In a further twist to the tale, that Jojoba (and I think, palm oil) that replaced the whale oil turns out to be grown in deforested tropical rainforest. So, in saving the whales we threaten the rainforest. There really is no panacea - if we want lots of stuff the environment pays the cost one way or another.
The United States & Mexico are the largest producers of Jojoba oil, & is not grown in deforested tropical rainforests. It requires a semi-arid climate, & much less water than if other plants were attempted to be cultivated in those climates. Palm Oil is the one that is cultivated in deforested tropical climates.
Worth a mention... shale oil that lit Britain before coal/methane gas; the reddish shale 'bings' / spoil heaps that were such a feature of the landscape W of Edinburgh up to the 1980s when a canny Scot found a market for the material in motorway construction (I believe). He could haul it profitably using those still relatively new big diesel machines, not quite yet to scale with the one that features Ed in the iconic pic, but big enough.) The shale mining industry was mostly 19thC and preceded crude oil / refining as we know it. Interestingly vegetation could establish on the shale waste presumably because it was less toxic than coal mining spoil.
btw Nordhaus has been dreadfully misleading about the economics of climate change. I have rarely read anything as ridiculous as his thesis on the impact of CC on economics of a greatly expanded industrial civilisation.
Excellent piece. Thank you I really enjoy these posts. I have nearly finished your book and have found it a compelling read, informative and engaging as well entertaining. To put it in context with me I am a 72 retired electronics design engineer who worked, on what is now known as Airbus defence and space, for over 40 years hands on designing satellite equipment with total enthusiasm. A dream job. Your book has laid out for me the complete interconnection of our materials as well as the interconnection of the manufacturing in a way I had only had a small perspective. Thank you.
In fact, the whaling catch decreases after kerosene use (vindicating Nordhaus) and even more after electric lighting, then it increases during the XX century and peaks at ca. 1965. The moratorium of whaling begin in 1986, therefore could not be the cause of capture decrease. Unfortunately, the cause was just depletion of the resource. This is a clear case of tragedy of the commons (nobody owns the whales) and it is happening now with squid and fish around the world. As usual, the agreements follows the process not drives it. At the same time, price increase (catching the last remaining whales is quite expensive) drives the substitution of spermaceti with natural or synthetic counterparts. Ironically, whale spermaceti is today used mainly in "organic" cosmetics....
Yes, government regulation is always downstream of what's already happening. This is a brute fact that authors like this one refuse to confront, instead concocting insanely contrived just-so stories about how 75+ years of near-zero whaling cannot be attributed to kerosene or technological development because it picked up again generations later for completely unrelated reasons.
The paper that has been discussed repeatedly in this section specifically states 'by the 1940s it was clear that whaling was approaching its end, if for no other reason than that whale populations could not sustain anywhere near the level of killing that was taking place [...] although the moratorium on whaling in one sense can be seen as a great conservation success, in another sense it is a dispiriting testimony to the difficulty of protecting species, ecosystems, and natural resources before they are destroyed. The simple fact of the matter is that the moratorium was established only after most whale stocks were commercially, if not biologically, extinct or nearly so'.
Ed's point was not primarily one of conservation so I don't think the snark is justified. For the paper at least, I'm not sure how much more clearly you need 'authors like this one' to state it.
I'm disappointed not to see the work of Richard York cited. These disciplinary boundaries substantially retard progress. Richard made this point 7 years ago: York, R. (2017). Why petroleum did not save the whales. Socius, 3, 2378023117739217.
Brilliant - thank you Ed! Off at a tangent, a little story from a visit a few decades ago to a tiny museum of crofting in the west of Scotland, occupying an actual and very humble croft. One of the panels told the story of the reaction of the crofter to the coming of electric light: "Oh yes, it is wonderful - I can now see to light my paraffin (kerosene) lamp"!
A great article, having watched Moby Dick recently on TV - the 1950s version - I was struck by how little thought was given to the plight of the whales. Your article has left me wondering how this impacted on something I know a bit about, railway lanterns. Maybe the change over to kerosene happened before railway lighting took off and I’m not aware of the use of whale oil in railway lamps, maybe they were given 2025 is the 200th anniversary of the invention of the railway. What I know the railways did use was the plant-based colza oil for their lamps and that was still in common use up to the early 20th century. Many railway lamps from this era carry the term “Kerosene only” on the fuel tanks to ensure the correct fuel was used.
Excellent read, well-written, with troubling implications. To think decades of my donations to Greenpeace - never once did they highlight this dark truth. 🧐
Spot on - and I made a similiar point in a recent piece on our relationship to other species over the long haul of our evolution. We seem to continually invent convenient current narratives to apply to our natural history.
Thanks for this story Mr Conway. It is good to see that the killing is down again. Due to substitution.
I wonder if you have a moment to read around the climate change story. It is not a disaster, and de-carbonisation would be very bad. We need those fossil fuels, and co2 is not pollution.
Look at the history - four glaciations in the last five hundred thousand years: co2 followed temperature, it did not drive.
Read Happer and Van Wijngaarden: sure, co2 is a “greenhouse gas”, but only a very minor one, whose effects are front-loaded, fall off rapidly. In theory, all else equal (not), doubling from here would raise temperatures about one degree c, GOOD! Still cooler than Roman or Minoan times. Cold kills ten times more than heat. CO2 and fossil fuels are good.
People adapt. That’s the story of The Material World, right?
Great article. I agree with what you said, the problem for the whales was that kerosene only replaced some of the sperm whales applications. Also that humans found new applications for it didn't help.
One more thing, I found in this video (https://youtu.be/2jdtuGHfVeo?si=pGcjDtprSZvcsi22) that the romans used Olive Pomace rocks as fuel a lot, but cannot find much info about this material. And I mean a lot, the author of the video says is one of the reasons the romans didn't deforest europe. So I tried to find more info, but the only info I found is modern, related to recycling and closed loop economies. I couldn't find any info about usage of this after the roman period.
In a further twist to the tale, that Jojoba (and I think, palm oil) that replaced the whale oil turns out to be grown in deforested tropical rainforest. So, in saving the whales we threaten the rainforest. There really is no panacea - if we want lots of stuff the environment pays the cost one way or another.
Ah interesting/depressing!
The United States & Mexico are the largest producers of Jojoba oil, & is not grown in deforested tropical rainforests. It requires a semi-arid climate, & much less water than if other plants were attempted to be cultivated in those climates. Palm Oil is the one that is cultivated in deforested tropical climates.
Yep, I live in Tucson, and many of the local nurseries sell them here as Xeriscape friendly plants (meaning they require little to no water).
Worth a mention... shale oil that lit Britain before coal/methane gas; the reddish shale 'bings' / spoil heaps that were such a feature of the landscape W of Edinburgh up to the 1980s when a canny Scot found a market for the material in motorway construction (I believe). He could haul it profitably using those still relatively new big diesel machines, not quite yet to scale with the one that features Ed in the iconic pic, but big enough.) The shale mining industry was mostly 19thC and preceded crude oil / refining as we know it. Interestingly vegetation could establish on the shale waste presumably because it was less toxic than coal mining spoil.
btw Nordhaus has been dreadfully misleading about the economics of climate change. I have rarely read anything as ridiculous as his thesis on the impact of CC on economics of a greatly expanded industrial civilisation.
Excellent piece. Thank you I really enjoy these posts. I have nearly finished your book and have found it a compelling read, informative and engaging as well entertaining. To put it in context with me I am a 72 retired electronics design engineer who worked, on what is now known as Airbus defence and space, for over 40 years hands on designing satellite equipment with total enthusiasm. A dream job. Your book has laid out for me the complete interconnection of our materials as well as the interconnection of the manufacturing in a way I had only had a small perspective. Thank you.
Great article Ed. Love the use of data to clarify that the advent kerosene didn't diminish total whaling numbers. Will share.
Terrific post. I will read every one as it appears.
I did read Material World. My partner bought it for the Kindle.
I loved it.
In fact, the whaling catch decreases after kerosene use (vindicating Nordhaus) and even more after electric lighting, then it increases during the XX century and peaks at ca. 1965. The moratorium of whaling begin in 1986, therefore could not be the cause of capture decrease. Unfortunately, the cause was just depletion of the resource. This is a clear case of tragedy of the commons (nobody owns the whales) and it is happening now with squid and fish around the world. As usual, the agreements follows the process not drives it. At the same time, price increase (catching the last remaining whales is quite expensive) drives the substitution of spermaceti with natural or synthetic counterparts. Ironically, whale spermaceti is today used mainly in "organic" cosmetics....
Yes, government regulation is always downstream of what's already happening. This is a brute fact that authors like this one refuse to confront, instead concocting insanely contrived just-so stories about how 75+ years of near-zero whaling cannot be attributed to kerosene or technological development because it picked up again generations later for completely unrelated reasons.
The paper that has been discussed repeatedly in this section specifically states 'by the 1940s it was clear that whaling was approaching its end, if for no other reason than that whale populations could not sustain anywhere near the level of killing that was taking place [...] although the moratorium on whaling in one sense can be seen as a great conservation success, in another sense it is a dispiriting testimony to the difficulty of protecting species, ecosystems, and natural resources before they are destroyed. The simple fact of the matter is that the moratorium was established only after most whale stocks were commercially, if not biologically, extinct or nearly so'.
Ed's point was not primarily one of conservation so I don't think the snark is justified. For the paper at least, I'm not sure how much more clearly you need 'authors like this one' to state it.
I'm disappointed not to see the work of Richard York cited. These disciplinary boundaries substantially retard progress. Richard made this point 7 years ago: York, R. (2017). Why petroleum did not save the whales. Socius, 3, 2378023117739217.
I confess I hadn't read this but have now added a link to the piece above - thank you!
Appreciate this!
Brilliant - thank you Ed! Off at a tangent, a little story from a visit a few decades ago to a tiny museum of crofting in the west of Scotland, occupying an actual and very humble croft. One of the panels told the story of the reaction of the crofter to the coming of electric light: "Oh yes, it is wonderful - I can now see to light my paraffin (kerosene) lamp"!
A great article, having watched Moby Dick recently on TV - the 1950s version - I was struck by how little thought was given to the plight of the whales. Your article has left me wondering how this impacted on something I know a bit about, railway lanterns. Maybe the change over to kerosene happened before railway lighting took off and I’m not aware of the use of whale oil in railway lamps, maybe they were given 2025 is the 200th anniversary of the invention of the railway. What I know the railways did use was the plant-based colza oil for their lamps and that was still in common use up to the early 20th century. Many railway lamps from this era carry the term “Kerosene only” on the fuel tanks to ensure the correct fuel was used.
Economists love their "just so" stories. Never mind the facts.
Excellent read, well-written, with troubling implications. To think decades of my donations to Greenpeace - never once did they highlight this dark truth. 🧐
Spot on - and I made a similiar point in a recent piece on our relationship to other species over the long haul of our evolution. We seem to continually invent convenient current narratives to apply to our natural history.
Very interesting.
Herman Melville would have been really happy with this article! Great post, thank you!
Thanks for this story Mr Conway. It is good to see that the killing is down again. Due to substitution.
I wonder if you have a moment to read around the climate change story. It is not a disaster, and de-carbonisation would be very bad. We need those fossil fuels, and co2 is not pollution.
Look at the history - four glaciations in the last five hundred thousand years: co2 followed temperature, it did not drive.
Read Happer and Van Wijngaarden: sure, co2 is a “greenhouse gas”, but only a very minor one, whose effects are front-loaded, fall off rapidly. In theory, all else equal (not), doubling from here would raise temperatures about one degree c, GOOD! Still cooler than Roman or Minoan times. Cold kills ten times more than heat. CO2 and fossil fuels are good.
People adapt. That’s the story of The Material World, right?
Great article. I agree with what you said, the problem for the whales was that kerosene only replaced some of the sperm whales applications. Also that humans found new applications for it didn't help.
One more thing, I found in this video (https://youtu.be/2jdtuGHfVeo?si=pGcjDtprSZvcsi22) that the romans used Olive Pomace rocks as fuel a lot, but cannot find much info about this material. And I mean a lot, the author of the video says is one of the reasons the romans didn't deforest europe. So I tried to find more info, but the only info I found is modern, related to recycling and closed loop economies. I couldn't find any info about usage of this after the roman period.