[HN Gopher] Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-g...
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Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling
Author : livueta
Score : 406 points
Date : 2024-01-12 07:55 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| adastra22 wrote:
| What a weird comparison. Nobody is saying we should drill oil and
| gas instead of wind turbines.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| Well, there have been campaigns and articles for years
| attacking wind energy on the basis of protecting birds.
| janmalec wrote:
| May I introduce you to our lord and saviour nuclear energy.
| osigurdson wrote:
| It blows up though.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Generally it does not. Makes a lot of people upset if
| things don't work out, sure.
| osigurdson wrote:
| Agree. Usually it doesn't blow up but sometimes does.
| When it does, all of the squirrels in the area get 3 eyes
| and 5 legs.
| smileysteve wrote:
| More accurately they suffer defects and die.
|
| Then there is Chernobyl which now has healthier and more
| diverse wildlife than much of the world because humans
| have evacuated.
| osigurdson wrote:
| Chernobyl was good then?
| smileysteve wrote:
| In the micro, no, see the part about death.
|
| In the macro, it created a nature preserve that humans
| will barely visit, won't hunt in, won't deforest; and
| requires no active enforcement to keep that way.
| Alifatisk wrote:
| How often does such incident occur?
| osigurdson wrote:
| Not often but sometimes.
| renaudg wrote:
| Yeah and planes crash and it's spectacular, but they're
| still the safest means of transportation by far.
| osigurdson wrote:
| Planes are fast though. Even if less safe that cars we
| would still use them.
| bittercynic wrote:
| Nuclear energy is a little scary to me because I suspect it
| makes it more economical to build nuclear weapons.
|
| -Many more people become atomic experts, and they may be
| hired by weapons programs in the future.
|
| -We will learn how to deal with nuclear materials more
| efficiently - good for energy, but maybe also good for
| building weapons.
|
| -With more nuclear material being manufactured for energy,
| will it be easier to hide weapons manufacturing in the mix?
|
| I'd like to acknowledge that I'm speaking from ignorance
| here. I don't know much about nuclear technology.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Nuclear weapons aren't _that_ tough on a nation-scale to
| produce. It 's generally thought that places like Saudi
| Arabia, Japan, Australia, etc. could make a nuclear
| weapon in a few months if they really wanted.
|
| The barriers are more geopolitical than anything.
| audunw wrote:
| That's a "yes, and" kind of thing. We can't build nuclear
| fast enough yet. So we need both. I'd argue that wind and
| solar is much more important at this point since the growth
| of those is now faster than nuclear has ever been. And fast
| growth of non-fossil energy sources is priority #1 right
| now. We can free up some land later with nuclear. Wind and
| solar isn't going to push any species to extinction, so any
| damage is reversible.
|
| Though I'm a bit wary of nuclear given there are studies
| indicating that the heat energy added by thermal power
| plants contributes surprisingly much to global warming. If
| we can replace all thermal power plants with renewables
| that's a nice contribution to reducing global warming. On
| the order of CO2 emissions from planes if I remember
| correctly.
|
| I'm sure we could "afford" the heat from thermal power
| plants if we didn't have so many greenhouse gases. But when
| we're already so close to the edge of the cliff, every
| little bit counts.
| kika wrote:
| If we produced a gigawatt of energy by cleanest way
| possible, where do you think this gigawatt ends up? Some
| "energy dumpyard" somewhere outside the solar system?
| pjc50 wrote:
| In the long term .. yes?
|
| The temperature is a balance between energy incoming from
| the sun and energy being radiated off into space. Wind
| and solar don't change that balance directly, although
| the lower reflectivity of solar panels makes a small
| local difference. Ultimately it's the transmissibility
| spectrum of the atmosphere that matters. Which is why we
| care about CO2 in the first place.
| awiejrilawej wrote:
| I'm genuinely curious, why are there so many
| extraordinarily pro-nuclear people on this forum? And how
| many of them have greater than zero experience with nuclear
| anything? I worked in the nuclear power industry for a
| decade and people in the industry are not as maniacally
| pro-nuclear as the people in this forum.
| evandale wrote:
| This forum has lots of highly intelligent individuals and
| nuclear power is the most intelligent energy source to
| switch to so we can stop relying on fossil fuels.
|
| Perhaps you were working with people who don't feel the
| need to talk about how great nuclear is all the time
| because you all work in the industry and understand that
| already.
| pjc50 wrote:
| It's weird, isn't it? There's a lot of nuclear
| cheerleaders, and it makes me suspicious when they're
| also anti-renewables rather than "yes, and".
|
| Essentially everyone has forgotten the arguments of the
| nineties: nuclear weapons proliferation, waste dumping,
| and covering the entirety of western Europe in a thin
| layer of airborne radioactive particles. As well as the
| more practical cost overruns. Personally I think it would
| be worth someone giving SMR a go, but in a different
| country from me and at their own expense.
| gcheong wrote:
| "nuclear weapons proliferation,..." Seems like we got
| that anyway thanks to the military industrial complex
| without getting much in the way of nuclear energy
| generation.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Lots of places built dual-purpose reactors? The initial
| UK nuclear program (Windscale) was weapons-first. The
| famous French reactor programme and their independent
| nuclear deterrent are also linked.
|
| Also, this is why people are reluctant to let some of the
| world's larger carbon emitters, the oil states in the
| middle east, build nuclear reactors. Iran has a small,
| heavily monitored fleet.
| gcheong wrote:
| Fair enough, but my point is that nuclear power
| generation and nuclear weapons development are two
| different things and one doesn't necessarily lead to the
| other. In other words one can be against a particular use
| of a technology without being against the technology
| itself.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| By definition then, those people have experience with
| decades-old technologies and installations?
|
| The enthusiasm is largely for newer nuclear designs that
| address the FUD that gets thrown around whenever nuclear
| is mentioned.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| I think it's because the enormous costs of plant
| construction are not well understood. Or maybe, we think
| these costs can be reduced greatly.
| mrweasel wrote:
| The people who are concerned about wind turbines killing
| birds also tend to not want nuclear power plants.
| smileysteve wrote:
| And by wanting nuclear, within the context of the build
| pace of nuclear is to support the status quo - ie oil and
| gas.
|
| It's the same conclusion as hydrogen car investment. It's
| easy to maintain ice technology, but the generation,
| storage, trabsport, use are riddled with issues.
| beaeglebeached wrote:
| Of course, if your neighbor has a good turbine spot and you
| don't, you have to look at it while his property's utility
| rises over yours.
|
| That, cannot be tolerated. They're free to move to industrial
| zoned land if they want to be a power plant.
|
| (Neither the ag-backwoods voters controlling their zoning nor
| capitalists installing them are hyper concerned about
| sparrows getting chopped up. It's a ruse.)
| sunshinesnacks wrote:
| > That, cannot be tolerated.
|
| Why, exactly?
| beaeglebeached wrote:
| If you search zoning meeting wind turbine Google images
| it will be revealed quickly. Scan the demographic. Old
| people who've already gotten theirs with mostly invented
| blame for ailments. It's all downside for them, to see
| their landscape change and plant a tree who's shade
| they'll never see.
| red1reaper wrote:
| bah, old people is the reason why we are climatically bad
| in the first place, its a downside they are going to have
| to accept.
| sunshinesnacks wrote:
| I originally thought you were arguing that wind turbines
| should not be able to be installed on someone's property
| if they can't also go on the neighbors property, but now
| I'm not sure. Was your first comment sarcasm? Maybe I'm
| just misreading.
| beaeglebeached wrote:
| It was sarcasm.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| The Canadian province of Alberta has more or less this exact
| policy.
| gnabgib wrote:
| The province with the most solar (1511mw to #2-Ontario's
| 944mw[0]), and most wind power (4431mw to #2-Ontario's 3822mw
| [1]) in the country?
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power
| _sta... [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wind_farms_in_Canada
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| I didn't say that they don't have green energy. I said that
| they currently have a government policy that is designed to
| promote oil and hinder green energy projects.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/canadas-oil-rich-
| alberta-...
| imafish wrote:
| What would be a better comparison?
| nfriedly wrote:
| I think some people are saying exactly that.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| They absolutely are saying that.
|
| https://theintercept.com/2021/12/08/oil-industry-wind-farm-p...
|
| > The plan, which was approved in 2017, sanctioned a Danish
| company to build a 120-megawatt capacity wind energy project --
| enough to power 40,000 homes by placing turbines 26 nautical
| miles offshore. The letter warned that the project would
| "irreparably damage beach tourism, home values and the
| economy," "lower rents generally," and produce "no
| environmental benefit." "In fact," the letter claimed,
| "regional air quality would become worse because of them."
|
| > While the letter was signed by a local resident, it made
| little mention of its true author: the Caesar Rodney Institute,
| a libertarian think tank at the time funded by the oil
| industry. The subterfuge was intentional. In an interview with
| the State Policy Network, a group that coordinates best
| practices for oil-and-gas-backed and libertarian think tanks,
| the Caesar Rodney Institute said it produced the letter and had
| it signed by a local concerned beach homeowner to "establish
| rapport" with the target audience of local residents and
| merchants.
| genman wrote:
| Yet those opponents of the wind turbines want to have all the
| benefits of the modern society like medicine and transportation
| and that sweet electricity that enables the electromagnetic
| waves used for planet wide communication. It almost feels like
| they are shilling for oil and gas companies or for
| authoritarian regimes that receive their main income from oil
| and gas drilling.
| osigurdson wrote:
| It really doesn't matter what anyone wants. Hydrocarbons are
| a huge but decreasing part of the energy mix. Eventually we
| will not use them but it is going to take 50-100 years.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| I don't know where you are, but in the US there is a large
| percentage of the population who claim to believe that, who
| claim that "green coal" is a thing, and they vote like they
| believe it.
|
| Former President Trump has repeatedly stated that wind turbines
| are terrible for birds. I'm no mind reader, but it is also a
| fact that he owns a coastal golf course and sued to prevent
| development of a wind farm because he didn't want his golfers
| experience to be affected by seeing offshore wind turbines.
|
| 2016: https://www.factcheck.org/2016/06/trumps-hot-air-on-wind-
| ene... 2018: https://www.factcheck.org/2018/09/trump-again-
| overblows-risk... 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/2019/dec/23/trump-bizarr... 2020:
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-wind-energy-kills-...
| 2023: https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-are-thousands-bald-
| eagle...
|
| I'm sure if I looked beyond the first page of search results, I
| could fill in the other years.
|
| Some information about the lawsuit:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_International_Golf_Club_...
| dangus wrote:
| My Fox News Dad sure does.
| ajuc wrote:
| There's currently a big public debate in my country regarding
| relaxing building restrictions for wind turbines, and all the
| FUD about noise levels, killing birds etc is very much in use.
|
| Current law is so harsh that you can build a coal powerplant
| closer to peoples' houses than a wind turbine :)
|
| That's despite the fact we have the worst air pollution in EU
| and the wind turbines would replace coal powerplants...
|
| TL; DR: you're wrong.
| mrweasel wrote:
| You are sort of correct, nobody is saying that directly, but
| that is the result.
|
| The people who are concerned about wind turbines killing birds
| aren't offering any alternatives, that would be widely
| accepted, so the result is fossil fuel, because that's what we
| already have in place.
|
| The anti-nuclear protests in the 60s and 70s also didn't want
| fossil fuels, but they also didn't understand that an increase
| in fossil fuel usage was the alternative, because it was the
| only one that made financial sense.
| pjc50 wrote:
| A lot of the anti-nuclear protests during the Cold War were
| against nuclear reactors because of nuclear weapons, which
| offered a much more immediate threat against the habitability
| of the earth.
| rappatic wrote:
| I wish a proper study on this could get some real funding. The
| cited study is certainly better than nothing but it's based on a
| _volunteer reported_ survey with significant response bias (eg.
| maybe the drop in bird sightings near oil and gas drilling is
| because people don 't want to go birdwatching near an oil field).
| jeffbee wrote:
| You want a "proper study" instead of an annual time series,
| comparable for over a century, conducted by millions of
| individuals? What a goofy comment. This is gold-standard data.
| The paper even explains why this is superior to nerd bullshit
| like eBird.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Whoa whoa whoa. Whoa! Watch what are you calling nerd
| bullshit. ;-)
| red1reaper wrote:
| you are right, in any case it would be nerd birdshit
| imafish wrote:
| Ah yes. The bird strawman.
|
| Maybe we should also stop building highrises, and kill all the
| predators, and stop eating meat, and.., and..
| widdershins wrote:
| And kill all pet cats.
| deely3 wrote:
| If we continue sarcasm line.. this is sarcasm, yes? Then we
| should kill all cats globally. Billion of birds killed by
| cars even in places where cats native for thousends years.
| quesera wrote:
| > _Billion of birds killed by cars even in places where
| cats native_
|
| You raise a good point. however unintentionally! :)
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Why does it have to be sarcasm?
|
| Do you have any idea how much damage they do? Yet everyone
| demands to be able to bring their invasive species specimen
| along with them, and let it loose in twice a day to go make
| more native species extinct.
|
| And you don't even keep track of them. Most places, there
| are thousands to hundreds of thousands of strays,
| reproducing to the limits of survivability.
|
| What are they even for? They seem to be surrogate children
| so that you can forget for awhile that you're childless. Or
| are they more like surrogate livestock, so that you can
| feel connected to your ancestors who used to keep animals
| for practical reasons thousands of years ago?
|
| I think I prefer songbirds.
| Tagbert wrote:
| Then let's start with the strays. Our cat was a rescued
| stray whose ear was docked when she was spayed. A block
| away from us is a house with a whole colony of stray cats
| that people have put up housing and other people come by
| and feed them. It doesn't look like those cats have been
| fixed judging by their ears.
| gumby wrote:
| I'm a cat owner but probably will never get another one.
| Definitely not if I move back to Australia.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| An indoor-only cat kills no birds. Bonus points for
| spaying/neutering.
| gumby wrote:
| In my case I haven't been able to manage indoor only but
| I'm sure others are able to.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Can your cat operate door locks or something? It really
| isn't difficult to keep a cat indoors only.
| gumby wrote:
| Luckily I've never had a cat with an opposable thumb
| (whew!). But where I live in california there is a highly
| permeable interface between indoor and outdoor, with no
| screens. Most of the year there are doors and huge
| windows open all day unless nobody is home. In other
| words, I don't have a lifestyle that could feasibly
| restrict a cat to the indoors. When I lived on the 5th
| floor of a city building, yes. Other than that: no.
| NikkiA wrote:
| An indoor-only rescue cat takes a cat off the street,
| keeps it from killing wildlife, AND gives it a better
| life.
| forward1 wrote:
| The moral panic at birds harmed by oil & gas industry, while
| ignoring the literal 100 _billion_ animals commodified and
| killed _each year_ , is a good reminder of the cognitive
| dissonance enabling all the environmental destruction we do
| virtuously decry.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It looks a lot less like "cognitive dissonance" and more like
| "bad faith arguments from fossil fuel industry-linked groups"
| when you dig a bit.
|
| https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/do-wind-turbines-kill-birds
|
| > A 2012 study found that wind projects kill 0.269 birds per
| gigawatt-hour of electricity produced, compared to 5.18 birds
| killed per gigawatt-hour of electricity from fossil fuel
| projects.
| forward1 wrote:
| Suggesting we kill fewer animals to avoid damaging the
| environment is fossil fuel industry propaganda now? That's
| a new one, thanks!
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "Who cares about oil/gas drilling, it's wind/meat/aliens
| that's _really_ the problem! " is the sort of deflection
| (into a culture war item, as a bonus) industry propaganda
| loves.
| forward1 wrote:
| How can you be sure the opposite is not true: it is Big
| Meat deflecting the blame on Big Oil?
| red1reaper wrote:
| Both are to blame, but meat is more delicious than oil,
| so ppl prefer, with all the reason in the world to dunk
| on big oil. First we go and kill big oil, after that we
| can talk about killing big meat.
| forward1 wrote:
| The collective conditioning you've put on exhibit in your
| comment beautifully captures the sentiment of our doomed
| generation. Thank you for sharing.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Yes, suggesting that we should slow/stop the transition
| to alternative fuel sources due to bird deaths in
| turbines is absolutely fossil fuel propaganda.
|
| The real danger to birds (and humans, and all other
| wildlife) is not flying into turbines, but systemic
| failure caused by extremely rapid environmental changes.
| You know, the kind that fossil fuel consumption is
| causing.
| forward1 wrote:
| > suggesting that we should slow/stop the transition to
| alternative fuel sources
|
| Where in the thread have I or anyone else done that?
|
| > You know, the kind that fossil fuel consumption is
| causing.
|
| So confidently incorrect. It is well known agriculture
| (and we really mean _animal_ agriculture) produces more
| greenhouse gases than the fossil fuel industry. Your
| anger at the state of the world has been misdirected at
| the wrong culprit.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > It is well known agriculture (and we really mean animal
| agriculture) produces more greenhouse gases than the
| fossil fuel industry.
|
| Agriculture _is_ a fossil fuel industry. The fertilizer
| it depends on comes from fossil fuel, the machines that
| till the fields run on fossil fuel, etc.
|
| https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/82194/err-2
| 24....
|
| "The food system accounts for a large share of fossil
| fuel consumption in the United States, and energy
| accounts for a substantial and highly variable share of
| food costs."
|
| It's also not an either/or scenario. _Both_ fossil fuel
| use _and_ cow farts cause said climate change.
| forward1 wrote:
| Well that is the point: animal agriculture also uses
| fossil fuels.
|
| Now, what uses more fossil fuels: 8 billion humans or 100
| billion animals? It is shocking most people cannot
| recognize this simple imbalance.
|
| Put another way, we cannot reduce fossil fuel use without
| also reducing animal agriculture.
| ethanbond wrote:
| The 8 billion humans use 100% of the fossil fuels that
| are being used.
|
| I cannot believe you are making this argument in good
| faith.
|
| Of course we can reduce fossil fuel consumption without
| reducing animal agriculture. I can reduce fuel
| consumption by going literally one day without driving my
| car. The question is whether we can reduce it _enough_ ,
| and I agree that "no more cars" _alone_ would not get us
| across the finish line. But it 's very unlikely any
| single lever or mode of consumption will get us across
| the line.
|
| > Well that is the point: animal agriculture also uses
| fossil fuels.
|
| Is that your point? Okay, well now that you've made it:
| agreed.
| forward1 wrote:
| You're intentionally misunderstanding and misrepresenting
| my point in bad faith.
|
| You haven't at all addressed the amount of resources and
| emissions 8 billion humans vs 100 billion animals create.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Now, what uses more fossil fuels: 8 billion humans or
| 100 billion animals? It is shocking most people cannot
| recognize this simple imbalance.
|
| The question doesn't even make much sense; the animals
| raised for eating _are_ a form of human usage of fossil
| fuels. Even if they didn 't, a single human and a single
| chicken don't have anything like the same carbon
| footprint. No animal uses fossil fuels independently of
| human activity; eagles don't eat coal, whales don't drink
| oil.
|
| (The answer is still "the humans", though; agriculture is
| about 10% of our emissions.
| https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-
| emis...)
| forward1 wrote:
| > question doesn't even make much sense
|
| It does if you stop to consider it. For instance, do you
| think those 100 billion animals need food to eat? Water?
| Are they creating waste? How much compared to 8 billion
| people?
|
| > agriculture is about 10% of our emissions
|
| Not all emissions are equal though. Some, like methane
| produced by cows, are substantially harder on the
| environment. Moreover, the transportation and power
| emissions also include animal ag, which is less efficient
| than plant farming.
| ethanbond wrote:
| > Suggesting we kill fewer animals to avoid damaging the
| environment is fossil fuel industry propaganda now?
|
| The canonical suggestion for achieving this wrt wind
| turbines is to shut down the turbines. If you have a
| proposal for killing fewer animals without doing so, I'm
| sure everyone is open to hearing it. Of course if you're
| just muddying the waters and saying, despite this thread
| being about bird deaths caused by turbines, that it'd be
| good if we killed fewer animals and perhaps should even
| curtail our animal agriculture: no dispute there!
|
| > It is well known agriculture (and we really mean animal
| agriculture) produces more greenhouse gases than the
| fossil fuel industry.
|
| And this means that fossil fuel consumption _isn 't_
| causing climate disruption? Most big trends in the world
| are both multicausal and overdetermined. So no, I'm not
| confidently incorrect.
| Lutger wrote:
| Are you ironic?
|
| This is a big talking point against renewable energy. If
| you just look at a couple of those think-tanks that are
| firmly in the climate denial business, you'll see its a
| favorite (and effective) one.
|
| The same line of reasoning is used against EV (needs
| cobalt! cobalt is evil!) and solar (all that non-recycled
| waste! using up precious farmlands!). Somehow in this
| discourse the alternatives are always either not
| realistic (nuclear will magically and cheaply solve our
| problems) or in some distant future, or even less
| realistic (bring down capitalism, stop consuming
| anything). That, conveniently, leaves use in apathy with
| our gasoline fueled status quo, which is precisely the
| goal.
| smileysteve wrote:
| Nuclear fusion was part of the debate on Wednesday, sigh.
|
| For whatever reason, wind, solar, geothermal, fission
| aren't good enough to pursue for the American political
| party that has the most oil and and gas funding.
| forward1 wrote:
| Yet I made no comment against renewable energy; I simply
| pointed out the irony in caring for birds harmed by the
| energy industry versus an order of magnitude more of them
| in animal agriculture. If one truly cared about birds -
| or any wildlife - they would make immediate changes to
| diet and lifestyle.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The cows killed by the meat industry exist because I want
| to eat them. The birds killed by oil, gas, and wind
| industries are all tragic waste.
|
| Plenty of people are fine with killing animals to eat,
| and are also not fine with animals dying for no point.
| That should not be difficult to comprehend. Other people
| get upset when they learn how the sausage is made because
| they don't have a very strong imagination, or a strong
| understanding of what American capitalism tends to do to
| "resources" like cattle.
| User23 wrote:
| The alternative to domesticated animal use isn't happy cows
| prancing through the prairies, it's the extinction of those
| species.
|
| Yes, factory farming is awful. But a pasture raised cow has a
| pretty nice cow life all things considered. Sure it comes to
| an abrupt end and becomes food, but so what? Coming to an
| abrupt end and becoming food is the fate of all living
| things. There's no avoiding it.
| Lutger wrote:
| The pasture raised cow with a nice life is an extremely
| rare species.
|
| Almost every cow used to extract milk and meat in
| industrial farming - which is most of them in the west - is
| living in deprivation, agony and pain.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| People care a lot about wildlife in many contexts, while
| ignoring factory farming.
| gumby wrote:
| Not a strawman: older windmills not on stalks _did_ kill birds,
| particularly raptors.
|
| It's seemed pretty clear that since the stalk approach was
| adopted (probably not even with birds in mind, I suppose,
| people being people) that the birds were doing better: you
| could tell by just walking under them. But it's worth doing
| studies like this to move from anecdote to data. And even
| better when they refute obsolete knowledge.
| onionisafruit wrote:
| I want to believe, but this article is less than convincing
| without reading detail about the study's methods.
|
| I didn't see a link to the paper on my first read. When I decided
| to go back and get the author's name, Economist's paywall kicked
| in.
|
| If anybody can see the full article, it would be lovely if you
| put the name of the researcher in the comments so I can read the
| original paper.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| It's easy to believe. The massive ecological destruction caused
| by the oil and gas industry is well documented. Whatever
| downsides there are to wind mills, pale in comparison to that.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Whatever downsides there are to wind mills, pale in
| comparison to that._
|
| So in your world we're going to do whatever because it can't
| be as bad? Sounds like a terrible plan.
| firebat45 wrote:
| So in your world, we make no attempt to improve anything
| unless we can achieve 100% perfection? Sounds like a
| terrible plan.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| No in my world we don't delay the process of stopping to
| destroy our planet over some minor concerns that are
| typically raised by people who argue against this because
| they want to continue burning stuff and slow down the
| demise of the fossil fuel industry. These people don't
| actually care about our planet, the environment, or any of
| this. And I suspect your concern is disingenuous.
| gumby wrote:
| This comment has the link:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38968302
| pcwelder wrote:
| Link to the paper pprint
| https://ekatovich.github.io/files/Katovich_Birds_and_Energy_...
| jeffbee wrote:
| Every oil rig scrapes everything off five acres of land, then
| stands there making loud noises night and day, illuminated to
| daylight levels. You can't have visited oil country without
| learning that oil exploration is incredibly disruptive to
| animals.
| kapnap wrote:
| Incredibly false.
|
| A typical "large" rig will need a 100m x 100m drill pad, roads
| to access which are often highly controlled during the design
| phase.
|
| A drilling rig will remain on location for MAYBE 30-40 days if
| it is a deep well (2000m-7000m).
|
| A completions rig (aka service rig) will come out afterwards to
| complete the well (install downhole equipment / frac / get the
| well ready for production). Lease may be a bit bigger if large
| frac. Been a drilling engineer for 15+ years so haven't really
| seen too many fracs.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| So 2-1/2 acres plus roads, instead of 5 acres, and you
| address how long, which OP didn't mention, in no way
| disputing him. Not a basis for leading with "incredibly
| false."
| jeffbee wrote:
| Seriously, every hole results in an eventual dump, tank,
| yard, road, or some other dang thing and the net land
| wrecked per operation is five acres.
|
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/sKfYNokGcidWLGTQ7
| kapnap wrote:
| Sheesh. That's insane.
|
| My understanding is that East California is like that
| too. Not sure the status as of today and if this is still
| permitted or not? Look up some images from LA in the
| early oil boom - crazy.
|
| Here's an example of them in Alberta (where I am
| familiar): https://maps.app.goo.gl/73x4uKZxWKbZkgD76
| jeffbee wrote:
| In 2023 California almost halted drilling permits, but
| mainly because the governor has national office ambitions
| and he was starting to get some criticism from the
| hypocrisy of having overseen 10000+ new oil permits
| during his tenure.
| kapnap wrote:
| "Everything in moderation, including moderation" comes to
| mind.
| User23 wrote:
| If that were true then Los Angeles would be an
| uninhabitable wasteland. Jokes aside, it's clearly not
| true.
| njarboe wrote:
| Windmill farms have roads also. Traveling in Illinois
| recently and seeing some huge 300+ft windmills in the
| corn and soybean fields, I think that is a perfect place
| for them. The whole scene is quite artificial and totally
| human controlled. The windmills fit right in. I don't
| think they should be placed on wilderness type lands.
| Similar to a fracking operation, you have a dense network
| of roads and the moving, man-made objects are quite
| jarring on the landscape. And unlike oil or gas
| extraction those sites will likely be in use for hundreds
| of years instead of a few decades.
| kapnap wrote:
| Perhaps you are correct - I had hectares in my mind for
| some reason while reading his original comment. My bad.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _So 2-1 /2 acres plus roads, instead of 5 acres_
|
| Just an exaggeration of 100%, no big deal?
| gumby wrote:
| I don't like oil drilling but even without your experience
| it's clear GP's assertion is nonsense. There are still oil
| wells all over Los Angeles in parking lots and tucked between
| buildings, which is a contradicting existence proof.
|
| I can imagine in a big oil field like in Midland, TX they
| have a lot of sprawling operations that take up a lot of
| room. But that doesn't have to be the only way.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Even the drill site in Beverly Hills on W. Pico is 2 acres.
| But the wildlife impact of drilling for oil _in Beverly
| Hills_ is zero, whereas the wildlife impact of drilling for
| oil in the middle of nowhere is higher.
| slingnow wrote:
| So you're aware of a drill site that is much less than 5
| acres, but you were comfortable stating:
|
| "Every oil rig scrapes everything off five acres of land"
|
| ?
| jansan wrote:
| My parents rented land on which there was a smaller oil rig.
| The rig was eventually removed and now the land is used for
| farming.
|
| OTOH I cannot image how they want to do this with the conrete
| foundations of wind turbines. The newer ones are up to 300
| meters high. With that leverage the foundations must be
| absolutely massive. I don't think they can ever be revmoved.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The wind is probably less likely to run out like the oil rig
| did.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Exactly. Replace the turbine with another turbine when it
| reaches EOL.
| jansan wrote:
| I just read about it and here the foundations are usually
| removed. At least that is what they claim.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Yeah... Could you explain why any oil company would pay to
| install and maintain "daylight level" lighting equipment at
| every oil rig, then pay the electric bills to run it all night,
| 365 nights per year?
| pjc50 wrote:
| I suspect this is conflating wells with flaring, which can be
| a pretty big problem across a huge area.
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-54435653
| (Mossmorran flare, Exxon-Mobil)
| jeffbee wrote:
| No.
|
| https://www.nabors.com/for-contractors-ofs/rig-
| products/illu...
|
| A lot of people in this thread are showing themselves to be
| people without any personal contact with oil exploration.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Security? Maintenance? 24/7 ops?
|
| It's not a crazy claim; here's a NASA article on fracking
| wells being very visible from space at night.
| https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/87725/shale-
| revolut...
| exoverito wrote:
| Pretty sure that's because of flaring excess gas.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Pretty sure you haven't read the second line of the
| article.
| delegate wrote:
| > their blades can spin at well over 200km per hour. It is easy
| to imagine careless birds getting chopped to bits.
|
| Interesting use of the word 'friendlier'.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That's the article's introduction; the rest of the article goes
| on to indicate why that _imagined_ concern isn 't as bad as
| imagined, especially when compared to the impact on birds of
| fossil fuel production and use.
| devilcius wrote:
| What does it means for a wind turbine to spin at 200km per
| hour? Serious question.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The speed at which the tips of the very long blades move.
| SamBam wrote:
| The local birds killed by oil drilling aren't even what we should
| be comparing to. Even if that number were zero, bird populations
| world still be better off in a world powered by wind turbines
| than oil and gas.
|
| Global warning is coming for birds too. Global warming poses an
| "existential threat for two thirds of North American bird
| species" [1] and obviously a similar proportion of bird species
| around the globe.
|
| 1. https://www.audubon.org/climate/survivalbydegrees
| botanical wrote:
| Agree 100%. Wind turbines killing birds is a disingenuous
| argument when it comes to climate change.
|
| > Birds of prey in Africa experiencing population collapse,
| study finds > new research used road surveys to find that
| nearly 90% of the 42 raptor species studied had experienced
| declines, with more than two-thirds showing evidence of being
| globally threatened.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/04/birds-of...
| arcticbull wrote:
| > Agree 100%. Wind turbines killing birds is a disingenuous
| argument when it comes to climate change.
|
| If the people involved in this conversation actually cared
| about birds, they wouldn't be worried about either. They'd be
| worried about cats. Cats kill about 20-55% of the entire US
| bird population every single year. Somewhere between 1.3B and
| 4B birds per year in the US alone. [1] And an order of
| magnitude more small mammals (6.3B - 22.3B).
|
| It's several orders of magnitude more than turbines and oil-
| and-gas drilling combined.
|
| Studies put the number of birds killed by wind turbines in
| the US at 140K-690K. That's 0.0035% to 0.05% of the birds
| killed by cats. It would literally be a rounding error nobody
| would ever notice if all the wind turbines came down.
|
| I honestly can't believe we're still having this conversation
| in the context of wind power. Put some UV stickers or black
| paint on them and move on. [3]
|
| [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
|
| [2] https://www.denverpost.com/2019/09/20/bird-population-
| decrea...
|
| [3] https://group.vattenfall.com/press-and-
| media/newsroom/2022/b...
| 725686 wrote:
| I don't know shit, but I'm pretty sure the kind of birds
| cats kill are very different from the kind of birds that
| get killed in wind turbines, i.e. eagles
| arcticbull wrote:
| Not having any birds or small mammals to eat because the
| cats killed all of them is going to do a number on them
| too. Despite their ability to win a physical
| confrontation.
| saalweachter wrote:
| You've convinced me: we should replace all cats in the US
| with wind turbines.
| vixen99 wrote:
| And wind turbine manufacturers would agree:
|
| UK December wind generation: Generation: 2.6 TWh
| Subsidy/MWh : PS86.68 Market Price/MWh: PS75.00
| arcticbull wrote:
| I'd personally rather a single nuclear power plant
| replace all the capacity, but honestly, as far as birds
| go, it'd be a no-op.
| kroltan wrote:
| Yes, but that would be tempting the gods of irony with
| the possibility of a nuclear CATastrophe.
| hotsauceror wrote:
| I find your ideas intriguing and I would like to
| subscribe to your newsletter.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > " _Cats kill about 20-55% of the entire US bird
| population every single year. Somewhere between 1.3B and 4B
| birds per year in the US alone._ "
|
| Humans eat 8 Billion chickens per year in the US alone:
| https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22287530/chicken-beef-
| fac...
|
| Some 15 MegaKilos of chicken:
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-
| rankings/chicken-c...
| alpaca128 wrote:
| The difference is that cats don't tend to have systems in
| place to ensure the food supply without eradicating the
| species.
| anthomtb wrote:
| My indoor cats haven't killed any birds in their lives.
|
| My windows, on the other hand, take out a few every year.
|
| Really though, I know the term "bird brain" exists in my
| North American lexicon but birds aren't THAT dumb. They can
| fly around large, opaque, moving objects with a rather high
| degree of accuracy.
| loceng wrote:
| Are you unconsciously keeping nuclear energy out of the
| equation, or why is nuclear not an option in your mind - where
| then bird populations will be better off, and where solar also
| isn't destroying the surface environment where life and forests
| could otherwise thrive [if we're talking about having energy
| generated locally, then most of the world doesn't have
| convenient desserts nearby, which arguably we could also turn
| green if we wanted]?
| a_gnostic wrote:
| Nuclear power cooling towers, also employed by coal and gas
| plants, might suck in birds and shred them. Migrating birds
| might not notice, and could collide with the towers.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Those cooling towers are just large hollow hyperboloids.
| There's nothing in there that would "shred" a bird. And
| since they don't move, it's not likely that a bird would
| collide with one (though maybe that happens from time to
| time)
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Them being solid and made of concrete is almost certainly
| a huge step up over skyscrapers made of glass, which is a
| deathtrap for birds on account of being reflective and
| basically invisible to them.
|
| That said I think the GP might just be trolling, as I've
| never heard of anyone raising an issue with cooling
| towers being a threat in this way. The anti-nuclear
| discourse has always (rightly) been focused squarely on
| operational safety and waste disposal.
| masklinn wrote:
| Cooling towers don't pull anything, they're evaporation
| columns. What air movement they cause is basically some
| passively generated wind at the base.
|
| And if a migrating bird does not notice a cooling tower
| it's on its last legs (or feathers), they're completely
| static and about as stealthy as a cliff.
| VintageCool wrote:
| Based on the past 30 years, I think the safe assumption is
| that there will not be much nuclear built in the US+Europe in
| the next 15 years.
| loceng wrote:
| I wouldn't really base my safety on a simple shallow metric
| like amount of time passing.
| Krasnol wrote:
| Nuclear energy may not kill birds, but it may kill fish in
| already overheated rivers. Which is also one reason why
| they've been turned off in France, where the problem started
| occurring in recent years and probably won't stop occurring
| due to global warming.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Climate change causing larger fires hurt bird sanctuaries like
| this one that happened in my backyard
|
| https://phys.org/news/2017-12-scientists-survivors-thomas-co...
| Grimburger wrote:
| Domesticated cats are by far the biggest threats to birds
| worldwide.
|
| You won't see anti-wind advocates talking about curfews or
| outright banning them though.
| Loughla wrote:
| That's because cats are not a power source?
|
| I'm genuinely confused how they would even be part of this
| conversation.
| wanderingbit wrote:
| I think they're bringing it up because cats are indeed the
| #1 killer of birds, and so for people who care about
| maintaining bird populations (presumably people who read
| this article) it would be better to focus on solutions that
| decrease the damage cats to do birds, rather than the
| damage wind turbines + oil-and-gas plants do to birds.
|
| Of course, if you care about birds you're going to try to
| solve it across multiple fronts. But cat damage should be
| the first thing bird-lovers try to mitigate.
| wingworks wrote:
| Also dogs aren't great for bird populations. Especially
| here in NZ where we have some flightless birds. I would
| even argue that dogs are a bigger issue here. At least
| around where I live, a large majority of people own at
| least 1 dog and often go walking with them in native
| reserves, often ignoring on-lead or no dog rules.
| knodi123 wrote:
| Because anti-wind activists have brought them up.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| More specifically, it's a disingenuous argument brought
| up by oil lobbyists.
|
| It's directly comparable to gun nuts justifying their
| right to own weapons designed to murder people by
| claiming that it's for "protection". Those same people
| have zero interest in better door locks, stronger
| windows, or anything that would _actually_ protect them.
| They just want the guns. The protection argument was
| never made in good faith, it 's an excuse at best.
|
| The "wind generators kill birds" argument is the same
| type of thing, typically made by people that would
| cheerfully feed every native bird they can into a grinder
| and sell the pulp for a profit if they could.
| gopher_space wrote:
| It feels like the assumption was always that I'd forget the
| oil industry doesn't give a shit about wildlife.
| EasyMark wrote:
| Ban my cat and you'll likely lose someone who does regularly
| vote for environmentally friendly politicians and you may get
| a new voting pattern out of me, and a lot of other people I
| suspect.
| MattGrommes wrote:
| Nobody wants to ban cats. A lot of people would like to
| keep them indoors though, which would be great for birds
| and also for the cats. I live on the southern edge of
| Portland, OR and coyotes make meals of a lot of people's
| precious fur-babies.
| chadbr wrote:
| Clearly nobody in the responses has stood next to an oil well or
| a wind turbine.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| Elaborate. Haven't stood next to either. My curiosity is
| piqued. What should I be expecting when I find myself so lucky?
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQksc1-5Zoc
|
| imagine living with that 12 hours a day. like a drop of water
| hitting your forehead every few seconds. forever.
| rglover wrote:
| I would go on a rampage.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Looks like it would be an issue for maybe an hour or two a
| day in either the morning or the evening. Unless that's a
| location close to the arctic circle where the sun stays
| that low for significant portions of the day.
|
| Don't get me wrong, that looks extremely annoying,
| especially if it happens in the evening hours. And I don't
| whish it on anybody. But the people in that video don't
| have to endure it the entire day, only while the sun is
| very close to the horizon.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > imagine living with that 12 hours a day
|
| Given the video clearly depicts sunset, that is indeed an
| _imaginary_ problem.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| Lol, thats it? This is the downside compared to the oil and
| coal?
| ta1243 wrote:
| When I picture an oil derrick, I see the arm going up and
| down and thus blocking the sun. Also the methane coming
| off, the the flares lighting up the night sky. And the
| smell.
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| A pumpjack is what goes up and down, not an oil Derrick.
| Pumpjacks are usually not that tall, rarely taller than a
| big tree. They also don't have flares.
|
| But yeah wouldn't want to live by that either.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| If you stand by the pumpjack, and the sun is at just the
| right height, and you carefully position yourself in such
| way as to place the pumpjack structure directly between
| yourself and the sun - you could personally experience
| the abject misery of having a moving shadow be cast upon
| your person - so that you can experience the horrors of
| the wind turbines first-hand.
|
| However do take care of not breathing any fumes or
| stepping into any toxic spillages in the vicinity of oil
| equipment as not to pollute your immersive experience
| with any negative effects that are unrelated to the wind
| turbines.
| Vicinity9635 wrote:
| That's way more obnoxious than I thought it would be.
| _ph_ wrote:
| As in most places the earth is rotating fully once every 24
| hours the sun isn't stationary in the sky. Consequently the
| depicted shadow - if it is bothersome at all, is so only a
| few minutes per day. Mind that, only on a clear day, clouds
| would prevent taht too.
| imafish wrote:
| Why would you want to stand next to either?
|
| They are not exactly located in urban areas...
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I have stood at the very base of Wind Turbines multiple
| times. They are awesome, in the traditional sense of the
| word. A giant tower with an engineering marvel of a prop that
| slowly turns, nearly noiselessly sapping energy from nation
| sized air masses that continuously convect due to the immense
| amount of light and heat energy pouring into our atmosphere
| 24/7. They look futuristic, and yet at the same time so
| simple and elegant. Fields of fans sucking energy out of the
| wind currents.
|
| I would love to live about five miles away (infrasound might
| be a real issue for some people) from a hundred acre
| installation of them. Here in Maine we have capped a few
| small mountains with them up north and it's very aesthetic.
|
| Pumpjacks are also pretty cool though I've never seen one in
| person. Their simple design and brutal metal structure are
| pretty in their own way. Flares look pretty neat too.
|
| ..... Alright maybe infrastructure is just cool to me
| jacquesm wrote:
| I've lived within 200 meters of a massive windfarm and out
| of 365 days per year I would typically be able to actually
| hear them for maybe three or four of those and when the sun
| was _just_ right (for a couple of minutes on those days
| when the sun lined up with the house and the windmills)
| there would be some shadows.
| solardev wrote:
| Don't the nearby homeowners usually get paid if they're really
| close?
| standeven wrote:
| I've been on several frack sites. On one, it was literally
| raining oil and chem on everything as they were wirelining.
| I'll take the windmill thanks.
| heythere22 wrote:
| https://archive.is/3xriv
| locallost wrote:
| I am not a conspiracy theorist, it's just a simple case of
| "follow the money". The fossil fuel industry is a trillion dollar
| per year business and their interest is to keep it this way. So
| poisoning the well is a good strategy for them. If you thought
| about it, it was clear the bird argument was always just a
| talking point nimby types were fed with, so they have something
| alarming to repeat and to get outraged, without really caring if
| it's true. The only thing they cared about is not having wind
| turbines because of their (weird?) aesthetic preferences and
| desires to have things stay the same forever. Ironically the bird
| and animal population overall are struggling with the way things
| are now and how they want to keep it. But again, they don't
| really care about that.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Yeah but the alternative / green energy industry is also worth
| hundreds of billions; [0] says solar will be a $373B industry
| by 2029, [1] says wind will be $278B by 2030, and [2] says
| nuclear will be a tiny $38B by 2029. My point is that the
| alternative energy sector's financial interests are at least as
| big as the fossil fuel industry's, but they put a lot of effort
| into coming across as The Good Guys That Will Save Our Planet
| For The Future Of Our Children, because that means they will
| get government funding and investments from new energy and
| infrastructure projects.
|
| Disclaimer: I pulled these numbers from the first google search
| results. I don't know why they all look 5 years ahead. I am not
| an energy or financial expert.
|
| [0] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/solar-power-market-
| size-2022-...
|
| [1] https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/wind/global-wind-
| pow...
|
| [2] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/global-nuclear-energy-
| market-...
| locallost wrote:
| Everything they say deserves scrutiny too. So if they say for
| instance "we are the cheapest form of energy" of course
| people should question it. But we are not talking about them
| here, it's simply a fact the fossil fuel industry is
| deploying the same tactic of sowing doubt for decades now.
| From birds to "we don't know definitely if climate change
| exists" to again "there is climate change but who says people
| can't adapt" and so on. Their talking points have been
| debunked and you won't change that by saying others are bad.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _" follow the money". The fossil fuel industry is a trillion
| dollar per year business and their interest is to keep it this
| way._
|
| Meanwhile, the green energy industry is not-for-profit,
| volunteer, altruistic and unbiased.
|
| That's incredibly naive. If you don't think the global
| capitalists are moving towards a green transition, I'm not sure
| what to tell you.
| throwawayqqq11 wrote:
| Newer industries are at least not that monopolistic and
| politically "connected".
| djfobbz wrote:
| I agree. There is none so blind as those who will not see.
| locallost wrote:
| Everyone is a capitalist today, not sure what else to say to
| that.
| brianbreslin wrote:
| The number of birds killed annually by windows is probably 100x
| that killed by turbines. Hard to convince everyone to remove
| windows.
| andromeduck wrote:
| just build nukes
| m0llusk wrote:
| This is broken logic. Working primarily with averages leads
| directly to repeating the mistakes of the statistician who drown
| in a lake that was an average of three feet deep. Currently one
| of the notably large wind farms being operated is in the Altamont
| Pass in California which also happens to be the preferred
| spawning site for golden eagles. Does it make sense to assert
| that since wind farms are generally beneficial that we should not
| worry about drastically reducing or even eliminating golden
| eagles in California? The issue isn't wind farms or fossil fuels,
| it is exactly how we should build and maintain these wind farms
| and where. Using the critically needed energy transition to wipe
| out species of wild animals may not be an appropriate strategy.
| AdamN wrote:
| That's a second order question - and one worth asking when
| decision-makers and stakeholders are being intellectually
| honest.
|
| The problem is that Trump et al. are disingenuously saying that
| we shouldn't build wind turbines at all because of the birds.
| kstrauser wrote:
| > Does it make sense to assert that since wind farms are
| generally beneficial that we should not worry about drastically
| reducing or even eliminating golden eagles in California?
|
| Yes. Boiling our atmosphere will harm bald eagles in addition
| to everything else. Bald eagles are cool birds, unless you live
| somewhere that they're as common as seagulls and 20x as
| annoying. If forced to choose, I'd rather have a healthy world
| with few bald eagles than Venus with none.
| slingnow wrote:
| If you honestly believe installing any number of wind
| turbines is going to stop our "atmosphere from boiling" I've
| got a couple of bridges to sell you.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Awesome! I haven't talked to a real live environmental
| scientist in a few months. What aspect are you studying?
| exoverito wrote:
| CO2 levels were between 1500 and 3000 ppm during the
| Carboniferous era, a time of vast forests and thriving life.
| We are never going to end up like Venus, since its atmosphere
| is 100 times as dense as Earth's and 96.5% CO2. Since Earth
| is only 0.04% CO2 we would need to increase the amount of CO2
| by more than 200,000X.
| red1reaper wrote:
| > Does it make sense to assert that since wind farms are
| generally beneficial that we should not worry about drastically
| reducing or even eliminating golden eagles in California?
|
| Absolutely, 100% yes, fuck eagles, who needs them when windmill
| can go brrrbrbrbrbrbrbr, in fact it would be even better to
| manually hunt them before even installing the windmills so that
| they do not damage them.
| l5870uoo9y wrote:
| The title is symptomatic for the climate discourse; either for or
| against oil/coal and wind/solar. I find the question "what is a
| reliable, clean and affordable energy source?" much more relevant
| and productive.
| codingdave wrote:
| Affordable is the trick, though - while I totally understand
| why that is important, sometimes it seems like we're going to
| end up saying: "Sorry we are going extinct... staying alive
| wasn't profitable."
|
| I know that is both an idealistic and hyperbolic take on
| things. The bigger point is that when people say "affordable",
| they often really mean "profitable". But we cannot afford _not_
| to fix the problems.
| garte wrote:
| It seems to me that nuclear and fossil energy is heavily
| subsidized almost everywhere. So affordability is kind of a
| tricky metric.
| throwawayqqq11 wrote:
| "Affordable" could also be taken as "doable". Which broadens
| the scope largely but misses the main problem:
| sustainability. This take is not just not helpful but, i
| would argue, actively harmful to the debate.
|
| By definition, sustainability is a waste management, that
| allows recycling rates of 90% or higher. CO2 _is just one_ of
| our waste products we totally didnt care about.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| The United States spent 6% of its GDP putting human beings
| on the moon. And this was done during a time that
| historians don't generally consider to be a time of vast
| deprivation for the populace; it turns out investing in and
| inventing rocketry and aerospace technologies the likes of
| which humanity has never seen before is great for job
| creation.
|
| How much of the GDP should we be willing to spend to
| actively replace pollution generating energy plants with
| lower polluting alternatives?
| flerchin wrote:
| No we didn't. Not even close.
| throwawayqqq11 wrote:
| Pollution will be in every path we choose, managing the
| waste is the quest and i dont think that direct
| government intervention is the best or most practical way
| here. IMO regulations and sanctions would be better. Eg.
| imagine the EU or US enforcing fully repairable or
| recyclable products in their markets. What would china
| do?
| pjc50 wrote:
| > imagine the EU or US enforcing fully repairable or
| recyclable products in their markets. What would china
| do?
|
| What, you mean like the existing WEEE directive which
| requires all electronics to be lead-free and recyclable?
| China would, obviously, start selling repairable and
| recyclable products into those markets.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > The United States spent 6% of its GDP putting human
| beings on the moon.
|
| Sorry, wrong. The Apollo program cost about $25B in
| 1960's dollars. That's over the entire period, not just
| one year.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190712-apollo-
| in-50-num...
|
| "In 1965, Nasa funding peaked at some 5% of government
| spending,"
|
| But government spending != GDP.
|
| According to this,
|
| https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-
| states/gdp-...
|
| GDP in 1965 was $743B
| shadowgovt wrote:
| My mistake. Amortizing the numbers, it comes out to more
| like 2.5% annually. https://www.herkulesprojekt.de/en/is-
| there-a-master-plan/the...
|
| ... so the question stands. How much are we willing to
| spend, and do we think it will actually damage either the
| economy or people's quality-of-life (when having a major
| industrial project in fact _creates_ job and business
| opportunities, historically speaking)?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Clever of you to acknowledge but then glide over the wild
| exaggeration there. Still wrong, though:
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1022937/history-nasa-
| bud...
|
| 1965 NASA budget in billions: $5.25 (the peak year)
|
| 1965 GDP: $743 billion
|
| giving us a NASA budget of 0.007 of GDP, or 0.7%
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Apollo project is generally considered to have cost $25
| billion, not $5 billion. Still, if we consider 0.007 of
| GDP in modern numbers, that's 2.65 trillion (2023) *
| 0.007 --> $18 billion.
|
| The fossil fuel industry receives _$760 billion_ in
| subsidy. We 're already spending more on energy; we're
| just spending it on the wrong energy.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| You need to just admit error, not pivot.
|
| 5B is for 1965 alone, the peak year. As I said.
|
| 25B is the total over all years.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Error admitted.
|
| Now about the point, which is "How much should we be
| willing to spend on something that may be life-or-death
| for much of humanity?"
|
| Because, again, $760 billion in fossil fuel subsidy. A
| tenth of that for renewables.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| OK, thanks.
|
| It was pretty easy to look up NASA budgets and GDP's. I
| haven't studied energy subsidies, though, so maybe
| someone else wants to jump in.
| ajross wrote:
| To be fair, though: wind power is cheap as dirt, which is why
| we're building it out like crazy basically everywhere with
| real estate for the turbines. Which is also why it's being
| opposed with weird canards like "But Birds!" and not
| practical arguments about power grid management.
| jes5199 wrote:
| I get where you're coming from but in 2024, solar is the
| cheapest source of power on earth, and wind is second-
| cheapest. Economics and survival are aligned for once, we
| just gotta actually build the new system and deprecate the
| old
| badpun wrote:
| Solar and wind are pretty expensive a lot of the time, e.g.
| on windless nights.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's a false dichotomy and it's funded and pushed by corporate,
| idealistic (but heavily funded) and political interests.
| emceestork wrote:
| Not sure I understand the objection. The research this article
| is about compared Wind vs Oil/Coal effects on birds. The title
| seems in line with the findings of the research.
|
| > I find the question "what is a reliable, clean and affordable
| energy source?" much more relevant and productive.
|
| Seems to me like examining externalities of different energy
| sources is a part of the nuance of this question. Feels like
| you're being a bit of a hater.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > "what is a reliable, clean and affordable energy source?"
|
| "Clean" and "affordable" map immediately and obviously onto
| wind and solar; what then happens is people engage in a lot of
| wrangling around "reliable" to push nuclear, requiring bending
| both "clean" and "affordable" quite a bit and running into an
| invisible other criteria of "quick to deploy" and "politically
| acceptable".
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Well, "quick to deploy" is absolutely essential. "Politically
| acceptable" is a red herring.
|
| But the OP's question is loaded too. We don't need "reliable"
| right now. Fossil fuel can cover the reliability gap on the
| short term perfectly well. Until the question becomes "well,
| we replaced all the peak consumption with renewables, now
| what?", asking for reliability is status-quo propaganda.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| It's mislieading to use "politically acceptable" like "quick
| to deploy". What's "politically acceptable" is something we
| shape with every word we say and which differs accross
| countries.
|
| Speaking of countries, I could reduce this answer to one
| word, which refutes every single point you make: France.
| pjc50 wrote:
| France have done better than most, largely due to building
| their fleet before Chernobyl, but even they have long term
| maintenance and cost overrun problems that led to
| shortages:
| https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2022/08/26/edf-
| s-n...
|
| And the EDF reactor project in the UK is of course
| overrunning on time and budget.
|
| (when is the next French nuclear reactor new build
| scheduled to come on line?)
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| For those that do not know: Flamanville 3. Commercial
| introduction delayed from 2012 to _hopefully_ 2024.
| Current cost estimate is five times the original budget.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_P
| lan...
| Valgrim wrote:
| Not just that, rivers overheating is becoming a real
| problem now in places that were perfectly fine 40 years
| ago.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Big projects overrun on time and budget. I've never seen
| anyone take the Berlin airport as evidence against
| airports.
| dalyons wrote:
| Nuclear will always be "big projects". Renewables don't
| overrun much.
| Krasnol wrote:
| You might take Berlin airport if all airports in the
| Western World would have problems being build and if
| there would be a cheaper and faster to deploy
| alternative.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| That ship sailed 40 years ago. I get it - if Chernobyl
| didn't happen we would be in way better shape. But it
| happened, and expertise in nuclear plants rotted for 4
| decades because of it.
|
| It's now behind. Basically no one wants to fund new nuclear
| plants. They're incredibly risky considering how front-
| loaded the cost is.
| alistairSH wrote:
| As long as you're including long-term negative externalities in
| the "affordable" portion of your analysis, sure.
| petsfed wrote:
| I mean, the title is in response to the specific, observed
| phenomenon of people in oil/gas/coal producing areas arguing
| _for_ environmental restrictions on solar /wind/nuclear, but
| not arguing the same for oil/gas/coal.
|
| In the context of "what is a reliable, clean and affordable
| energy source?", we need to address that whatever we pick will
| necessarily hurt _somebody 's_ bottom line, and they will dig
| in and fight tooth and nail to prevent that happening, even if
| their livelihood is at the expense of the species. So
| rationally addressing a bad faith argument against many options
| that answer your question is, I think, worthwhile.
| foxyv wrote:
| If we cared about birds we would be talking about reducing car
| traffic and saving more areas for wildlife. The argument against
| Solar and Wind with regards to wildlife preservation is almost
| always a distraction.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| If we cared about birds we'd be aggressively controlling the
| cat population.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| deleted
| anticorporate wrote:
| I think you and the parent commenter are using different
| scopes for the word "we" in this case. There are some great
| programs in places to manage feral cat populations, but in
| many areas they are no where close to large enough to help
| fix population-level impacts on birds.
| jfengel wrote:
| The OP is pointing out that most pearl-clutching about the
| effects of wind turbines comes from people who don't care
| about birds in any other context. It's solely a way to
| continue fossil fuel production, using the language of
| environmentalism.
|
| A serious discussion of the safety of birds would sound
| very different, but that isn't the goal. The goal is to
| talk about anything other than reducing fossil fuel
| production.
| wredue wrote:
| Ridiculous argument. Why on earth would people care about
| the birds in the context of natural processes compared to
| unnatural processes?
|
| This is a monumentally stupid apples and oranges
| "gotcha".
| arghwhat wrote:
| Ridiculous arguments are unfortunately common, and end up
| being part of politics and ultimately planning and
| decision-making.
|
| Natural vs. unnatural is irrelevant though. "Nature" is
| normally out to kill you for its own benefit and does not
| care if the planet or any of its lifeforms survives. What
| matters is our interests in preserving the world we know
| or improving it in our eyes, and picking the best option
| for _that_.
|
| The option that minimizes worldwide cancer development
| and doesn't screw up weather systems and various biomes
| would be the winner in that regard.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > natural processes
|
| I'm curious, what are you thinking of when you say
| 'natural processes'? I hope it's not cats.
| masklinn wrote:
| Or oil spills.
| wredue wrote:
| Symbiotic relationships are, in fact, a completely
| natural phenomena that is observed in non-human animal
| behaviour.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Housecats are not a symbiotic relationship. Seriously?
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| Cats are a scapegoat to deflect the incalculable damage done
| to wildlife by humans themselves, their industries and
| habitat expansion.
| arghwhat wrote:
| No, such argument is whataboutism. Bigger problems do not
| invalidate smaller ones.
|
| The only case where your point would matter is if we could
| only fix one or the other - human- _or_ cat-induced damage
| - but that is not the case. They can be addressed
| independently and in parallel.
|
| I like cats though...
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| No, that's not what whataboutism is.
|
| Whataboutism is if someone says something like "Oh, yeah
| well, we have a bigger problem - humans kill more, so who
| cares about cats?" No. I'm literally saying that when it
| comes to cats killing birds, there is no problem. There's
| no radical ecological devastation happening. There's
| nothing to fix.
|
| What is happening is that the number of birds killed by
| cats is emotionally large, such that humans interpret it
| as a problem, because big numbers are scary. "Did you
| know cats kill close to 4 _billion_ birds _every year_?
| That 's awful! We have to do something!"
|
| "Did you know that spiders kill and consume 600 _million_
| metric _tons_ worth of animals _every year_? That 's
| awful! That's more meat than humans eat! We have to do
| something!" Except, we don't, because no matter how
| scared you are of big numbers, their presence doesn't
| mean there's a problem.
|
| Similarly, with cats, we can maybe make their bird-
| killing sound even scarier by framing it like the spiders
| above: "Cats are killing 1 _million_ metric tons worth of
| birds _every year_! Birds are doomed! We have to do
| something! "
|
| Big numbers scare me too, especially the spiders one. 600
| million metric tons is a lot of meat. Four billion birds
| sounds like a lot. But are these problems? Don't think
| so.
| k__ wrote:
| However, the cats differ from spiders.
|
| They wouldn't exist in such large masses if they weren't
| bred and fed by humans.
|
| So, there is at least the argument to make, that if we
| didn't hoard so many cats, the naturally occurring ones
| would probably kill less birds.
| adventured wrote:
| They're not a deflection, the domesticated cat is in fact
| one of the incalculable harms done to the environment by
| humans. They're an extreme environmental problem that
| humans created and are solely responsible for.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| The topic is how much damage is done to birds by energy
| production methods (even more specifically, wind vs oil &
| gas), not by _all things_. Cats are a deflection from
| that topic.
| tzs wrote:
| Generally we care about a bird species as a whole rather than
| about individual birds of that species.
|
| If something is killing birds, even a lot of birds, but in a
| place where those birds are abundant and whatever is killing
| them will just lower lower their equilibrium population a bit
| rather than set it on a decline or lower it so far that they
| might die out in the area then there generally isn't a lot of
| concern over it.
|
| Hence activities in places with species of birds that have
| low population or are threatened or endangered tend to draw
| more concern than activities in places where that isn't the
| case even if the latter kills way more total birds.
| uoaei wrote:
| This is a thoughtful response, put in words I've been
| missing for a while, to some reasons why the EA crowd seem
| to be hyperoptimizing on the wrong cost functions (not to
| mention the ethical dangers that come about when insisting
| all questions of ethics can be quantified).
| coryrc wrote:
| Cats are killing endangered birds everywhere outside their
| native range. They are killing them in the Americas, in
| Australia, in New Zealand... basically everywhere that's
| not Europe, Africa, or West Asia IIUC.
|
| One reason you might not think it's a big deal is because
| the genocide is almost complete. They've already killed off
| 63 species and more in progress:
| https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/
| nullstyle wrote:
| Felis Catus doesn't have a native range in any meaningful
| manner, IMO. They are a global species like us, because
| of us. You can't put that cat back in the bag no matter
| the .22 cartridges you expend.
| throwaway03675 wrote:
| That shouldn't stop us from trying to limit their growth.
| "The cat is out of the bag" so to speak, but a lot of the
| growth comes from runaway cats, or cats that have been
| abandoned by their owners (happens more often than you
| think)
|
| We could start by requiring all domestic cats to be
| sterilized, so that they don't breed. Then the cat
| population would be limited to certified breeders and
| wild cats.
|
| We could also have the same restrictions on cats as dogs.
| They should not be allowed to be outside unless they are
| in leash or in a controlled environment (the latter is
| hard, as cats can climb over standard fences). I guess
| fully enclosed "cat parks" would be an option.
|
| You may have a harder time training a cat to wear a leash
| compared to a dog, but it's possible.
|
| It's strange to me that we think cats need to be outside
| to satisfy their predator instincts, as if dogs and other
| animals like to be inside all day while we are at work.
| If someone doesn't like that thought, they have the
| option of not owning a cat.
| pvorb wrote:
| That's my take. I like animals, so I decided to not own
| any of them. I wonder how people manage to love their
| animals and remove them from their natural environment.
|
| I know that we've come a long way and pets have had
| humans around them for ages, but to me it still feels
| like we're doing them harm. I know that nature is even
| harder, but it's not like pets decided to live that way.
|
| It's also hard to understand why people love one species,
| but also breed others on an industrial level, so they can
| eat them more easily.
|
| Probably going to get a few downvotes for this.
| bruce511 wrote:
| No down-votes from me, but as an annecdote I can offer
| this.
|
| We have feral cats in our neighborhood. One of them moved
| into our house and had a litter in the study. (We kept
| one, and found homes for the other 3). One of her
| daughters from an earlier litter moved in and fed the
| same.
|
| All have been sterilised now obviously, but we stoll get
| regular visits from a local Tom, likely a brother to the
| first one. The all get along fine, and he's used to us
| but basically comes in for food or shelter and doesn't
| socialise with us like the others do.
|
| I don't think we "own" them. They all come and go as they
| please. But I'd say 3 of them definitely live here, and
| tolerate us.
|
| Interestingly none of them seem interested in birds. The
| occasional mole, otherwise the occasional lizard - mostly
| for sport.
|
| I'm not negating your ethics at all, but it seems some
| cats like being part of the family, and others are aloof.
| They all have distinct personalities.
| jcrites wrote:
| For domesticated cats and dogs, being inside the home
| _is_ their natural environment (or can be, to varying
| degrees).
|
| I've owned cats and dogs. I can let them outside and
| leave the door open, and they may go outside to explore
| or play briefly, but they'll want to come inside shortly
| afterward. Especially my dog - he doesn't even want to be
| outside by himself, except to relieve himself. He has
| herding instincts and is uncomfortable being alone
| outdoors for more than a short time. He would much rather
| be around people, but if he had to be by himself, then
| he'd rather be indoors. (Observation: if I were to leave
| the house, and left the back door open, he'd still spend
| most of the day inside rather than in the yard.) My cat
| acts downright frightened being outside.
|
| It's not really possible to discuss what is "natural"
| here, and I'd recommend being cautious about the
| naturalistic fallacy [1]: the idea that because something
| is 'natural' it must be better. It is 'natural' for
| humans to die of all kinds of diseases, yet we do not
| wish to, and so we treat ourselves with antibiotics and
| other medicines. It is 'natural' for children and women
| to die in childbirth, but we take substantial steps to
| prevent that, and so on.
|
| In the case of domesticated animals, it's hard to reason
| about what "natural" even is. The animals have adapted to
| living with humans; they want to be around humans. They
| aren't feral, and wouldn't want to live by themselves in
| the wilderness any more than a human would. They have a
| choice every time I open the door.
|
| (And yes, if they ran away, I would feel obligated to
| find them, but that's because I'm responsible for their
| health and safety, not because they are my prisoners. The
| point is that they don't even come close to making the
| choice to do that. It is far more likely that they would
| simply get lost outside than actually intentionally run
| away. This has happened once before to my dog, and his
| emotional reaction upon me finding him demonstrated
| compellingly that he _felt_ lost and was happy to be
| found and reunited.)
|
| I might feel conflicted if I ever had a pet that behaved
| like it wanted to escape from me, but that's never been
| the case. Even pets that do enjoy to spend time outdoors
| alone - and I'm happy for them to do that - always want
| to return to the safety of the home after a time. I would
| not enjoy having a pet if I thought at all that it felt
| like a prisoner.
|
| Lastly, I would remark on the fact that these animals
| were raised from infancy by humans and around humans.
| They are socialized to be part of the family, just like
| people are. While it is true that they would have
| different personalities if they were raised in the
| wilderness, the same would also be true of a human child.
| If a human child were abandoned alone in the wilderness
| and somehow survived, then this human would undoubtedly
| have great difficulty socializing as an adult, and
| fitting into a family - yet we would not say that this
| wild person is somehow better or more natural. We would
| say that their upbringing was cruel.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy
| wingworks wrote:
| I agree with that. Though we'd need some cost effective
| way to monitor on leash etc rules are followed by the
| owners. Around here we have native reserves to try bring
| back native birds, but vast majority of dog owners ignore
| the existing leash or no dog rules.
|
| Most summers the reserves turn into more of a free dog
| toilet, and with the vast numbers of dogs going through,
| it ends up smelling quite bad to.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I dunno, Alberta has no rats. It's doable if you're
| willing.
| mantas wrote:
| Putting a tiny bell on cats is usually more than enough.
| At least it gives birds a fair chance.
| sprucevoid wrote:
| As a descriptive matter people do support a lot of species
| preservation efforts. But we have strong reasons to
| increase our care for birds and other sentient animals as
| individuals, with their own subjective experiences and the
| suffering and harms they endure. After all we already take
| that view when it comes to companion dogs. We know they can
| feel a range of emotions and we have as individuals and as
| society taken some steps to limit harms to dogs and promote
| their wellbeing. Caring for birds as individuals can be
| expressed in many actions, individual and political, but a
| powerful step many can take right now is to stop buying
| eggs and chicken meat and choose plant based alternatives
| instead.
| jewayne wrote:
| If we accept that we are responsible for minimizing the
| suffering of both domestic and wild animals, isn't the
| logical conclusion that we need to drive those species to
| extinction as quickly as possible, thus completely ending
| their suffering?
|
| I mean, you are explicitly talking about ending our
| symbiotic relationship with the domestic chicken. We
| certainly would not have 20 billion chickens in the world
| if we all stopped eating eggs.
| cpx86 wrote:
| That is an interesting argument. Do you believe that the
| same would apply to humans? I.e. if someone wishes to
| minimize the suffering of humans, is the logical
| conclusion that they should pursue omnicide?
| jewayne wrote:
| To be clear, I don't believe in that goal in either case.
| But yes, the only way to truly end human suffering would
| be to end the humans.
| sprucevoid wrote:
| Factory farming of chickens and other animals causes
| massive aggregate suffering and should be ended, full
| stop. But chickens can continue to flourish in animal
| sanctuaries, where they live their own lives without
| being killed or exploited as food resources. As for wild
| animals and suffering, that's a big topic. I think for
| now we need lots more thinking and research, on what is
| feasible and reasonable there. Reducing suffering is one
| important consideration among others.
| logifail wrote:
| > If something is killing birds, even a lot of birds [..]
| then there generally isn't a lot of concern over it.
|
| ...from cat owners.
|
| There's plenty of concern from wildlife-lovers:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/14/cats-
| kil...
|
| I watched our neighbour's cat take a bird from a feeder in
| our garden earlier this month, I was pretty unimpressed :(
|
| Cats are cute, I get that ... I'm just not sure that's
| enough of an excuse.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| I think it's pretty clear if we cared much about anything we'd
| be doing a lot of things. But instead, we have this: We have a
| conversation like this one, I had it with my sister. We agree
| on this statement you've made in that conversation. Sister goes
| and buys a new gigantic SUV that gets 20 mpg. Understands we
| were just talking about how bad that is, but make a thousand
| excuses as to why she using the bad thing is an exception to
| the rule.
|
| We're a few billion exceptions to the rules walking around,
| very few people want to give up their fun. I've had this
| conversation with gun owners, oversized truck owners, people
| interested in public transit it always comes down to something
| they want everybody else to have to do but not them.
|
| We're not going to give up our toys til we're dead.
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| or maybe she has, quite rationally, developed "epistemic
| learned helplessness"?
|
| edit: forgot to add the link ( which was reposted to HN
| earlier today) https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/03/repost-
| epistemic-learn...
| sprucevoid wrote:
| Many people struggle to motivate themselves to do their part
| on huge collective action problems like climate change.
| That's why national and international political action is
| needed, and in turn needs smaller groups of individuals to
| put in effort supporting campaigns for such action. That said
| lots of people do care in their daily lives and also put that
| care into practical individual action - and have a fun and
| meaningful time doing so. In my experience not owning a SUV
| or any car at all doesn't feel like "not having fun". It
| feels sensible and what I have good reason to do and it feels
| purposeful, a part of doing what I can to cause less harm in
| this world, from the lucky situation life has dealt me. I
| understand that some people really need a car for work,
| especially in car centric regions. But almost everyone has a
| range of other things where they can do their part and act to
| improve things.
| peyton wrote:
| Wouldn't it be more effective to phase out oil and coal
| production? Couldn't that be enforced with remote sensing
| satellites and cruise missiles?
|
| I'm not seeing the collective action problem here. All the
| personal shaming stuff feels like a big grift.
| knodi123 wrote:
| no, it's not ecologically effective to bomb all the oil
| platforms. That would actually be an ecological disaster.
| sprucevoid wrote:
| Phasing out oil and coal production would be great, but
| that's a task for politics. It is still a collective
| action problem though since any such agenda needs to gain
| popular support in a democracy.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem
| As individuals we can both take some actions to reduce
| climate impact in our daily lives and also support
| movements and campaigns for actions on the political
| level. No contradiction there.
| MrEd wrote:
| If you truly cared about birds and wildlife, SpaceX wouldn't
| have gotten away with everything they did at Boca Chica.
| foxyv wrote:
| Who, me?
| MrEd wrote:
| Everyone complaining about oil & gas, and how wind turbines
| are so much better for wildlife. But SpaceX gets a free
| pass for the carnage done and law-free territory they
| established down there in TX, because muuuh supposedly good
| tech.
|
| Most silly comment in this whole 'discussion' was that
| remark about birds supposedly getting shredded in cooling
| towers, or flying into them. Oh the insanity!
| ryandvm wrote:
| The "wind turbines are bad for birds" GOP talking point is utter
| bullshit. If they were actually worried about birds, they'd
| outlaw cats which literally kill about 10,000 times as many
| birds.
|
| These are not serious people. Do not waste your time arguing with
| people that don't actually care.
| reactordev wrote:
| GOP is primarily oil and gas, of course solar and wind are bad
| for birds, dogs, humans, business, aesthetics, not to mention
| how unsightly those turbine blades are against my blade runner-
| esque hellscape of burning off gases. Turns out solar is bad
| for city water and if you go green then you support crime.
|
| Obviously I'm being sarcastic except for the part about GOP
| being Big Oil.
|
| If you think this argument doesn't make sense, then you aren't
| GOP. That's how they come to congressional conclusions to the
| rest of us.
| failTide wrote:
| Cats and wind turbines present dangers to different types of
| birds, with the turbines being a danger to larger raptors
| including condors - so I think your comparison is an
| oversimplification of the issue, even though I'm a proponent of
| wind power in general.
| ta1243 wrote:
| LOL, I'm reminded of a Futurama episode from over a decade
| ago where one of the presidential candidates during the
| debate, when asked "Environment: Yes or No" replied:
| Two words: Condor attack. Don't want that. Got to say no.
|
| It feels like "Condor" is a trigger phrase that's been around
| and programmed into people for years
| failTide wrote:
| They were extinct in the wild in the late 80s. There's
| under 500 in the wild now. Of all the things that might
| trigger people, I suppose condor extinction is pretty
| understandable.
| hotsauceror wrote:
| The entire "it kills birds" feels like such a canard, to me. I
| don't understand to whom this kind of appeal is directed. It
| seems to me that the primary interests at stake are 1) the myriad
| financial interests in the extraction, distribution, and
| consumption of petroleum-based energy products, and 2) the
| negative impact on the environment of these same activities.
|
| So let's just have that discussion, on those terms?
|
| I cannot believe that someone like Donald Trump, for example,
| actually gives a shit about birds, and that that is what informs
| his opposition to the use of wind turbines. It seems unlikely,
| although possible, that that argument would persuade others of a
| like mind? And there have been other, similarly pitiful positions
| advanced, such as that an increase in the use of solar and wind
| power increases our exposure to UV radiation and skin cancer,
| from the sun?
|
| I just don't understand why these arguments are made, and to
| whom. I cannot imagine that either 1) they would convince anyone
| who cares about the debate, or 2) that the population of people
| who WOULD be convinced by such arguments, would amount to much -
| either in the size of the population or the force of their
| support.
| djleni wrote:
| Based on the people I've heard make points like this, I don't
| think it _does_ convince anyone.
|
| I think this type of argument fills a totally different role:
|
| "I don't believe or care about climate change and would like to
| keep my life as is, but this creates cognitive dissonance when
| someone shows it's bad. I can use this argument to say your
| idea is as bad too! Dissonance lessened."
|
| At least when I've heard it it's that context. The person
| saying it doesn't really care if it's accurate or equivalently
| bad, just that they have a gotcha to say when presented
| evidence for wind being good.
| hotsauceror wrote:
| Yes, right. It seems like some sort of desperate, last-minute
| thing to fling in someone's face. "Oh yeah? If you care about
| nature so much how come you're in favor of these giant things
| that slaughter birds? I guess we can safely disregard all
| your arguments."
| drewcoo wrote:
| Wind turbines are not very friendly at all to oil-and-gas
| drilling!
| gokhan wrote:
| Direct competition, why would they be?
| flkenosad wrote:
| Why does nobody talk about the real issue with wind and solar?
| It's ugly. It distracts from the landscape.
| squidbeak wrote:
| Uglier than fossil extraction, or the concealed ugliness of
| nuclear waste? Uglier than climate change?
| thomasmg wrote:
| Yes, I also prefer the beautiful oil rigs, and the nice smell
| of coal in the air. Anyway, all the buildings made by humans
| are so nice to look at, except for the really really ugly solar
| and wind installations!
| digging wrote:
| I really loving driving through oil-rich areas and seeing
| flames dotting the horizon. Maybe we can start piping some
| natural gas directly to wind turbines to spew fires out the
| top so they're more elegant?
| i80and wrote:
| I actually think wind farms look really relaxing and cool, and
| love driving past them.
|
| But that's just individual aesthetic preferences.
| jurassicfoxy wrote:
| I didn't realize how stupid of an argument this was until my
| girlfriend pointed out how every single
| highway/landscape/street is absolutely covered in powerlines.
| The very few wind turbines are beautiful in comparison to what
| you see all over the continent, every day.
| digging wrote:
| Among the countless reasons why this is an extremely bad
| argument, consider that the entire point of wind and solar is
| to prevent the landscape from being obliterated by climate
| change.
| vorticalbox wrote:
| > with the exceptions of Alaska and Hawaii
|
| What is it about these places that made them effect the bird
| population?
|
| Did it negatively effect it?
| thelastgallon wrote:
| It's estimated that cats kill 1.3-4 billion birds each year in
| the U.S. alone, with 69% of these kills attributable to feral or
| unowned cats: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/faq-outdoor-
| cats-and-thei...
| pvaldes wrote:
| > We initially focused this search on US studies, but due to a
| limited sample of these studies, we expanded the search
|
| "Our data about US were so poor that we needed to add data from
| other continents"
|
| > cats kill 1.3-4 billion birds each year in the U.S.
|
| "But we still ended somehow with this bold and likeable value
| made with a mix of pure air, foreign data and statistical
| spice"
|
| Another case of turd data polished to gold by the magic of
| science. People will repeat it for decades online.
| callalex wrote:
| You provide quotes but no attribution for those quotes.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Fair point. This is the original article in nature.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380?WT.mc_id=FBK_NCO
| M...
|
| "Methods: We searched JSTOR, Google Scholar, and the Web of
| Science database [...] within the Web of Knowledge search
| engine [...] to identify studies that document cat
| predation on birds and mammals"
|
| "We initially focused this search on US studies, but due to
| a limited sample of these studies, we expanded the search
| to [...] other temperate regions. We also searched for
| studies providing estimates of cat population sizes [on]
| the contiguous USA and for US studies that estimate the
| proportion of owned cats with outdoor access and the
| proportion of cats that hunt wildlife. [Our] search terms
| included: 'domestic cat' [combined] with 'predation,'
| 'prey,' 'diet,' 'food item' and 'mortality';"
|
| "We estimated wildlife mortality in [...] USA by
| multiplying data-derived probability distributions of
| predation rates by distributions of estimated cat
| abundance"
|
| "[]" edited by me for clarity
|
| Data-derived distributions based on a poor sample were
| extrapolated to every ecosystem in US?
|
| Data with a special focus _on temperate areas_ were
| extrapolated to temperate and non temperate? Have deserts
| the same amount of birds as forests?
|
| Assuming that preys are equally distributed on USA would
| need to assume that every ecosystem is equal, or that cats
| are equally successful chasing birds in all terrains. This
| seems unlikely. To start because birds migrate and its
| distribution is patched. Cats can't migrate. Taiga in
| winter don't has the same birds as Florida in winter
| pvaldes wrote:
| not to mention that there is a huge bias in bibliography
| by design, because any predation study of type 'we didn't
| found any evidence of wild animals preyed by cats in our
| place' wouldn't be published.
|
| If you base your search on bibliography you are pruning
| all the negative results. This is like removing all
| negative numbers before calculating an average value.
|
| We need to remember also that "Local cats killed minus
| 1000 birds", would be a perfectly acceptable result [1]
| that is excluded from the search and the article.
|
| [1] (= Cats save 1000 birds by killing egg-eating rats)
| myko wrote:
| No respectable person took idiotic politicians who claimed
| otherwise seriously. It is sad the economist had to put an
| article out on this topic.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| Birds have sensitive lungs, Canary in a coal mine comes to mind.
|
| ... birds respiratory system being so sensitive, it is vitally
| important that the bird's breath fresh, pure air. Toxins or
| pollutants in the air can quickly become a major source of
| problem and even death for the bird:
| https://cdn.ymaws.com/petsitters.org/resource/resmgr/virtual...
|
| Air Pollution Kills 10 Million People a Year[1]. Air pollution
| must impact birds a lot more than humans.
|
| [1]https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/environment/air-p..
| .
| smm11 wrote:
| Nobody uses bug screens on cars anymore because the bugs are
| fewer.
|
| Bee populations are in decline.
|
| And we're killing off birds.
|
| Have a nice day staring at the smart tablet in your car.
| clintonbush wrote:
| Or nuclear. There's that. Way less land occupation, no carpeting
| hillsides with solar panels, no ungainly windmills, no millions
| of pounds of toxic heavy metals to dispose of when batteries and
| panels go bad, and...oh....it works regardless of the weather.
| standeven wrote:
| ...and also requires uranium mining and risks nuclear weapons
| proliferation. I prefer solar and wind.
| standeven wrote:
| I worked in oil/gas for a long time. In addition to "windmills
| are killing all the birds", here are a few of the top green
| energy lies I've heard:
|
| 1. Solar panels are toxic, require more energy to produce than
| they generate, and can't be recycled.
|
| 2. EV's are worse for the environment than ICE vehicles.
|
| 3. Lithium mining is worse than oil/gas drilling.
|
| 4. Solar/wind prices are skyrocketing and everyone is abandoning
| solar/wind.
|
| 5. Solar/wind can't work because they're too intermittent.
|
| 6. Climate change isn't real OR climate change is real but
| natural and unstoppable OR climate change is helpful to the
| planet (these opposing beliefs are often repeated back to back)
| jairuhme wrote:
| Do you have sources as to why they are lies? I'm not doubting
| you, but simply saying they're lies is just as disingenuous as
| the people making the statements in the first place
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| This is an HN comment thread, not a peer-reviewed paper on
| "lies convenient to the fossil fuel industries".
|
| However, for your convenience, I used google to search for
| "are solar panels net energy positive" and found this as the
| 2nd link:
|
| https://www.solarmelon.com/faqs/solar-panels-use-energy-
| manu...
|
| This contains a link to at least one peer-reviewed paper:
|
| https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es3038824
|
| I can almost guarantee that a similar process will elicit
| similar answers for every other point in the GP's list.
| fsflover wrote:
| This is an HN comment thread, hence we expect a higher
| quality of comments than elsewhere on the Internet. Thanks
| for the links.
| jf22 wrote:
| I think there is more of an expectation here to Google
| simple things for yourself rather than condescendingly
| ask for a source that is a few keystrokes away.
| fsflover wrote:
| Everyone can search things on the Internet. However when
| I state something on HN, I usually try to add some _good_
| links, which are not top Google results. Example:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38725734.
| tdb7893 wrote:
| The opinion that HN has particularly high quality
| comments is always surprising to me. Outside of the times
| where the person commenting is the actual creator of
| whatever the post is about I've found comments here to be
| a dumpster fire to the point where I often have fun
| looking at them specifically because they are often so
| wild and I love a good mess.
|
| I assume people here will disagree but it's that exact
| stark difference in perspective that's so interesting to
| me
| fsflover wrote:
| I definitely noticed that the quality of the comments
| here is _often_ better than simply stating some opinion.
| The latter is typical for social media echo chambers but
| not here.
| naremu wrote:
| Well quite frankly, saying "the claim that these are lies
| are _just as disingenuous as the claims themselves_ " is
| a pretty low quality, classic stick-in-the-spokes
| "debate" tactic that essentially hand waves the ball back
| in the other person's court with minimal effort or
| contribution or real debate and puts maximum onus on
| someone else in public in the "flow" of discourse.
|
| This is "great" for televised debates but this is kind of
| passive aggressive for the tone people prefer here. We're
| talking _to_ people here. More directly than a formal
| debate.
|
| Someone participating earnestly knows they are capable of
| either politely expressing interest and asking for
| sources, or as another mentioned: typing and clicking all
| by themselves.
| fsflover wrote:
| > saying " _the claim that these are lies are just as
| disingenuous as the claims themselves_ "
|
| I didn't say that, but I do think that providing links is
| helpful.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| quote: _simply saying they 're lies is just as
| disingenuous as the people making the statements in the
| first place_
|
| paraphrase: _the claim that these are lies are just as
| disingenuous as the claims themselves_
|
| claim: _I didn 't say that_
|
| I confess that I can't quite see the difference.
| fsflover wrote:
| I'm not @jairuhme.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Ah, entirely fair point! :) Sorry about that.
| afsag wrote:
| Yes, you can't ask for sources. Either you believe it
| blindly or stfu.
| goodSteveramos wrote:
| Calling every dumb argument against the mainstream climate
| movement a "lie" without further explanation is the kind of
| "pick a side" logic that entrenches climate change deniers.
|
| 1. Yes, solar panel production is not particularly good for the
| environment but not any more so than many other common
| industrial processes and the panels themselves are perfectly
| safe. Yes that used to be true decades ago, but not anymore.
| For many years now solar panels generate more energy than they
| took to make after just a few years operation. Yes, but the
| fact that they are not particularly recyclable doesn't matter
| at all because we are never going to run out of sand.
|
| 2. Yes, EV's can have larger carbon footprints that ICE
| vehicles in the few areas where almost all electricity is from
| coal. But outside of that specific case EVs are always at least
| slightly better, typically by 20-30%.
|
| 3. Yes, it can be argued that lithium mining is worse than
| oil/gas drilling but it's not clear cut and would only be worse
| for the local environment if at all. The effect on climate of
| oil and gas drilling is always going to be far far worse.
|
| 4. No, Solar/wind prices are clearly falling and more
| solar/wind gets installed every year.
|
| 5. Yes, solar/wind are intermittent, so they can't be used
| alone, but work great when paired with investment in longer
| transmission lines, grid storage and non-intermittent carbon
| free sources.
|
| For point 6 I can only say that people are will be less likely
| to make blanket denials if you tell them the truth in a non-
| judgemental way, respect their intelligence, and are
| forthcoming with the problems and challenges of addressing
| climate change.
| hnmullany wrote:
| I believe that it's only thin film solar panels that have
| high heavy metal content but mono-crystalline panels - which
| are now the super-dominant technology having drastically
| decreased in cost - are fairly non-toxic.
| naskwo wrote:
| How does this compare to the estimates amount of birds that are
| killed by house cats every year?
|
| I had an argument with a vegetarian cat owner about this the
| other week....
| Aldipower wrote:
| Hackernews. The pseudo politics portal of the new age. Came here
| for computers..
| ggm wrote:
| try lobste.rs -it has almost identical structural behaviour and
| is (IMO) purely IT. Many HN stories are on that site.
| RagnarD wrote:
| Nuclear reactors are friendlier to birds than either.
| Vicinity9635 wrote:
| If we cared about birds, the discussion would be about cats:
| https://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mor...
| kevrmoore wrote:
| Pure propaganda. Windmills above ground are much more dangerous
| for birds than drilling below ground. First principles, lol.
| Anthropogenic climate catastrophe is a psyop. Climate has been
| warmer, C02 higher, and humanity on this resilient rock continues
| to thrive. The sun controls our climate.
| roc856 wrote:
| The article has some logical flaws. The allegation is that wind
| turbines kill birds, not that they chase them away. There was no
| evidence at all that oil and gas drilling kills birds, only that
| their numbers are decreased in that area. Perhaps oil and gas
| drilling does kill birds; if so, the article's author should have
| explained how that happens. True, global warming might also kill
| birds, but none of the evidence in the article was about the
| effects of global warming.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Note that there has been a concerted effort to discredit
| windmills by the oil-and-gas industry to portray them as meat
| grinders for birds with the same photographs and handy
| boilerplate text distributed to various "special interest groups"
| (read: astroturfers) all over the globe to try to stave off the
| inevitable. And all of this is perfectly legal. They did the same
| with whales.
| joemazerino wrote:
| Good luck telling India or China.
| knodi123 wrote:
| I can't quite tell in what sense you mean this- whataboutist?
| defeatist? something else?
|
| Anyway, we should all be part of the solution, and _also_ work
| on convincing the worst polluters to join us. In fact, doing
| the former would help with accomplishing the latter.
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