Silicon Valley, the Whales Are Calling You
By Michele the Trainer
Working in the revolutionary tireless Silicon Valley?
Love sci-fi?
The whales are calling, will you answer?
No no no, this is not about crypto whales. This is about real whales in the real world showing up with critical problems near the world’s largest hub of problem solving innovators.
Do you remember Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home from 1986? If not, Captain Kirk and Spock traveled back in time to retrieve humpback whales (in the movie humpback whales were extinct, and mechanically created for that film) because there was an evil space probe that was destroying Earth (evaporating the Earth’s oceans) and the whales were the only beings that could communicate with the probe to send it away from Earth.
Here on Medium we love writers. Note that this movie and Star Trek the series were created by television screenwriter Gene Roddenberry. What a visionary!
Here’s a scene, and note that this scene ends showing San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge (also shown in our header image):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eeFn_vmbXA
Fast forward to the future, today 2019, when NINE* gray whales have washed up dead in the San Francisco Bay, home of the Golden Gate Bridge, within an hour commute from Silicon Valley:
Have you ever seen, or smelled a dead whale? It’s a powerful sighting and experience. Whales are the largest animals to have ever existed on earth.
This is like watching the dinosaurs die. We must act. The future generations will ask what we did to save the whales. What will our answer be?
It’s time for us all to pay attention to our ocean planet home, Earth.
We innovate for the future. If you work in Silicon Valley you are intelligent and capable. You are a problem solver. You know how to get things done. You know how to take action. I’ve worked in Silicon Valley for many many years (since long before autonomous vehicles and a bit before that Star Trek movie ;).
Here are some suggested topics to help you learn more:
1. Silicon comes from the ocean, from sand.
2. Remember that we live on an ocean planet. Often just remembering that we do not live only in a building or on a planet made of land, but of water.
3. Learn about how whales are essential to our planet.
4. Learn about climate change and how it affects the oceans. When global temperatures rise, we lose coral reefs where the ocean is warm, and ice in colder regions.
5. Learn about krill, the food of filter feeding baleen whales like gray whales and humpback whales. Krill live in and around arctic ice, so when arctic ice melts, they lose their ecosystem. Whales are starving to death internationally.
6. Learn about how our choices affect pollution. Buy from brands that use less packaging. Buy from brands that support the environment. Learn about decreasing pollution. Recycle. Use less plastic. Pickup trash and dispose of it properly. It’s not someone else’s job, it’s everyone’s job.
7. Support Patagonia Clothing. Don’t just wear their clothing in Silicon Valley because it’s a trend, really learn about the company, their environmentally conscious founder Yvon Chouinard, and learn about their campaign to help whales and dolphins on USA’s east coast in Plymouth Massachusetts.
8. Learn about how what we eat affects our Earth home. Read or listen to the book OMD by Suzy Cameron, One Meal a Day for the Planet. Suzy Cameron is Ocean Explorer and Avatar’s creator James Cameron’s wife; together they are outstanding sustainability leaders and educators. Her book is loaded with references, research and statistics that support the benefits of simply eating one meal a day, plant based, for sustainability. Here’s a fun video I took at the book’s launch event, where you can see the OMD book cover on a cake! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x55VRrchS3E
9. Try to eat one meal a day, plant based.
10. Support restaurants, stores and brands that offer plant-based choices. Support your local Farmer’s Markets.
11. Encourage your company to start a Sustainability or Save the Whales campaign or educational campaign. Let me know if I can help.
It’s tough to ignore the world’s largest animal showing up dead, nine times, on the doorstep of the world’s biggest collection of innovative problem solvers. Intelligent people globally are paying attention to these events. Together we can create solutions.
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*Note that since I wrote this, now there are thirteen whales. https://www.yahoo.com/news/13th-dead-whale-washes-ashore-near-san-francisco-215318305.html
