Moulton talks saving the right whale in Ipswich student talk

IPSWICH — Congressman Seth Moulton remembers not knowing anything about composting, going to school one day in Marblehead, where he grew up, learning about composting and coming home and telling his parents, “We’re going to compost.”

And they did.

The story was part of an hour-long give and take between the Sixth District Congressman and a mix of middle school and high school students at the Dolan Performing Arts Center, Monday, Nov. 4, at the high-middle school.

“We can be the generation that sees the right whale go extinct or we can be the generation that saves them,” Moulton told the students.

Moulton, D-Salem, kept his presentation focused on the environment, especially on the 400 or so right whales left, but student questions and Moulton also strayed into the political.

“If I’m still in this job when you’re old enough to run, then you should run against me,” Moulton said.

In June Moulton teamed with Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla., to pass a bill in the House of Representatives to give $2.5 million to research into what will give the right whale — so named because it was the “right” whale to hunt for oil in the 19th century — the best chance to survive.

Most right whales today die from collisions with ships or after being entangled in fishing gear that causes them to drown.

The right whale bill is now in the Senate.

Ironically, Moulton’s environmental concerns of today echoed a change from using whale oil, primarily for light, to using oil pumped from the ground in the 19th to the 20th centuries and Moulton’s call, today, for an equally revolutionary change to switch from fossil fuels, such as oil, to carbon-free fuels.

Moulton called for the U.S. to reach zero carbon emissions by the year 2050.

Carbon fuels contribute to global warming and Moulton said nuclear power was part of the answer to move completely away from fossil fuels.

The right whale has no such imperative environmental concerns and one student asked, “Why are the right whales so important?”

Moulton said the whales are important to tourism because people come to see the whales — they summer within an easy boat ride off the North Shore coast — and because the whales simply have been on the earth for so long.

“We have to get people excited about right whales,” Moulton said. “They’re not that cute.”

Moulton said his young daughter has a stuffed animal right whale and it is one of the “ugliest” stuffed animals in her collection.

One student asked about Moulton’s support for eliminating the Electoral College, with about half the 200 or so students present knowing what the Electoral College is and another student asking about Moulton’s now aborted presidential bid.

Moulton spent about 10 minutes trying to explain the Electoral College.

Essentially a presidential election has two votes, the nationwide popular vote, how many votes a presidential candidate gets across the country and the electoral vote, where each state elects people to vote for a presidential candidate, “electors” for a specific candidate.

Moulton called the Electoral College an outdated system, leftover from another political era that needed to be eliminated.

The Congressman also took full blame for his failed presidential bid.

“The biggest thing I did was I got into the race too late. That’s a lesson learned,” Moulton said.