How Cool Tech is Saving the Whales
Unsung Science
CBS News
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 October 2023
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For the most part, we don’t hunt whales anymore, but we’re still killing them—mostly by driving ships into them. One species, the North Atlantic right whale, is now extinct in most parts of the world; only 340 are left. But it may not be too late. An extraordinary coalition of nonprofits, research institutions, foundations, and even megalithic shipping corporations are teaming up to develop technology, prove the science, and, yes, save the whales.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The good news is that for the most part, we don't hunt whales anymore. |
| 0:09.0 | Some species have actually come back from the brink of extinction. |
| 0:12.2 | The bad news is that we are still killing them, mostly by plowing into them with our ships. |
| 0:19.0 | But you can't really blame the ship captains. |
| 0:21.4 | What is he going to do? |
| 0:22.4 | He has an 800 foot long ship. |
| 0:24.8 | Let's say he sees a whale that's a half a mile in front of him. |
| 0:28.2 | He has no chance whatsoever to avoid that whale. |
| 0:31.5 | He can't stop. |
| 0:33.2 | It could take a half hour or an hour for him to stop that ship. |
| 0:37.5 | If only non-profits, scientists, inventors, governments, and even the shipping companies |
| 0:43.6 | could come together to devise a solution, if only we could use science and technology |
| 0:49.7 | to save the whales. |
| 0:51.5 | I'm David Pogue, and this is Unsung Science. |
| 0:58.2 | I'm going deep into my wife's family history, digging up the cold case of her murdered |
| 1:07.6 | great-grandmother. |
| 1:08.6 | And did I mention that I'm looking into whether the murderer was actually the beloved |
| 1:12.4 | family patriarch? |
| 1:14.0 | Binge all episodes of Ghost Story, add free right now on Wondrew Plus. |
| 1:21.7 | Season 2, episode 21, how cool tech is saving the whales. |
| 1:30.0 | Every year my wife, Nikki, and I kidnap each other for our birthdays, kind of a cute |
| 1:35.4 | tradition. |
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