Photo of melon-headed whales stranded off Kauai
Does this tear the hear out of anybody’s chest but mine?
[Environmental] groups say that sonar can be as loud as 2,000 jet engines, causing marine mammals to suffer lasting physical trauma, strandings and changes in breeding and migration patterns. They contend that courts are perfectly capable of weighing the competing security and environmental concerns.
Chief Justice Roberts took a different view. Courts, he said, quoting a 1986 decision of the justices, must
“give great deference to the professional judgment of military authorities” in making decisions about personnel, training and priorities…… Whatever the correct answer to how many animals could be harmed, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, those injuries are “outweighed by the public interest and the Navy’s interest in effective, realistic training of its sailors.”
In other words, the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that the US Navy can fire off its sonar with impunity, regardless of the effect it has on the world’s dwindling whale population.
Read more here.