re: Wind energy company pleads guilty to killing 150 eagles in the US

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I get your point, but its kind of nonsense to criticize wind turbines for killing wild animals indiscriminately when the deepwater horizon oil spill alone probably killed more wildlife than all of wind/solar combined to date.

The most conservative estimates have annual wind farm bird and bat deaths over 700k.

Even the most liberal estimates of the BP impacts would be surpassed very quickly with those kind of annual numbers.

Neither one is great from a wildlife standpoint. But wind farms seemingly get a pass because they are "renewable energy".

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Also, let's point out the fact that wind turbines do this under normal operation. Oil spills almost always happen because of human error and could have typically been prevented, BP included.

There are plenty of offshore oil facilities that have had negligible amounts of pollution and actually serve to be beneficial to wildlife.

In other words, wildlife has actually increased because of some facilities. How many wind mills have had a positive influence on wildlife?

There are also organisms that thrive on natural oil seeps in the ocean. I am not sure how spilled oil plays a roll if any, with those organisms though.

8 million for 150 eagles seems kind of steep. They aren't endangered or threatened anymore. They're basically buzzards with a better hairdo.


Both golden and bald eagles have a "least concern" conservation status.

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interesting. So there are acceptable losses?

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Of course. We can't roll out of bed in the morning without destroying something.

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Never heard that argument used by anyone on the left.

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I am not nearly as far left as many here think I am. People like to fight strawmen.

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Also FTR, wind farms are a land and money grad through gov't contracts/subsidies. at this point, they can serve no true benefit. they are just not there yet.

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I think they are there, but I don't think they should go just anywhere just because it's windy. I think offshore wind makes a ton of sense, and we should work more on tidal generation as well as offshore energy storage systems. And solar should go on roofs instead of clearing new land for it.

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Those windmill blade graveyards are blown even more out of proportion than your birds angle.

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That’s because they are bigger and can catch more wind.

Not saying we need to do away with safety measures, but just remove warning labels right?

I had a fricken eagle swoop down and almost snatch my swimbait one day out on the water. If I hooked the eagle he would have found out who was the boss that's for sure. Eagle wings sound like a fricken delicacy.

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How many wind mills have had a positive influence on wildlife?

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The cows enjoy the shade.

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People argue to bankrupt the oil industry and stop drilling and refining because most only view it as fuel and have no concept that 60% of the weight of their phones/computers come from petroleum products.

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In fairness to the extremists out there, probably 90+% of the oil we use is burned, so ending its use as fuel would very nearly shut the whole industry down.

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Korkstand

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Will you admit products used to produce "renewable energy" such as wind turbines, solar panels, etc. are produced with fossil fuels?