Freakonomics Radio22 Aug 2025

What Can Whales Teach Us About Clean Energy, Workplace Harmony, and Living the Good Life? (Update)

In the final episode of our whale series, we learn about fecal plumes, shipping noise, and why Moby-Dick is still worth reading. (Part 3 of "Everything You Never Knew About Whaling.")

SOURCES:
- Michele Baggio, professor of economics at the University of Connecticut.
- Mary K. Bercaw-Edwards, professor of maritime English at the University of Connecticut and lead foreman at the Mystic Seaport Museum.
- Hester Blum, professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis.
- Eric Hilt, professor of economics at Wellesley College.
- Kate O’Connell, senior policy consultant for the marine life program at the Animal Welfare Institute.
- Maria Petrillo, director of interpretation at the Mystic Seaport Museum.
- Joe Roman, fellow and writer-in-residence at the Gund Institute for Environment, University of Vermont.

RESOURCES:
- Eat, Poop, Die: How Animals Make Our World, by Joe Roman (2023).
- “Racial Diversity and Team Performance: Evidence from the American Offshore Whaling Industry,” by Michele Baggio and Metin M. Cosgel (S.S.R.N., 2023).
- “Why 23 Dead Whales Have Washed Up on the East Coast Since December,” by Tracey Tully and Winston Choi-Schagrin (The New York Times, 2023).
- “Suspected Russia-Trained Spy Whale Reappears Off Sweden’s Coast,” by A.F.P. in Stockholm (The Guardian, 2023).
- “International Trade, Noise Pollution, and Killer Whales,” by M. Scott Taylor and Fruzsina Mayer (N.B.E.R. Working Paper, 2023).
- “World-First Map Exposes Growing Dangers Along Whale Superhighways,” by the World Wildlife Fund (2022).
- “Lifting Baselines to Address the Consequences of Conservation Success,” by Joe Roman, Meagan M. Dunphy-Daly, David W. Johnston, and Andrew J. Read (Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2015).
- “Wages, Risk, and Profits in the Whaling Industry,” by Elmo P. Hohman (The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1926).
- Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville (1851).

EXTRAS:
- “Why Do People Still Hunt Whales? (Update)” by Freakonomics Radio (2025).
- “How Much Does Discrimination Hurt the Economy?” by Freakonomics Radio (2021).

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