Transcripts For WJZ Up To The Minute 20130207

Children, a loving mother, all the things that have shaped you, success after success. When you make a decision how does that influence you . And most importantly, or equally important, the idea of being hispanic. Because everybody wants everybodys talking about latinos today but everybody before that understood that that kind of experience was part of had become america. That is what america is. Can i give you an example . Ill take it away from myself. That was case a number of years ago where a 13yearold girl had been strip searched to look for an aspirin in a nodrug school. And her parents sued it was a Public School claiming this was an unreasonable search and seizure. That there wasnt adequate probable cause to search her in that way. During the argument, some of my now male colleagues i wasnt on the court then started asking questions suggesting that being strip searched was no different than being than unpressing in a gym. Justice ginsburg was heard to say after that argument that she thought some of my colleagues didnt understand might not have understood how sensitive a 13yearold girl might be about her body particularly at that age. Now, did that affect the outcome of the case . I wasnt a justice, i doubt it very much. But i do know one thing not one justice on the court wrote about being searched at 13 as being comparable to undressing in a gym. If someone had written that it would have upset so many young women who would have been who would have rightly felt by that comparison. And i think thats what Life Experiences help with. Its legion among justices on Appellate Courts and other courts that having a colleague who has had experience as a trial court will ensure that any inadvertent questioning of the capabilities of a District Court judge dont seep into an opinion. Because people who havent been trial judges are not sensitive to how insulting certain references rose but you were a trial judge at the District Court level. And, you know, i cant say without disclosing confidences that there might be references in some opinions that would suggest something thats not intended. And that gets picked up. Rose what is it that you said in the san diego speech . It was berkeley not san diego. But that i would hope that a wise latina judge would make a better decision than a wise nonlatino man. Rose do you believe that . No. Rose why did you say it . Because in context anyone who read the speech will know that was what i was saying was a the rest of the article was talking about inspiring young people who didnt feel like they were a part of the greater american system to understand that they were equal to others and that their experiences were valuable. I talked very directly in that speech about the fact that it was nine white men who decided brown v. Board of education. And i also talked about the fact that its not race or jender that give you a certain view point. I said this directly in the article. Brown v. Board of education. Not every woman thinks alike. Not every black or latino person thinks alike or will rule the same way on every issue. But what you hope for that a more diverse presence in our society will give us more view points to be discussed and considered. And i also talked about the fact that you have to know your own biases. Rose thats the crucial thing, isnt it . You have to really understand when youre being motivated by your own feelings rather than by the law. I cant tell you how many times when i was a lawyer and sometimes even now you read an opinion below and you say whats motivating this . And is it the law or personal feeling . Rose whats the danger here . The danger is that you think of judges as computers which we are not. We are human beings with strengths and weaknesses, with limitations in our Life Experiences. You want us to be aware of both those things. The good and the bad, the biases and the prejudices so that we actually work consciously at not letting them influence our outcomes. That we dont assume that were right about our biases. That we dont assume that were not human beings unaffected by our emotions and that we work hard. Thats my whole speech, anybody who reads a whole speech, everything i said is in that article. And the line i admitted publicly that i gave was a rhetorical flourish that fell flat. And i pointed out that when Justice Oconnor said that a wise woman judge would make the same decision as a wise male judge, she couldnt have meant that either. Because we dissent on our court all the time and id be hard pressed for her that she would ever say that her dissending colleagues are just not wise men. Rose have you evolved since youve been on the court . Have you learned new things . Have you changed your mind about things . Has it been a learning experience . Every year that im on the bench, from the first day i was a District Court judge to the Supreme Court i have evolved, become better as a judge, more understanding about what the legals issues are and what they mean. Can i point to one moment in which, like Justice Stevens could at the end of his very lengthy career and say this was a pivotal change . No. Some changes of mind the public will never see. I can tell you but you cant press me further on which cases that i have been assigned opinions, perhaps not on the court, i cant say that without pinpointing something where ive been given the assignment of writing a majority opinion and after writing it figuring out it isnt right and change my mind and write it a different way. If i had the majority opinion drafted i would share it with my colleagues and say this is what i wrote but i stopped believing it for the reasons i explain in this different majority opinion. Sometimes ive kept my majorities, occasionally i havent and ive ended up joining whoever was going to be the dissent but it happens. And it happens on the court and not just to me. You study what youre doing on a case very carefully, you listen to oral arguments, you listen to your colleagues but as one of my colleagues once said to me there are cases that wont write. There are decisions that once you start you see the whole so clearly and you cant write around them in a way that your conscience says you have to change your mind. Rose i apologize from not knowing who this quote came from because i used to say it came from auden and someone said no it wasnt. But the quote is how do i know what i think until i see what i sfwli and that is i dont remember. Ive heard it and i dont remember who wrote it, either, but its absolutely true. Rose the idea of a rigorous analysis and having to pit it down in sentence after sentence after sentence, having to organize your thoughts, having to think about making an argument rose exactly. Rose forces you to examine what you believe. Exactly. And so any judge who is said so wedded to a vote before he or she has actually written the decision down and let it force themselves to actually think of what have the best arguments are on the other side and be able to explain why those are not compelling or to live with a weak opinion, not much of a judge. Rose do you get much of these arguments not with your law clerks but fellow justices when you come to the table . I can say this to you because youve got the audience who might listen to this. Rose laughs theres a lot of lawyers who criticizes the justices for asking too many questions. One of my colleagues doesnt like it, okay . But my question is if you have f you havent made your case to us in your briefs what are you waiting for in argument . Rose laughs if you really havent been able to leave us without questions then the fact that were asking you about the things that bother us is an opportunity for you to understand whats been left unanswered. You could be silent and let you guess at whats troubling us. You never get to it and gok into the back room and make a mistake because you didnt get a chance to answer whatever is troubling us. I tell lawyers the most important part of argument is my listening to what bothers my colleagues. And listening to them answer my colleagues questions. Because what my colleagues are thinking about usually is the nub of the case. Rose because they have narrowed it down to this is my decision point, the answer to this question. Exactly. Rose and if they get no satisfactory answer theyre not going to accept the argument of counsel. Thats the point. I think the best lawyers are the ones who actually answer a justices question and uses the opportunity to have justices step on each others questions to bring it together first. Rose then why shouldnt we televise the Supreme Court . laughs all right. In part because i dont think most viewers take the time to actually delve into either the briefs or the legal arguments to appreciate what the court is doing. They speculate about, oh, the judge favor this is point rather than that point. Very few of them understand what the process is which is to play devils advocate. Its not to telegraph what you think. Rose even at this table thats the point, too. Exactly. Play devils advocate. We speak clearly about what were thinking in our opinions. The wonderful part about our decision making, unlike that of other branches of government is that we actually is to say why were doing what were doing. We have to explain it thor rely and hopefully and i think all of us are capable of this and do this. Our opinions go step by step into what our process of thinking has been and almost also always answer the counterarguments. Now we have dissending opinions that can say the majority can be wrong and we have concurrences that say that our thinking is somehow not based on the right steps but in each of those opinions and the once you elect to join, people are not left in any doubt about what were thinking. But watching an argument is going to leave a lot of doubt, and unfortunate doubt. Rose this book is now number one, by the way, on the bestseller list. Let me go back to the original question in this New York Times piece because im intrigued by it because you ask a question why did i prevail . And we want to understand from this book why you prevailed or didnt fail when you had things stacked against you more than other people have. Every book has rose some worse than you, though, by the way. All books have multiple layers. Good books, i hope this is classifyed in that category. One of the layers very important layer to me personally was i came from neighborhoods which most people think of as bad. The neighborhood i grew up in, fort apache, at the time, was the most highly crimeridden area in the nation. Rose the Police Station became famous for that. Theres a movie about fort apache. What do people think generally about those neighborhoods . You ask them about them and they think about crime, drug addiction and everybody gets the the paint stroke of being a bad person. Rose if you come from there you had to be touched by. Exactly. In some way. I actually saw some bloggers talking about. That how could i know someone addicted to drugs, as if i had a choice from where i came from thats just the nature of the life. Someone you know may not be in your immediate family and sometimes it can be. What i wanted people to see was a different slice of american life, a neighborhood that has all of those problems and i dont naysay any of them in this book, i talk about their costs but i wanted them to see that there were people like my family there, too. People struggling to make a decent living, educate their children, and live with integrity. And to the extent that i can do that in the position im in, i have been doing it. To give kids hope i talk to them all the time i meet not just with school kids, i go and have been to nursing homes, to community centers, to the sort of regular people environment, giving the same message ive delivered in this book and i do it because i know its a role i can serve. But whether i think that thats my ambition which is what that article spoke about, no. Its something i can do, youre right. But i have to be very care informal how i do it. Because i am a justice. And the point is that in the end what you do is a justice is you look at the law and exactly, exactly. Rose look at the constitution to make the decisions you make. So i cant engage in the Public Policy discussions that people want me to. Rose because it one day come before you as a justice. Look, im asked by latino kids and adults what do i think about the immigration laws that are being discuss and the first thing i have to say to them is i cant comment on that because that was that case is likely to come before the court. And what i tell them is why do you need to think what i think . When the legal question comes to me, i will analyze it on the law and tell you what i think the law says it means. But in the end its not what i think, its what you think. The important issue is what do you think is right or wrong for america . And what are you doing to work on making the things you think are right become a reality . And thats my challenge to kids. Become involved. Dont think that laws just just happen to you. Go out there band a part of creating them. Or i undoing them when you dont like them. Rose its one of the things, the declaration of independence and the constitution, that people admire about america and democracy. And the First Amendment. Rose and the First Amendment exactly right. Which gives everybody the opportunity to speak their mind. Rose it also ought to be said this is a very honest book. You tell about your best friend who was an addict and died of aids. My cousin. My i called him in the book my inseparable coconspirator. When you look at the pictures in the book about with me and my cousins as a child nelson was always right next to me. And we just never were apart anywhere we were together and he took a different road than i did. And it was a tragic ending for him. But his sister called me after she read the book because i asked her for permission to write about his aids and drug addiction which had never been talked about openly even in our family. We all knew about it but it wasnt discussed openly. And shes a teacher, miriam, and she said to me sonia if in your writing this book any kid can take a listen from nelsons death than its a story to tell. And i think some kids will. Rose as well will they when they read about your life and your beloved world. Thank you. Thank you for having me, charlie. Rose pleasure to have you. This has been so much fun. Thank you. Rose great to see you. Thank you for joining us for this hour. The book, again, is my beloved world. See you next time. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org narrator for 60 years, David Attenborough has guided us through the Natural World. This is a very intelligent animal. Narrator and who could believe how much our world has changed . Attenborough never before had it been so clear to me that a species was heading for disaster. Narrator animals have teetered on the brink of extinction and our vast wild spaces are disappearing. Attenborough we became witness to a slowmotion tragedy. Narrator but the past half century was also an era when our attitudes toward wildlife were transformed. Attenborough soon we realized that true conservation means protecting the entire habitat. Narrator in this final installment of our series, attenborough reminds us that, despite the damage weve done, there is cause for hope. [ theme music playing ] nature is made possible in part by. Leave it untouched by your presence, capture its image and preserve it forever. Canon living and working together to appreciate today and care for tomorrow. The corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Attenborough for me, as for countless others, the Natural World is the greatest of all treasures, and yet in my lifetime we have damaged it more severely than in the whole of the rest of human history. Indeed, significant parts of it now are in danger of total destruction. When i first came to borneo in 1956, the rainforest stretched unbroken on either side of the river for hundreds of miles. Today, its very different. Just beyond the trees lining the river bank, there is nothing but oil palm plantations, and the forest and all the rich variety of animals and plants that it had once contained, has been destroyed. And yet, as we have transformed the Natural World, so our attitudes towards it have changed fundamentally. Again and again, i have seen the impoverishment and desolation caused by the way we have ruthlessly taken what we want from the land, no matter what the cost. But i have also seen how the Natural World, given just the slightest chance, can manage to survive. And i have met the farsighted and dedicated conservationists whove labored to protect it people who, by their own example, have shown that there is something that can be done about it. I was born in 1926, at the end of the age of the great naturalist collectors. It was a time when it was perfectly acceptable to go out and collect creatures from the wild. If the london zoo wanted a new animal or a replacement, they simply commissioned a collector to go out and get it. And in the 1950s, as a Young Television producer obsessed with the Natural World, i was delighted when we got permission to go along with an expedition from the london zoo. It was going to go to west africa and be headed by one of the zoos animal collecting experts, jack lester. I thought it would be a good idea if we called the series, quest for somethingorother. So, i asked jack lester whether in fact there was an animal there that we could have a quest for, that no one had seen before, and he said, oh, yes, and its called picathartes gymnocephalus. So, i said, well, thats not really a very catchy quest for picathartes gymnocephalus is there another name . And jack said, yes, its also called the bald headed rock fowl. I said, well, even, quest for a bald headed rock fowl, doesnt, likely to grab people, you know. So, in the end we just called it zoo quest. [ zoo quest theme music playing ] we spent weeks collecting all kinds of creatures, and because there werent any scientists there, we relied on local people to help us find picathartes initially, without much luck. And then at last one man recognized our drawing of picathartes and told us that the birds were nesting in the hills nearby. In the finished programs, of course, we didnt reveal this immediately. Instead, we ended each by saying, so, we went on to look for picathartes. Nonetheless, we were a bit concerned as to whether anybody would really care about picathartes. But i was reassured when i was traveling down Oxford Street in an open car, and a bus driver leant out of his cab, and he said, hello, dave well, are we or are we not going to find picabloodyfartees so, i knew that actually we had made an impact with somebody. And the bus driver got his answer in the last episode. [young attenborough] we took our places behind the hide, and now came the most tense moment of the expedition, the moment for which we had all waited so long. Would we see the adult birds . And then suddenly we saw one, a few yards away in the twilight of the bush, preening itself. This was enormous excitement. Then up it fluttered onto the nest, and as it did so the other parent flew across and drove the first one away. This was a great thrill for us, for as this happened, we became the first europeans ever to see the white necked picathartes on its nest. Attenborough having filmed picathartes, we managed to collect a young nestling and brought it back together with sun birds and emerald starlings to live here in the bird house in the london zoo. It had been my first opportunity to film animals in the wild, and this happy collaboration with the london zoo resulted in a whole succession of zoo quest series. Sadly, after the first, jack became seriously ill, so i took over and tried to give the impression that i knew what i was doing. Its important to grab his tail as soon as you grab his head, otherwise hell wrap his great coils round you and give you a very nasty squeeze. I was more than happy that wed been able to take it away without it harming us. First i grabbed the tail with my left hand, and then tickled his tummy with my right, so that he doubled up, lost his grip and out he came. Of course, i wouldnt behave like that today. Things have changed. Thanks to their breeding programs, zoos can get most of what they want without going to catch them in the wild. And once the animals wed collected had settled in at the zoo, we got permission to take some of the more interesting ones to the studios to show them off on live television. And here he is in the studio. He can bite, hes got quite powerful fangs. I have been bitten by a python, it doesnt hurt much. Well, helping me help helping me control this python is mr. Lanwarn from the reptile house in the london zoo, who in fact has it in his care now, but hes quite a, quite a handful now, isnt he . These, you could quite imagine how these powerful coils lanwarn oh, yes. Attenborough could really give you quite a crush. Our attitudes to wildlife were so very different in the 50s. But then they were about to undergo a transformation. Early Wildlife Conservation was largely a domestic affair. Americans worried about their bison, the british worried about britains sea birds. Foreign wildlife was of little concern, but in 1961 conservationists from several countries came together and created the World Wildlife fund, with its famous panda logo. The fund was the First International body to spend money on conservation projects around the world. And one of its first projects was to help the endangered and rare animals on the galapagos islands. And these extraordinary islands still remain wonderlands today. This is the giant galapagos tortoise. They live longer than any other animal on earth, well over 150 years. They weigh up to a quarter of a ton and have shells over a meter across. They really are giants. Some 15 subspecies of these reptiles evolved on the galapagos, but in the 17th century, human beings discovered the islands. The tortoises were a valuable source of fresh meat, and visiting sailors took them away by the thousands. By the middle of the 20th century, one third of the original subspecies had been totally exterminated, and only 3,000 of the remainder still survived. In the early 60s, the World Wildlife fund got involved in trying to halt the decline. They put money into a pioneering captive rearing program at the Charles Darwin Research Center on the galapagos. Tortoise eggs were collected from the wild and carefully raised away from introduced predators. By the 1970s, when i first visited the galapagos, the first captive bred tortoises were ready to be released. And a dramatic discovery had been made on pinta island. The subspecies that evolved there had long been thought extinct, but in 1971, a single male tortoise was discovered there. He was brought back to the Charles Darwin research station where he quickly became a celebrity in his own right. This is the rarest living animal in all the world. There is none rarer. This is lonesome george. It was hoped that a female pinta tortoise might be found with which he could breed, but it was not to be. Lonesome george, it seems, is doomed to be the last of his kind. Sadly, he died in june 2012. But other surviving galapagos tortoises have had to deal with a different threat. Goats. They were brought to the island long ago by both sailors and settlers, and have now gone wild. They crop the vegetation so severely that theres little or nothing left for the tortoises. So, the islands conservation authorities decided to eradicate feral goats on several of the islands, so that the vegetation could recover and the tortoises get their natural food back. Now, on isabella island, as i saw for myself in 2008, the plants have returned to their former lushness and the tortoises future has been secured. Saving large, dramatic species was one of conservationists first aims. But soon we realized that true conservation means protecting the entire habitat, of which this spectacular species is just one element. And one way of doing that is to establish nature reserves or National Parks. The First National park in africa was created in 1925 around the volcanoes that lie in the heart of the continent. Its aim was to protect the rare mountain gorillas which were being killed by trophy hunters and poachers. But what has happened there since has made it quite clear that effective conservation isnt just a question of governments drawing lines on a map. Very often it requires the passion and determination of one highly motivated individual, as i saw myself in rwanda. An american woman, dian fossey, had been studying the mountain gorillas in the virunga volcanoes National Park since 1967. By patiently sitting near to them year after year, shed eventually won their complete trust to a quite astonishing degree. In 1978, she agreed that we might come with cameras to film them. On the first day, dian came out with us, i think to keep an eye on us, to see if we were going to behave properly. She was quite suspicious of what we were doing, so we were on trial. [ gorilla grunting ] she introduced us to the gorillas in the sense that they saw that we were with dian, so i suspect that that may well have been that they therefore thought we were okay. But without dian, that sequence could never have happened. There is more meaning and Mutual Understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than any other animal i know. Were so similar. Their sight, their hearing, their sense of smell are so similar to ours that we see the world in the same way as they do. They walk around on the ground as we do, though theyre. [ gorilla pounding chest ] immensely more powerful than we are. And so if ever there was a possibility of escaping the human condition and living imaginatively, hmm, in another creatures world, it must be with a gorilla. And this is how they spend most of their time, lounging on the ground, grooming one another. Sometimes they even allow others to join in. We never thought for a second that we would get in physical contact with them. Today, thats frowned upon quite right, too, because many of the diseases that human beings have can be caught by gorillas. Their curiosity is revealed by my photographs. One of them was very interested in the long sort of sausage shape housing that holds the microphone, and you can see this young male just feeling it, seeing what it is, and also they were fascinated by the camera. And they came to martin saunders, who was the cameraman, and were peering inside the camera to see if they could see another animal inside it. And finally, the adult male, the big silverback appeared. Dians name for him was beethoven, and beethoven was a huge, powerful animal, and really quite alarming, because if hed lost his temper with you, he could simply smash your skull with one blow of his fist. The thing you dont do is to pick up your camera and look directly at him thats a challenging thing to do. So, i have quite a lot of pictures of beethoven gazing to the right or to the left, or even looking away from me. Yeah, so he is. But behind this extraordinary encounter lay a tragic and shocking reality. We had arrived in dian fosseys camp in january 1978, just days after dians favorite gorilla, a young male, his name was digit, had been savagely and brutally killed by poachers. Dian was grief stricken, it was though she had lost a child. And on top of that, she was in extremely poor health, spitting blood. We became witness to a slowmotion tragedy. Gorillas had been illegally killed in the virunga volcanoes National Park throughout the 60s and 70s. When dian had arrived, there were about 500 left. But there were only about half that number at the time of our visit, and dian had taken it upon herself to organize antipoaching patrols. Never before had it been so clear to me that a species was heading for disaster. It was just dian fossey who was standing between the mountain gorillas and extinction. On our last evening at her camp, dian called me to her sickbed and made me promise to do something to help save the gorillas. And when i got back to britain i kept that promise, and got together with other conservationists, and jointly we created the mountain gorilla fund. We raised money for education programs, for developing gorilla tourism, and for antipoaching patrols. [ man speaking indigenous language ] building relationships with the local authorities along the way. When life on earth broadcast, the sequence with the gorillas caused something of a sensation, and helped people realize that the gorillas were not only endangered, but had to be helped. Meanwhile, dians health improved and she resumed her efforts to protect the gorillas and their habitat. She fought as hard as she could to prevent great areas of the forest from being cut down and turned into farmland. And she continued her battles with the poachers, destroying their snares and arresting them when her patrols captured them redhanded. Although there is no doubt that dian fosseys antipoaching methods were controversial and certainly antagonized many of the local people, they nonetheless succeeded in saving much of the forest. Efforts to protect the gorillas habitat, by dian and the charity i helped to create, which became the International Gorilla conservation project, have paid off. Despite the regions wars, there are now about 480 virunga gorillas, twice as many as when we visited. But theyre still threatened, because of the great speed at which the human population of the region is increasing. And that danger is, in fact, a global one. You and i belong to the most widespread and dominant species of animal on earth. There are Something Like 4,000 million of us today, and weve reached this position with meteoric speed. Its all happened within the last 2,000 years or so, we seem to have broken loose from the restrictions that have governed the activities and numbers of other animals. That was st. Peters square in rome in 1978. Since then, our population has nearly doubled there are now over seven billion of us. By some estimates, there may be nine billion people in 2050. That growth is largely attributable to medical advances, and to the highly efficient ways weve found to grow our food. In just a few thousand years, the revolution of agriculture has spread to virtually all human societies. Today, over a third of the surface of the land is devoted to producing food for human beings. And that has changed some landscapes in the most dramatic way. Our scientific and technological ingenuity has enormously increased agricultural productivity in the last 60 years. World Grain Production has more than tripled. But even that has not been able to keep pace with the needs of the worlds growing human population. In some parts of the world, the natural forest was cleared for agriculture many centuries ago. But elsewhere, that transformation has happened in my lifetime. When i first came to borneo in 1956, all this was rainforest. Now, all those trees have gone. The logging industry took out the wood. The Palm Oil Industry cleared what remained of the forest and replaced it with its own uniform plantations. All those extra human mouths have to be fed, and the country needs the cash. But the effect on the Natural World has been catastrophic. Few have suffered more than the orangutans. Many adults were killed as the forest was cleared. If their babies didnt die with them, then they were usually taken and sold as pets. A few fortunate ones ended up in sanctuaries like this one at sepilok. These baby orangs are orphans, mostly rescued from the pet trade. Its easy to see why they make such engaging pets when theyre young. Indeed, when i was here 50 years ago, i had one as a pet, which i became very fond of. His mother had been killed by a villager as she raided his banana plantation. London zoo, i knew, wanted to establish an orang breeding colony, so he joined our floating menagerie. [young attenborough] but it wasnt long before charlie, as we had christened him, began to calm down. Slowly we managed to win his confidence. And then for the first time, four days after wed had him, we encouraged him to come right outside his cage. And here is charlie, safe and sound back in london. Hey, charlie . Charlie . And with him is mr. Smith, the head keeper of the monkey house. And how is he, mr. Smith . Very much recovered from his long and arduous journey, david, and hes going to settle down, and i think hes gonna be with us for a very long time. Attenborough and that he was. And a few years after his arrival at the zoo, he took a shine to a young female. Back in 1961, i went into the ape house in london zoo to see charlie, as i often did, and the head keeper came over and he said, ive got good news, he said, youre about to become a grandfather. Really, i said. Yes, he said, your Young Charlie has fathered a baby, and it should be born in a few months time. And as grandfather, he said, you have the privilege of christening it. So, eventually i decided it should be called bulu, which in malay means little hairy one. Bulu . Can we have bulu . Now, this is charlies daughter. All right dear, all right, all right. Bulu was the first orangutan born in britain, and she was just as endearing as charlie had been. I look back on those days, when i had charlie the baby orang, with mixed feelings, because the fact of the matter is that these are not pets, these are wild animals and they should be in the wild. The problem is that, although many people in borneo support the rehabilitation of orangutan, their rainforest home continues to be destroyed as the rest of the world increases its demand for palm oil. So, the question that hangs over these orangs future is whether there will be enough forest left for them to return to when theyve grown up. Strong measures will have to be taken if that is to be so. There is one place where our destructive impact on the planet is less immediately obvious. The oceans. I can see its tail just under my boat here, and its coming up, coming up, there the blue whale is 100 feet long, 30 meters, nothing like that can grow on land, because no bone is Strong Enough to support such bulk. Only in the sea can you get such a huge size as that magnificent creature. I had to wait until i was 76 years old to see my first blue whale. Part of what made the encounter so special was that for much of my lifetime blue whales were being killed at such a rate that it seemed quite possible that they would become extinct before i ever saw one. The fact that theyve survived is a conservation triumph,