Stop Floods, Kill the Whales

---- A WHALE OF A THEORY -----------------------------------------

Most people are aware of the melting of Polar Ice Caps and the imminent threat they carry for coastal flooding all over the world. This danger is present due to Global Warming, which acts as a catalyst for oceanic floods (among other things, like sun-burn and bad natural disaster flicks). The temperature of Earth's climate is slowly rising, and is due largely to our atmospheric maltreatment (manhandling).

Consider the grotesque amount of whales living in the oceans today. Now consider the amount of water displacement necessary for these sinister, over-sized, and rather uninviting sea-creatures to laze about--having the time of their lives, with not a care in the world. Whales are essentially bubbles of blubber which waste perfectly good areas where water could be instead. Their unnecessary size is inadvertently raising the surface levels of water on coastal shores, endangering both the lives and property of hundreds of thousands of people.

We need to kill the whales (preferably by means of fire)...

As the glaciers melt and icebergs form, the sea level rises. As the sea level rises, we kill the whales. As we kill the whales, less water is displaced and the sea level returns to normal. My plan shall effectively nullify any impending flood.

In addition to preventing the flood, there are several other benefits. One sperm whale alone will yield up to 40 barrels of oil! Whale meat could be packaged and shipped to starving people all over the world.


--- IN DETAIL ---


"Eureka! I have found it!"

Approximately two-thousand years ago, King Hiero II of Syracuse grew suspicious of his goldsmith, suspecting him of hiding silver in his golden crown. The King presented his problem to Greek mathematician Archimedes, who was asked to find the amount of silver inside the crown. The King's problem had Archimedes stumped. One day as he was taking a bath, he saw the tub overflow as he stepped in. Instantly he realized how to solve the King's problem. Water displacement! A crown of pure gold will displace more water than a crown containing an alloy. He became so overjoyed and excited that he ran naked through the streets, shouting "Eureka!"

When most people think of the Polar Ice Caps melting, they imagine the ocean level rising up and expect massive flooding to ensue. Alas, this just isn't so. At the North pole, glaciers float in the ocean, displacing the water around them. When they melt, they weigh less and displace less water and the sea level remains constant. At the South pole, it's much too cold for anything to melt. The average temperature is -34 degrees Fahrenheit. Neither pole is in danger of causing a flood. However, this danger can be found elsewhere...

An iceberg is a chunk of glacier that breaks or cracks off a frozen landmass and falls into the sea. As temperature rises, the glaciers begin to melt, weaken and crack and fall into the ocean. When this happens, the sea level rises because the ice was not displacing any water beforehand. Greenland alone has enough to raise the ocean 20 feet! It is true, there is no immediate danger; We probably won't even be alive when it happens so why bother, right? That's pretty much our society's rule of thumb anyway, isn't it? We'll all be dead before shit hits the fan, might as well keep it on Max and enjoy the breeze eh? Eh? We need to take the initiative, for the sake of our future.

Even our ancestors may have understood this forthcoming danger of floods; Avid whale hunters of the ancient Makah tribe took similar steps as they ceremoniously hunted the largest whales (i.e. those displacing the most water). The average size of whales today is surprisingly smaller than that of the whales living long ago. The ceremonious whaling traditions of Alaskan tribes like the Makah effectively reduced not only the amount of, but also the size of today's whales! No doubt, this questions the assumptions society today has about the suspiciously simplistic "food and clothing" motives of the tribesmen; I believe they brought heroic application to the recent water displacement discovery of Archimedes.

In the more recent years, such tribal traditions were prohibited by the US (and other governments) as certain species of whale became "endangered." For generations, this unfortunate and unperceptive law restricted their hunting, allowing the whale population to grow right under our noses. Thankfully, during the early 20th century, over 80\% of great whales had been removed. But with the multitude of legal implications whale hunters face today, the population of whales, sadly, is not getting any smaller.

We must kill the whales.