Who saved the whales?

At Ace of Spades, Oregon Muse asks,

Who is really responsible for saving the whales?

a) GreenPeace
b) a random assortment of smelly hippie protestors.
c) international "law"
d) John D. Rockefeller

The answer is, of course, (d) John D. Rockefeller:

Whale oil provided the lighting to read the breakthrough novel of 1870, the story of Captain Nemo in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. That was also the year of the foundation of Standard Oil. The result of that foundation is that we didn’t hunt the whales to extinction, but instead turned to kerosene to light the latter part of the 19th century, moving to electricity only in the 20th.

It really isn’t hyperbole to insist that John D. Rockefeller saved the whales by his making mineral oil products so much cheaper than the cetacean-derived equivalent.
The lesson is obvious:

We need to be as viciously capitalist and free market as we can to save the planet.