The sight of a dead whale being towed ashore in Denmark has sent the usual suspects into paroxysms of environmental panic. The UK marine scientists, never ones to miss an opportunity for a dramatic press release, have called for an 'urgent pollution inquiry'. One must ask: is this genuine scientific concern or yet another ritual of secular penance?
The Romans would have seen a whale stranding as a portent, a message from the gods. Today, we have something far less dignified: a cargo of self-righteousness masquerading as research. The whale is dead.
The scientists are already spinning it into a narrative of our collective sinfulness. I propose a different inquiry: into the intellectual decadence that leads otherwise rational people to see every natural event as a referendum on modern life. Perhaps the whale simply took a wrong turn.
Perhaps it died of old age. But that would not fit the story, would it? So we shall have our inquiry, our headlines, and our smug satisfaction of having paid obeisance to the climate gods.
Meanwhile, the whale will rot, and the marine scientists will move on to their next crusade. So predictable. So very post-Christian Europe.
