goods.
216
Let's save the whales.
217
Hot damn. For real.
218
They got benefit concerts together.
219
I know David Bowie in 1972, he headlined a very famous Save the Whales benefit concert.
220
You know, of course, Greenpeace would get on board early on, although they would get on board two years after it started with their Project Ahab, which was a little surprising.
221
They're like, no, wait, what about the panda?
222
I thought we were all doing the panda.
223
They're like, that's later.
224
We'll do the panda next.
225
We're going to save the whales now.
226
Finally, Greenpeace came around.
227
Yeah.
228
And, you know, a lot of this early stuff was very just sort of local roots oriented, like in the mid 70s,
229
the Connecticut Cetacean Society just like literally went from town to town in Connecticut with Save the Whales events.
230
And places like Mendocino, California had the Mendocino Whale Festival and founded the Mendocino Whale War.
231
So it's like, you know, and this is where whaling is taking place, mainly in these like sort of little small coastal towns.
232
So it wasn't like, you know, we're going to go to New York City
233
and have this big event like they were doing it where it was going on.
234
Yeah.
235
And there were like different ways of doing this some were
236
like we want to go like basically confront whaling ships where
237
they're whaling other people are like let's just we just need to raise awareness
238
and raise money and um all like it wasn't like this this thing
239
that i'm doing is the right way to do it it was like okay you're going to do
240
that i'll handle this over here
241
and all together we're going to save the whales even though
242
there wasn't like necessarily a lot of coordination going on it
243
was just you know you kind of look to your left and see somebody like trying to save the whales with you.
244
And you just kind of give them like a finger gun and a wink and be like right on.
245
Yeah, for sure.
246
I mean, they proposed moratoriums and stuff like that.
247
And we'll get into the weeds about how that actually went down in a little bit.
248
But one of the big things that happened in the 70s was that t -shirt.
249
In 1977, there was a woman named Maris Seidenstecker, who had been selling these shirts for like three years, like really successfully since I think 1974.
250
And she was 16 years old and in 77 founded, because of the success of these t -shirts, founded her own conservation group called Save the Whales.
251
Yeah, she had a small ad in Rolling Stone, just this recurring ad, and that's how she got the word out about the t -shirts.
252
And then one other thing I saw about her, she was named Maris Seidenstecker II because her mother was Maris Seidenstecker I.
253
That's unusual, but pretty cool.
254
Yeah, usually that would be Junior.
255
Well, you just don't usually see that with women.
256
It's mostly men, you know?
257
Well, it's because men are the only people who think their name means something.
258
Well, sure.
259
The Seidensticker women stuck their thumb in the eye of the patriarchy is what they did.
260
You put it on this building or on my parking spot.
261
So let's talk about some of the tactics they took.
262
Like I said, you'd look to your left, look to your right.
263
All these people are taking these different approaches to it.
264
It's all about saving the whales.
265
One of the easiest ones is to just kind of go to the kids.
266
Because as we'll see, if you can go to the younger generation, that's like the long game that you're playing.
267
But it's also the one that's more likely to pay off.
268
If you teach little kids that whales are smart, that they live in families, that they care about their babies just like your mom cares about you,
269
those kids are going to grow up to see whales as not something that you kill for blubber or meat,
270
but something that you need to protect from people who want to kill them for their blubber or meat.
271
Yeah, for sure.
272
So that was, you know, that's kind of the starting point, I think, is just educating the children, the children's.
273
We already talked about, obviously, you know, public events like concerts and protests and boycotts.
274
The merchandising, like the T -shirt, like that's that's not just like, hey, let me make this shirt like bumper stickers and shirts
275
and buttons are a big part of any kind of movement like that.
276
Yeah.
277
One thing, you mentioned that Bowie concert.
278
I saw somebody was writing about it, and they said, like, this was the concert that made David Bowie like a superstar.
279
Like, he was on the rise, and that concert was where he turned the corner.
280
Hmm.
281
What year was it?
282
72. Okay.
283
It was supposedly a pretty good concert.
284
He had Lou Reed on stage, and they played Sweet Jane and, like, two other songs I've never heard of.
285
Yeah.
286
It seemed like it probably was pretty cool.
287
I wish I could have been there.
288
That's a big regret for me is Bowie.
289
He's on the short list of dudes I never got to see and had a chance to, you know.
290
He's on the Time Machine list?
291
Yeah, like a really regrettable one because he was around and playing shows that, you know, I never was like, no, I'm not going to go to that.
292
But it wasn't like, you know, Queen stopped playing shows.
293
That's another one on my list.
294
But they stopped playing shows in Atlanta when I was, I don't even think they played there after I was like seeing concerts.
295
So, you know.
296
I see.
297
I see.
298
So that's not as regrettable as Bowie.
299
Yeah, because I had the chance to see Bowie and did not take it.
300
I understand.
301
I was like, he's never going to leave us, is what I thought.
302
Right.
303
Bowie will never die.
304
Bowie rules.
305
Bowie lives.
306
Yeah, very sad.
307
So one of the tactics that actually kind of emerged from this Greenpeace is like, we need to catch up.
308
We got to come up with our own kind of brand of doing this.
309
And they came up with a term for it.
310
They called it the mind bomb.
311
Yeah.
312
Which is basically like...
313
Now, yeah, it is very corny.
314
Nowadays, you're like, well, yeah, that's of course you're going to do something like that if you're you're an activist campaigning, you know, to say save an animal.
315
The mind bomb was basically like showing people unfiltered photographs of what is actually going on.
316
Yeah.
317
And that's what they did.
318
They released a lot of photographs to the press internationally of whaling in action
319
so that people could see how brutal it was.
320
They made it no longer just a concept that people heard about, save the whales, save the whales.
321
Now they could see for themselves why people were saying save the whales because they were being brutalized by humans.
322
Yeah, and there was one particular adventure that they went on
323
that kind of started it all and was in newspapers all over the country.
324
It was in April of 1975 aboard the Phyllis McCormick boat.
325
Twelve activists got on that boat, and they spent a couple of months out at sea trying to find some whaling boats.
326
Finally, in June, they caught up with a Russian fleet off the coast of California
327
and just kind of followed it around for a little while, like using bullhorns and loudspeakers in Russian to beg them to stop killing whales,
328
play like blast music at them and stuff.
329
And that wasn't working.
330
So eventually they were like, all right, we need to step it up just a little bit.
331
And so they got it on those little rubber speed boats, like the little raft boats, and followed it around like a lot closer
332
that you could do in those boats and like took some pretty horrifying pictures that, like, made a, like, these close -up pictures of harpooning whales made a big, big difference in the campaign.
333
Yeah, I saw just, like, that Bowie concert being where he turned the corner, supposedly.
334
This is where the Save the Whales effort really turned a corner, too.
335
Like, it was, again, international news.
336
There were plenty of newspapers that put some of the pictures on their front page, and, like, it just really kind of captured people's attention.
337
And so that whole mind bomb idea really kind of took off and spread, not just from Greenpeace, but, you know, to other groups, not just animal conservationists.
338
And Greenpeace continued on.
339
The ship that I grew up with that they used to do this with was the Rainbow Warrior.
340
Remember that one?
341
Oh, yeah.
342
And by the way, for a second there, a minute ago, I thought you were going to say, like the Bowie thing, this is where photography really took off.
343
Right, exactly. In 1975.
344
Yeah, I was like, oh, man, is that what's coming?
345
Yeah, Yeah, I totally remember the Rainbow Warrior.
346
I didn't know you grew up on that boat, but that's pretty cool.
347
Yeah, yeah.
348
My dad was a mate.
349
He was a matey on the Rainbow Warrior for many, many years.
350
We had to basically peel him off of the deck and be like, go get a different job.
351
So he became an HVAC engineer eventually.
352
We need to shout out Australia because they had a Greenpeace affiliate called the Whale and Dolphin Coalition that was, like you said, kind of doing the same thing.
353
They were like, hey, this is a really effective deal.
354
So let's get out there.
355
And we didn't say why I thought it was corny.
356
Mind bomb is because they would blow people's minds.
357
Exactly.
358
With their pictures. For sure.
359
And they did.
360
But again, it is a very corny way to put it.
361
That's right.
362
But that would be stepped up even more because, you know, Greenpeace gets a little more aggressive.
363
And then there's always one more like the Brad Pitt group in 12 Monkeys.
364
It's like, no, they're not even taking it far enough.
365
If we need to actually, well, I guess sort of engage in sabotage.
366
Yeah, this this one I associate with the 90s, the Sea Shepherd.
367
They were a conservation society founded, I think, in 1977 by a guy named Paul Watson, who had been a Greenpeace member.
368
It was like, you guys are corny.
369
I'm out of here.
370
I'm going to do something like like actually significant, not just follow whalers around and take pictures.
371
He followed whalers around and tried to sink their boats by ramming his own boat into him.
372
And he was so successful, Chuck, that I propose we do a short stuff just on the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society itself.
373
They have sunk a lot of boats.
374
Yeah.
375
He said, mine bombs are effective.
376
Real bombs are more effective.
377
Pretty much.
378
I mean, they used at least one bomb on, I think, a ship called the Sierra, right?
379
Yeah.
380
Well, they rammed the Sierra a couple of times with their boat and damaged it.
381
And then a few years later, or no, I guess one year later, that was 79, in 1980 is when they planted an underwater bomb and sank that thing.
382
And like you said, many others.
383
Yeah.
384
And just to be clear, Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Society, they've never injured a single person.
385
Right.
386
They've never been indicted for breaking any law.
387
These are pirate whaling ships.
388
They're operating completely outside of the bounds of international like agreements.
389
Right.
390
Where they're hunting endangered species that are off the table they're taking whales
391
that are young
392
that shouldn't be taken um they're like taking more than they're supposed to like it's a it's a big deal
393
that these people are out there and that's that's why he's targeted them
394
and um he said that in an interview he's never lost a lawsuit that's been brought against him either.
395
So he's feeling pretty good about what he's doing.
396
Yeah, and this wasn't like, hey, we're going to...
397
I mean, it was definitely awareness, but it put an actual dent in the whaling industry.
398
They sank two of Spain's only five whaling ships.
399
And if I had a better math brain, I could figure out the percentage, but that's probably 40 -something.
400
So, yeah, another thing that he did, He would put out bounties on other pirate whaling ships.
401
There was one called the Astrid, and the owner of the Astrid eventually just sold it because he couldn't trust the crew anymore, that they weren't going to sabotage it and take the $25 ,000 reward,
402
because he definitely wasn't paying them $25 ,000, right?
403
And then there was one other thing that had this direct impact on whaling as an industry.
404
Just him being out there sinking ships made whaling ships' insurance rates go sky high.
405
So there were some that were like, I can't afford the insurance anymore.
406
I'm going to stop doing illegal whaling.
407
That's right.
408
And he also had that great line about mine bombs not being as effective as real bombs.
409
He also had one about loose lips.
410
And I think you can just fill in the rest.
411
That's right.
412
So they're making a lot of headway, you know, sinking these ships and raising awareness.
413
But, you know, we mentioned early on, like, just how big of a ubiquitous thing this was in the 70s.
414
And it was like a legitimate pop culture phenomenon.
415
I mean, it was it was right up there with like, where's the beef in the 1980s, ironically, as far as like slogans that people knew and wore on shirts
416
and put in songs like Judy Collins and Kate Bush both sampled that songs of the humpback whale as, you know, awareness.
417
And because it sounded cool, there was a Save the Whales board game in 1978.
418
And we can tell you firsthand if you have made it to board game territory, then you're part of pop culture.
419
Yeah.
420
Apparently, I was reading about the rules.
421
Players are, they cooperate rather than compete with one another to save the whales.
422
I like cooperative games.
423
I mean, that's definitely like difficult gameplay to come up with, I would guess.
424
Yeah, they couldn't be like, all right, who's going to play the whaler?
425
Right, exactly.
426
Everybody hates me.
427
Yeah.
428
What was the pinnacle of the whole thing, though, Chuck?
429
It came in 1986.
430
Oh, yeah.
431
Yeah, as everyone who's listening to the show knows, I know nothing of Star Trek, but I did know the plot, at least, of Star Trek,
432
what is that, 4, The Voyage Home, which is when the crew, Captain Kirk and his crew, went back to save the whales.
433
Yeah.
434
So that's, I mean, yeah.
435
A board game and a Star Trek, not a Star Trek episode, an entire Star Trek movie dedicated to saving a whale, saving the whales.
436
That was a pretty big deal.
437
So, yes, this thing spread, grew, metastasized, became part of just the regular culture.
438
There were comic strips that mentioned it.
439
Just the casual mentions of it, the way it came up, when you look back at it, you're like, yeah,
440
this was everywhere wear um i remember there's a simpsons where lisa develops a crush on nelson months
441
and she goes to visit him at his house
442
and he has a poster on the wall it says nuke the whales yeah
443
and she goes nuke the whales he's like gotta nuke something
444
save the news touche yeah i remember wearing uh we had
445
hippie day in high school uh once a year where you you know pretty self -explanatory
446
And there was a picture of me, I believe, in the yearbook wearing my little hippie outfit.
447
And my prop was a little Save the Whales sign.
448
So it was, you know, I wasn't stepping out and trying something original by any means.
449
It was like super.
450
And this was the mid to late 1980s at this point.
451
Right.
452
Underneath it said, Charles W.
453
Bryant shows off his hippie outfit.
454
Also, he's the best all around boy.
455
It probably said something like that, except for the last part.
456
Yeah, that was a big surprise for you.
457
Man, those yearbook captions.
458
They were pretty bad.
459
I remember we had a yearbook in high school where they misspelled tomorrow on the cover.
460
Did it say tomorrow?
461
It said T -O -M -M -O -R -R -O -W.
462
It's a too many M's.
463
Too many.
464
Yes, too many M's.
465
I have my hands over my eyes right now because I'm just cringing thinking about it.
466
Like, they were, this was printed, distributed before anybody noticed.
467
Like, they were done.
468
That is on the editor -in -chief.
469
And on the teacher advisor, too.
470
Yeah, the school sponsor. So, okay.
471
So, I think we've established Save the Whales, it spread throughout pop culture.
472
People's sympathies, like, definitely started to go toward the whales.
473
But where the rubber meets the road, is whaling going to stop?
474
You need to go to the people who oversee stuff like this, like entire governments and national bodies.
475
And just like they did in the 30s, they went back to the International Whaling Commission and said, hey, guys, what do you think about just stopping this?
476
And the U .N said, great idea.
477
And the IWC said, no. Yeah.
478
I mean, I think the first try was they proposed a 10 -year moratorium on whaling.
479
What year was that?
480
I don't have that in front of me.
481
It was 1972.
482
72. Okay, yeah.
483
So that was 72.
484
The next year in 73, the UN Conference on Human Environment basically said, yeah, 10 -year moratorium.
485
The IWC rejected it.
486
And then the next year in 74, the AWI called for a boycott of Japanese and Russian goods.
487
And that same year, 18 other conservation groups got on board with that boycott.
488
But again, it would take, I think, until 1982 before they got back to real like voting on moratoriums yeah um
489
so basically uh in 19 yeah in 1982 the IWC the
490
International Whaling Commission basically said let's take up this vote again I could not find what prompted this
491
so I just have to assume it was just general awareness of saving the whales
492
so they voted again on a moratorium and it actually passed this time.
493
And so they said, well, we'll give everybody four years to get ready.
494
But in the 1986 season, the quote was that the catch limits for the killing for commercial purposes of whales from all stocks,
495
any kind of whale, that's just me adding that parenthetical, shall be zero.
496
No whales going to be killed in the 1986 whaling season.
497
And it passed.
498
25 nations said, yay.
499
Seven said nay.
500
Yeah.
501
And it came into effect in 1986.
502
And the thing was, Chuck, it was originally just going to be a temporary measure.
503
And just like in the tradition of the IWC and other whaling commissions, the point was to allow the whale stocks to replenish themselves so you could get back to whaling.
504
But they never lifted the moratorium.
505
It's just continued indefinitely.
506
Yeah, for sure.
507
Should we talk about some of these stats and then take our second break?
508
Oh, my gosh.
509
We haven't taken our second break?
510
We have not.
511
Okay.
512
Yeah, definitely.
513
All right.
514
So it had a big impact, obviously, these moratoriums.
515
At its peak in the 1960s, I think I mentioned they were killing about 80 ,000 whales a year.
516
In 2023, the IWC estimated that 825 whales, down from 80 ,000, were killed by,
517
you know, obviously only nations that object to the moratorium.
518
And we'll get to those after the break.
519
And also, we should point out, this doesn't include sort of the indigenous subsistence whaling that continues.
520
Or I think kind of leaving that alone, right?
521
Yeah.
522
I mean, that only totaled 368 across four different indigenous groups in three different countries that year.
523
So all told, there was about 1 ,200 whales killed.
524
And like you said, down from 80 ,000.
525
Yeah.
526
And since 1978, blue whale populations have increased about 8 .2 % per year.
527
Bowhead about 3 .7 per year.
528
So humpbacks I mentioned in Act I were close to extinction.
529
I think in the 1960s, there might have been as few as 5 ,000.
530
And those babies are back over 80 ,000 now.
531
Yeah.
532
So let's take our break, Chuck, and we'll come back and talk about how whaling still continues, unfortunately.
533
All right.
534
We'll be right back.
535
All right, we're back.
536
And I think we've kind of alluded to it a couple of times, but we are not indigenous whaling using traditional methods for subsistence
537
is in no way in the crosshairs of basically anybody who is opposed to whaling right?
538
They don't even have crosshairs.
539
Like people actually use the whales that they kill to feed themselves throughout the winter and stuff like that, right?
540
Nobody's really got problems with that.
541
It's commercial whaling, the industrial whaling.
542
That's what everyone has a problem with.
543
And it's still going on.
544
Some stocks that actually did come back have started to become depleted again.
545
And the way that it's going on is because some countries said, we're lodging an objection, and we aren't going to comply with the whaling moratorium.
546
Those countries were Iceland, Norway, and Japan.
547
I should say are, because they're all still doing that.
548
And rather than Japan saying, we're just going to whale for commercial purposes, they, for some reason, hid behind this one exception that was made in the moratorium,
549
that you could kill whales for scientific purposes,
550
ostensibly to study them to help preserve the whales basically right and japan's like yeah every whale we kill um
551
using all of our commercial fleet.
552
We're just studying that for science.
553
And that's just not what they've been doing.
554
No, which is super shameful.
555
And here's the other thing is there's two big points we're going to kind of hammer home here is in 2026,
556
not many people at all are eating whale meat and they aren't making a lot of money doing this.
557
So they've done studies.
558
Only 2 % of Norwegians reported eating whale meat at least once a month.
559
Consumption of whale meat in Japan is 1 % of what it was from its peak in the 1960s.
560
And so in 2006, Greenpeace was like, we need to get some independent research together.
561
So they commissioned from the independent Nippon Research Center a study
562
that found that 95 % of Japanese people very rarely
563
or never eat whale meat
564
and their stockpile they have a stockpile of uneaten frozen whale meat
565
and it doubled between 2002 and 2012 so like it's this old it seems like it's this older generation of nostalgia
566
kind of digging in
567
and all of this younger generation is just like just you
568
know once they die out like no one's eating this stuff
569
anymore yeah they probably won't be whaling in 20 years is one way to look at it.
570
Unless there's some weird revival of a taste for whale meat among younger generations, which doesn't seem likely, there's really the younger people are not into whale meat.
571
The older people are because it's nostalgia food
572
that takes them back to their childhood and post -World War II when people ate a lot of whale meat.
573
Norway is basically the same way.
574
Norway, so few people eat whale in Norway that basically 100 percent of Norway's whale catch is exported to Japan.
575
And like you said, they're not even really eating it.
576
Right.
577
And Japan is like they have that stockpile.
578
The reason they have a stockpile is because the Japanese government
579
subsidizes its whaling industry to the tune of 50 million dollars a year.
580
So that means that if you whale, you have a total guarantee that the Japanese government will buy the whale meat that you come and sell them.
581
And the Japanese government just basically puts it in a freezer.
582
So those whales died for nothing except for a handful of people that make some money.
583
And like you said, the amount of money
584
that we're talking about is relatively paltry when you're talking about an entire global industry.
585
Yeah, there was in 2018, the U .S.
586
Naval Institute put out an article that said the global revenue, like the entire world whaling industry revenue is about 31 million bucks.
587
And in 2012, and this is really going to drive it home, Norway's largest whaling company made a gross revenue of $1 .3 million.
588
And they, along with the lobby and the government, spent about four times as much on campaigns to try to
589
get people to eat whale meat than they even netted with their nation's largest whaling company.
590
Right.
591
So, and it's not like
592
if they were making 31 billion that'd be a different thing forget the whales are making a bunch of money
593
but like this should be
594
so easily overcome any reasonable person it seems like who cares
595
about animal life would be like guys what are you doing
596
you're killing whales for 31 million dollars a year just stop we can't find anything else to do right
597
and japan seems to oppose it
598
because they resent the international pressure that's been put on them over the years yeah norway seems to oppose
599
because they have some non -indigenous coastal communities who have a tradition of whaling
600
that they're just basically trying to keep this custom alive for these small coastal communities.
601
And again, like I understand some people make their living like this, but it's not like this is an amount of money
602
that could be subsidized in other ways by the government
603
that could spare the whales' lives while also employing people at the same rates that they're being employed by the whaling industry.
604
Yeah.
605
And Japan, spite is not a good reason to keep whaling.
606
It's true.
607
Like, oh, we don't like this international pressure.
608
Everyone's trying to get us to stop that.
609
So we're not going to stop it just because you want us to.
610
I know Norway, I think they eventually stopped in recent years subsidizing the whaling industry.
611
And I think in past years, that was about half the entire value of the annual catch.
612
So it's going to definitely be going down in Norway
613
and you know you got enough in your freezer japan so like if you want to eat it eat that
614
right yeah i mean it's just it's bizarre
615
and it doesn't seem like the japanese it doesn't seem like something they would do
616
but it is an interesting uh conundrum from what everything i know about japanese culture
617
and people but you know i guess this is you know a small part of that culture, you know?
618
Yeah.
619
Everybody's got a little spite to them, right?
620
I mean, I know I do.
621
So, unfortunately, even if we just completely eradicate whaling, which, again, I predict is going to happen in 20 years, within 20 years.
622
God, I hope I'm right.
623
There are other threats to whales that have become, like, even bigger.
624
Like, global warming's a big one.
625
Bycatch.
626
So, like, a lot of whales die because they end up in nets that are meant to catch other stuff, like tuna.
627
So, I think a lot of them die that way more than are hunted.
628
And then, um, ghost fishing.
629
Remember we did an episode on ghost fishing.
630
Um, that's a big problem for whales as well.
631
You know, ordinarily in the past, Josh, I would have said, well, in 20 years, we'll let you know.
632
But if I'm still doing this show at 75 years old, then I'm not going to say something has gone really right.
633
That means something has gone really wrong.
634
Okay.
635
Officially.
636
Fair enough.
637
I'm with you on that one.
638
I'm not announcing my retirement
639
but i'm not gonna do this till i'm 75 okay all right i'll hold you to
640
that 72 73 no no one wants to hear abe simpson um
641
so i guess that's it one one challenge for conservationists now
642
chuck i have to say is um like you can't just
643
say stop global warming stop bycatch stop ghost fishing there's all these different things with before it was stop whaling
644
and it was very successful.
645
Like you said, it's often compared to the ozone layer being tackled.
646
The whales were definitely saved, but there's still now other problems that we have to work on too.
647
Yeah.
648
I mean, if you had, you'd have to have a t -shirt collection about bycatch and global warming and everything else.
649
Save the whales really just encapsulated everything nicely.
650
Or yeah, or you could put it all on one t -shirt, but you just walk around with a magnifying glass a hand to people
651
so they could read your t -shirt yeah
652
or maybe it just says equals
653
and then on the back save the whales nice nice um
654
i think that's it chuck just kind of dropped his mic you couldn't hear it
655
because jerry edited it out but i heard it uh and that means it's time for listener mail
656
all right we also took another break while i reattached my mic uh and i'm going to read this one.
657
Hey guys, near the end of your recent middle class episode, you discussed greenwashed recycling programs.
658
And Chuck, I'm sad to say and confirm that your instincts regarding car battery recycling are correct.
659
I've sent you an investigative piece by the New York Times, which uncovered the reality of the recycling of batteries, namely that they are collected, shipped on freighters to another continent,
660
and then manually broken down by an exploited workforce rather than
661
tree recycling it seems more of a resource harvesting where many of the components are smelted down in ways
662
that pollute the surrounding area and cause a lot of illness
663
sadly i'm not sure where this leaves any of us as to a better alternative
664
when replacing our batteries that is from gabby who says thanks for many years of learnings and companionship
665
man why is everything so evil i know it's sort of sort of not a great time to be alive You know, I've kind of come to the same conclusion, Chuck.
666
Very interesting time to be alive, but I think I would trade interesting for stable and calm and happy and not so evil.
667
Yeah, that's the t -shirt.
668
Equals save the Josh.
669
That's right.
670
Well, if you want to be like Gabby, thanks a lot, Gabby.
671
If you want to be like Gabby and send us an email that's a total downer,
672
we're open to those kind of things you can send it off to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio .com
673
Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio For more podcasts from iHeartRadio visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts
674
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
📺 Stesso Canale
✨ Video consigliato
B21
574 frasi
#985 - Avocado Crime - The Daily Talk Show
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B229
81 frasi
How to Save Our Planet
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
65 frasi
Snowclones and Clichés and Memes, Oh My! | Otherwords
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
43 frasi
What If You Were Swallowed ALIVE by a 60-Foot Sperm Whale?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2306 frasi
How I Built A $100M Podcast
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B11
420 frasi
Learn English with FINDING NEMO — Dory Speaks Whale
Business EnglishDaily ConversationHigh School Students
B11
462 frasi
I Saved Live Animals From an Asian Food Market!
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
142 frasi
The Internet Didn't Fail. It Was Taken.
American AccentBusiness EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B21
393 frasi
Chatterbox #311 – The Taylor Swift effect
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B26
310 frasi
Why Scientists Are Warning Us About Everyday Plastics | 60 Minutes Australia
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
47 frasi
The Parrot Whisperer Can Fix Your Bird Woes
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
251 frasi
The Reusable Water Bottle Trend is DEAD
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
Vocabolario e note di pronuncia per questa lezione
Questo video contiene 674 frasi e 7656 parole da ripetere con lo shadowing. Il parlato dura 44:10. Chi parla ha un ritmo naturale di circa 173 parole al minuto, vicino a una conversazione quotidiana. Il 82% delle parole rientra nelle 3.000 più comuni dell’inglese; conviene studiare le altre prima di iniziare.
Vocaboli chiave di questo video
15 parole del video che vale la pena imparare, con pronuncia e significato:
| Parola | Pronuncia | Significato |
|---|---|---|
| whale sostantivo | /ˈweɪl/ | balena |
| chuck verbo | /t͡ʃʌk/ | tirare, scaricare |
| awareness sostantivo | /əˈwɛɹ.nəs/ | coscienza |
| sink verbo | /ˈsɪŋk/ | affondare, sprofondare |
| indigenous aggettivo | /ɪnˈdɪd͡ʒənəs/ | innato, congenito |
| boycott sostantivo | /ˈbɔɪkɑt/ | boicottaggio |
| ghost sostantivo | /ɡoʊst/ | fantasma, spettro |
| decline verbo | /dɪˈklaɪn/ | declinare |
| coastal aggettivo | /ˈkoʊstəl/ | costiero, litoraneo |
| preserve verbo | /pɹəˈzɝv/ | preservare, proteggere |
| sudden aggettivo | /ˈsʌd.ən/ | improvviso |
| regulation sostantivo | /ˌɹɛɡjʊˈleɪʃən/ | regola |
| fleet sostantivo | /ˈfliːt/ | flotta |
| spare aggettivo | /spɛɚ/ | superfluo, ulteriore |
| photograph sostantivo | /ˈfoʊ.təˌɡɹæf/ | fotografia, foto |
I phrasal verb che sentirai
| Parola | Pronuncia | Significato |
|---|---|---|
| come up with verbo | ideare, escogitare | |
| come back verbo | tornare | |
| figure out verbo | scoprire, rendersi conto | |
| take off verbo | togliere | |
| come around verbo | /kʌ.məˈɹaʊnd/ | ripensarsi, tornare in sé |
| come up verbo | venire fuori, emergere | |
| find out verbo | scoprire | |
| grow up verbo | crescere |
La grammatica di questo video
Le strutture che chi parla usa di più, con le parole esatte del video:
| Struttura | Nel video |
|---|---|
| Frasi condizionali if + frase, will/would + verbo — una condizione e il suo risultato | if they were making 31 billion that'd be · if you had, you'd have |
| “Used to” used to + verbo — un’abitudine o uno stato passato che non è più vero | Used to be · used to do |
| Present perfect have/has + participio passato — un’azione passata che conta ancora adesso | have heard · I've never even been · has already said |
| Forma passiva be + participio passato — conta ciò che accade, non chi lo fa | was learned · were created · be made |
Pronuncia a cui fare attenzione
Chi parla usa 161 contrazioni e forme ridotte, come I'm, they're, we're. Pronunciale nella forma breve, così come le senti.
- I suoni “th”: mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, rhythm /ˈɹɪð.əm/
- I suoni “sh” e “zh”: conservation /ˌkɑnsə(ɹ)ˈveɪʃən/, extinction /ɪkˈstɪŋkʃən/, regulation /ˌɹɛɡjʊˈleɪʃən/, gosh /ɡɑːʃ/, sabotage /ˈsæb.əˌtɑʒ/
- Parole lunghe — attenzione all’accento: conservation /ˌkɑnsə(ɹ)ˈveɪʃən/, indigenous /ɪnˈdɪd͡ʒənəs/, regulation /ˌɹɛɡjʊˈleɪʃən/, legitimate /lɪˈd͡ʒɪt.ɪ.mət/, supposedly /səˈpoʊ̯.zɪd.li/
Come esercitarsi con questo video
- Ascolta tutto il video una volta senza parlare e annota le parole che non conosci.
- Inizia a velocità 0,75×, fai shadowing frase per frase e torna alla velocità normale quando diventa facile.
- Registrati e confronta con l’originale, facendo attenzione a parole come whale, chuck, awareness.
Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?
Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.