🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sep 7, 9:19 am, Ron House <rho...@smartchat.net.au> wrote:
> A short while ago I read a shocking and disturbing article about bird
> deaths from wind farms on climaterealists.com. I immediately asked
> myself: "Is that really true?" I wanted to know the right answer to this
> question, whether or not I liked it. If we want to create a peace legacy
> for future generations, to safeguard the planet for both humans and our
> non-human friends, we need to know the truth.
>
> The issue is this: the story above claims that millions of birds are
> killed by wind farms. But a "green" friend I mentioned this to told me
> that this is absurd: she had studied wind farms in depth, she had
> personally visited them, and they were the safest, most
> wildlife-friendly places imaginable; the blades rotate so sedately
> nothing could possibly be killed by them; and there wasn't a dead or
> injured bird to be found anywhere around about. She went so far as to
> wonder if the writers of the above article weren't simply lying through
> their teeth.
>
> The paradox I was struggling with was this: my green friend is without
> doubt one of the most truthful people I know. I did not doubt her
> account for a second. Equally, it seemed impossible that anyone could
> write such a credible-sounding article as the one linked above. Two
> truthful sources in direct contradiction - I needed facts that no one
> could dispute, because if lies are involved (and who won't at least
> wonder about the possibility?), it isn't good enough to merely discover
> the truth; I also needed it in a form that would allow anyone to prove
> it for themselves.So here's what I did. Read more:
>
> http://peacelegacy.org/articles/wind-farms-do-they-kill-birds

A very thoughtful piece, Ron, even though you rate increased animal
suffering much higher than loss of biodiversity, and you are to be
commended for taking the trouble to think the windfarm problem
through.

The answer has always been small is beautiful, and small turbines on
the roof, perhaps with solar panels additionally, has always appealed
to me. But the needed materials to manufacture these may be the crunch
that stops this solution. A new design of windmill with rare-earth
elements used in magnets on the tips of the rotors and fixed coils for
electrical generation and collection will likely founder because of
the shortage of materials. They're not called rare-earth for nothing.
Similar problems can be encountered for the latest super-efficient
designs for battery storage of electricity and likely will exist for
solar panels.

Meanwhile my local Golden Eagles have gone the same way my local
Bonelli's Eagles did eight years ago. It took just two years from the
installation of a mountain ridge string of 12 "aeolien" above our
village in Languedoc-Roussillon before they disappeared. How long I
wonder before I see my last local Short-toed Eagle?