Evidently the Revolution Wind offshore monstrosity can go ahead in the latest round of the U.S. battling rulings game. Canary Media sneers “The Trump administration is 0-2 in its efforts to halt under-construction offshore wind projects – and that streak may continue. A federal judge said the Interior Department stopped Revolution Wind without any ‘factual findings,’ suggesting the federal government may have trouble convincing other judges to go along with its anti-wind crusade. Clare Fieseler has the story.” Or not, because she doesn’t mention the critical issue of these massive pylons, cable trenches and other such industrial devastation of fragile ecosystems harming the whales that once dependably brought a tear to liberal eyes. Once upon a time liberals wanted to “Save the whales” to the point of cliché. Now we’d say their attitude appears to be “If you’ve seen one whale, you’ve seen them all.” But Clare Fieseler appears not to have seen any, heard any or spoken of any. And thanks to wind power, it may soon literally be true that the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale will be down to its last member, while offshore wind towers swarm from Maine to Florida.

Now look. We realize a person could reasonably argue that Revolution Wind and such installations don’t really harm whales much, or that it’s too bad for the North Atlantic Right Whale but we have a planet to save, or that whales are big loud and annoying and we prefer goldfish. But to ignore the issue altogether smacks of bad faith.

The piece starts out with a paean to lawfare:

“Revolution Wind can officially resume. But unlike the last time President Donald Trump ordered construction on an offshore wind project to pause, relief came through the courts rather than politicking.”

And woo hoo, because:

“Monday’s decision marked a victory for Revolution Wind and could have broader legal ramifications for Trump’s ongoing war against offshore wind energy, given that several projects are still tangled up in litigation. And, if the recent ruling is any indication, the Trump administration may have a hard time convincing judges that walking away from already-approved wind farms makes sense.”

But what of the ecological issues that once mattered to environmentalists, nay were their raison d’etre? Oh, that’s all gone now.

Canary Media had earlier linked to an AP story on the court ruling that literally never mentions whales. However it does thunder that:

“Nancy Pyne of the Sierra Club said the court ruling ‘reaffirms that Donald Trump and his administration’s attacks on clean energy are not only reckless and harmful to our communities, but they are also illegal.’ Trump is trying to ‘kneecap’ renewable energy ‘in favor of dirty and expensive fossil fuels,’ she said.”

Boo Trump! Boo dirty and expensive fossil fuels! And AP opines on its own time that Trump:

“wants to boost production of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal, which emit greenhouse gases that cause climate change, in order for the U.S. to have the lowest-cost energy and electricity of any nation in the world, he says.”

Boo greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Shtum whales and seabeds.

Likewise the New York Times propagandizes in, in a timely fashion, about the first commercial offshore wind far in the US:

“A Rhode Island Wind Farm Changed Their View. And Their Lives, for the Better. Offshore turbines let Block Island shut down soot-spewing, earsplitting diesel generators. There were other benefits, too.”

For instance you could hear birds. As for whales, well, what’s to hear? Eventually the piece made a few grudging concessions including that the five turbines “look like minuscule white toothpicks on the horizon, but they are much more noticeable at night, when they blink red” and much bigger projects under way are a lot uglier. Oh, and by the way:

“Some Block Islanders lament the change in the view. Many commercial fishermen are unhappy about the turbines. Another critique questions the economic feasibility of offshore wind power, which is among the most expensive forms of electricity.”

But (all together now):

“many here strongly support the expansion of offshore wind as a necessary path to tackle climate change.”

Even though the economics are fishy:

“The wind farm creates far more energy than the island needs and feeds the surplus into the grid. At the same time, in part because wind power is intermittent and more expensive, the island buys a mix of energy through the grid.”

And if it can do so, why not shut down the diesel and buy power “through the grid”? The piece literally never discusses the enormous permanent seabed disruption such projects cause. As for the whales, well, they’re cat food:

“President Trump has assailed offshore wind for hurting birds and whales, but locals at a popular restaurant and at a cute gift shop readily cited aspects of modern life that are known to be far more harmful to wildlife. For instance, outdoor cats and large windows are estimated to kill billions of birds each year in the United States alone, and fishing entanglements and boat collisions are lethal for whales.”

Whale shmale.

In the Canary Media item you have to get to paragraph 10 before that slimy nature gets a mention of any sort. And it’s not much of one. (Though better than Heatmap’s initial report, which left it out totally while deploring “a federal war on offshore wind”.) Describing the Administration’s efforts to stop a couple of already-approved offshore wind farms with huge ugly ecological footprints, the story sneers:

“Both filings invoke a new legal interpretation of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act that argues that the Interior Department must weigh other ocean activities – like commercial fishing and Coast Guard operations – in an ‘absolutist approach,’ said Krakoff, to evaluate potential conflicts with wind farms.”

Krakoff being not a judge but a lawyer: “Nick Krakoff, a senior attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation.” But the big point is that:

“The standard interpretation, employed for almost a decade by past administrations and already upheld in a 2024 court decision, instructs agencies to take a more balanced approach to evaluating multiple ocean users.”

So yeah, what’s a few dead whales when we have progress to make?