What the Whales Know

Editor’s Note: If you’re new here, welcome! The regular content schedule will resume in August, but in the meantime, I’m excited to share the next installment of the letters series. This time I went to Sari Fordham of Cool It: Simple Steps to Save the Planet. Sari makes individual climate action feel doable. Her notes and newsletter offer practical, concrete steps any of us can take that actually fit into daily life. It’s the kind of work that we need more of. When I reached out and asked her to write a letter to the next generation in 2050, for this series, she wrote to her daughter. Read what she said. — Bridget

Dear K,

Do you remember the whales?

Well, duh! you say because even in adulthood we revert to our brattiest selves with our parents, but also because your childhood was a particularly whale-y one.

Before you were born--weeks after a miscarriage–your father and I drove to Baja to see the wintering gray whales. Throughout town, there were pictures of people petting whales, and I told myself that if I touched a whale, I would have a baby. How ridiculous we humans are! That afternoon, we got into a panga with an older couple from California, an Italian man, a Mexican driver, and his pregnant wife. The pregnancy was good for all of us, the Italian said, because whales are drawn to boats with children or pregnant women, a fact I have repeated many times, though never researched. The driver took us into the middle of the bay and then cut the engine. In the distance, grays jumped and spied, and I wondered why we were sitting so far from the action. Then, like the kind of miracle I had been hoping for, two whales materialized, a mother and her baby. Did you know that gray whales are the only wild animal that will intentionally bring their babies to humans? I haven’t researched that fact either, but I’ve seen it happen. The two whales swam back and forth under the boat, jostling it lightly, poking up their prehistoric-looking faces, and gazing at us. I reached out and reached out, as if my whole life depended on what happened next, and then, the baby surfaced, swam toward our boat, and for an instant, its nose brushed against my palm. Your father has this moment on film, and you’ve likely seen it. I was so purely happy in that moment, not ascribing anything to it, just completely enveloped in awe.

Your father and I lived as if our choices mattered. We got a heat pump, planted native plants, composted our food scraps, avoided plastic where we could, attended protests, and mailed letters to voters.

I’m writing you about whales, but I’m really writing to you about hope. Shortly after you were born, I read an article by an old environmentalist who basically said, ‘It’s too late to do anything now,’ and suggested we go out and live our best lives. Let the planet burn. I was devastated for a week, and then decided, Fuck that. Fuck every old man who gives up, and especially fuck the billionaires and corporations who know exactly what they’re doing and don’t care.

Your father and I lived as if our choices mattered. We got a heat pump, planted native plants, composted our food scraps, avoided plastic where we could, attended protests, and mailed letters to voters. And, of course, we took you camping and hiking, and the three of us watched whales. By the time you were twelve, you had seen humpbacks, minkes, and sperm whales. At Laguna Ojo de Liebre, you patted a gray whale who poked its head up to see you.

Laguna Ojo de Liebre is also called “Scammon’s Lagoon,” which is like calling Los Angeles “The City of Charles Manson.” Scammon was a Maine whaler who discovered the lagoon entrance in 1860 and killed so many gray whales that the water turned red. The mamas fought back, destroying boats and killing crew members and earning the nickname, devilfish.

I want to fight like that for you. Though for me, fighting means calling legislators and asking them to pass a plastic reduction bill. You deserve a world without plastic pollution, and so do the gray whales who are eating microplastics at astonishing levels. You’ve seen me do this work. You’ve drawn pictures for legislators and shouted “tell them you have a daughter” when I ask my representatives (yet again) to protect the environment. It’s slow work, and sometimes, the plastic industry feels too big to fail.

Once upon a time, though, half the global economy ran on whales. Whale oil was used in lamps, of course, but even after kerosene, humans kept hunting. Whale blubber was turned into margarine, pet food, fertilizer, paints, and even bombs during World War II. Gray whales in the Pacific were hunted down to around 250 whales and would have gone extinct if legislation in 1986 hadn’t outlawed the commercial hunting of whales. By then, humanity started caring about whales. I grew up with the slogan “Save the whales,” the way you grew up with the slogan “Save the bees.” Turns out, the world runs just fine without whale blubber.

You deserve a world without plastic pollution, and so do the gray whales.

As I write this letter, the world is in the middle of an energy transition. I’m hopeful the transition will lead to the end of fossil fuels, both as a source of energy and a source of plastic. I’m hopeful that you will read this letter and then pick up the phone (or whatever we’re using for communication) and tell me, Mama, the world is running just fine without oil.

I don’t write with the kind of magical thinking that once led me to think that if I touched a whale, I’d have a baby. No, my hope is sturdy and ferocious. I believe that if we all show up and keep pushing against environmental problems, we can create a better world. Nature will do her work. She is good about healing the wounds we have created. We, however, have our task before us.

With all the hope in the world,

Your Mama

Sari Fordham is a writer, professor, mother, and environmental activist. Her memoir, Wait for God to Notice, narrates her childhood growing up in Uganda. Follow her on Substack, where she writes Cool It: Simple Steps to Save the Planet, a newsletter for busy people who care about climate change but aren’t sure what to do.