13 Comments

Brilliant! Distressing. Reinforced my curmudgeonly dislike of our own species. Let's get off this planet, move to Mars and let this planet heal itself up. We're so stupid, it's painful..

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From one pale flotsam to another, this is brilliant. I especially appreciate the good news links following the incredibly alarming and detailed information on ocean noise pollution. Thanks Jason.

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Hello fellow flotsam... Thank you as always, Maureen, for your thoughtful comments.

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Thank you, Jason! What a beautiful essay on this important topic.

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Hi Jane: Thank you for the kind words. This week's writing (and next week's!) tie in with the plight of the right whales, which is very much on my to-do list of topics.

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Thank you for another fascinating and thought provoking essay. And for the gathered news.

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Hi Rosie: So glad you're out there reading and appreciating my work. Thank you.

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Disturbing, essential reading.

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Thank you, Terry. That's an apt phrase. The point of the Field Guide is to say some essential things in a disturbing world.

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Thanks for this, Jason. Fine reporting. Noise and poetry don't mix, of course. So I'll offer this additional quote from Rachel Carson, delivered upon her receiving the National Book Award in 1952 for "The Sea Around Us":

“If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.”

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That's a beautiful Carson quote I had not seen, Bryan. Thank you. And having spent some years in the thick of poetry, I'll venture to say it can mix with anything. To a certain extent, it is itself a soundscape working to make deeper meaning out of noise. But more to your point, I think, our noise in the sea threatens its poetry, not least the incantations of the whales.

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Fascinating. Never thought of noise and ocean together like this. Thanks for this.

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Thank you, Sharif. This is one of those topics that's been percolating in the back of my mind for some time. But I'll admit to being surprised at what my research revealed, particularly the severity of impacts from airguns.

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