Jimble-Jamble: Oil ain't gonna save the whales

Also: Time is an illusion, I talk about food travel and power dynamics, and famous NJ explosions

Happy Friday, everyone! Here’s some stuff to send you into your weekend.

The Power Dynamics of Food

My dear friend

Kae Lani Palmisano

has launched a new podcast,

Power Dining

, which covers the interplays between power and food. Kae Lani is one of my favorite people to work with, so when she asked if I would discuss the power dynamics of culinary travel — which I covered back in my days as a travel writer — I said yes. My episode’s not out yet, I’ll post it when it is, but here’s a trailer for her series — give her a follow! The first podcast came out this morning.

Power Dining

Power Dining on Instagram: “Have you ever wondered how jello went from a fancy meal to a reviled dessert? Or thought about the socioeconomic implications of snacking? I’m launching a new podcast that tackles these questions and more that you’ve probably never thought to ask! Power Dining goes deep into food culture and history to examine the many ways that food shapes the world and our personal lives. Join me, Kae Lani Palmisano (Emmy Award-winning host of @checkpleasephilly on @whyy and Delishtory on @pbsfood) as I chat with guest chefs, experts and food lovers to ponder the power structures, power moves and power dynamics in the world of food. Here’s a sneak peak at what we’ll be exploring this season featuring @matthershberger, @kenalbala, Doug Mack of Snack Stack, @thedelightedbite, @bookishjulia, @bykatemorgan and more! The first episode drops tomorrow morning! Subscribe to Power Dining on @substackinc to get the latest episodes!”

May 24, 2023

Did you know about the New Jersey explosion that symbolically killed the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island?

I’ve started paywalling some of my content, though it pains me to do so — my kids gotta eat, folks. This week I published a paid-only article on the Black Tom explosion, a 1916 act of sabotage that damaged the torch on the Statue of Liberty and was used as a prime justification for the 1940’s internment of Japanese citizens. If you wanna read it and aren’t sure you want to pay, I’ve got 7-day free trials enabled!

New Jersey’s Republicans want to save the whales by fighting wind energy

If you aren’t in my neck of the woods, you may have missed this story, but this year, Republicans have become very concerned about New Jersey’s whale populations. They say that whales are dying in New Jersey because of… wait for it… wind turbines.

Emily Atkin

of the popular

HEATED

newsletter wrote about the issue earlier this week (the article is partially paywalled, but Heated is worth subscribing to).

Something’s fishy in New Jersey

I wrote a bit last summer about how I went swimming one morning and looked up to see a WHALE RIGHT FUCKING THERE, so this story has been particularly infuriating for me to follow, and has been divisive here on the Shore.

Partially, what’s happening is that there has been an increase in whales along the Jersey Shore. This is great news, and it has been a tourist draw for our towns, and my experience last summer literally made my month — here’s a picture of me like, a half hour after it happened:

But New Jersey is also a high boat traffic area — our coast leads directly into the mouth of New York harbor and all of the ports along it — and with the rise of whales, there is inevitably going to be more bad encounters between whales and humans.

We know, for example, that 40% of whale deaths since 2016 have been caused by fishing net entanglements or boat strikes. But Republicans have decided that the uptick in whale beachings must be the result of the noise made by wind turbines. Which New Jersey hasn’t built yet. The noise supposedly confuses the whales, causing the beachings. We do know that human activity, especially loud noises in the ocean, messes with whales ability to communicate and navigate, but the noises produced by oil and gas companies are way louder than wind. And that’s not to mention the noises made by container ships.

Unfortunately, one of our local environmental nonprofits has apparently decided to cash in on all of the sudden right-wing concern for the environment, and is fueling the disinformation by allying itself with Republican lawmakers. It is a shame because the nonprofit, Clean Ocean Action, has been one of the leaders for previous decades in cleaning up our local waterways.

I think we can expect to see more of this type of nonsense from the right as climate change becomes less and less deniable — a shift towards hypocritically attacking clean energy, and also co-opting previously respectable environmentalist groups who are willing to play ball in exchange for access to Republican donors.

The Grand Illusion of Time

Following my post on Wednesday about taking a different perspective on time, I wanted to share this excellent article from Lapham’s Quarterly on the idea of the Block Universe and what Einstein called the “Grand Illusion” of time.