Just had to deal with a bunch of wind turbine conspiracy theories at #StateOfEU, this polite political event I’m at in Brussels.
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This is the ethical point here: NOTHING is more important than combatting climate change. Nothing. Without a liveable planet nothing else works. I’ll have a debate about the numbers, and how to decarbonise. But I’ve no time for whataboutism, nimbyism or conspiracy theories. #StateOfEU
And I just told this story in the full plenary here. Predictably it went down like a bucket of sick. #StateOfEU
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And I just told this story in the full plenary here. Predictably it went down like a bucket of sick. #StateOfEU
And the moderator used the typical fossil fuels talking point that dependence on fossil fuels is just as problematic as dependence on Chinese solar panels. These are NOT equivalent! Once you’ve got your solar panel it is yours. #StateOfEU
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And the moderator used the typical fossil fuels talking point that dependence on fossil fuels is just as problematic as dependence on Chinese solar panels. These are NOT equivalent! Once you’ve got your solar panel it is yours. #StateOfEU
@jon Curiously, no one asks where the uranium for your nuclear power plant is coming from
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And the moderator used the typical fossil fuels talking point that dependence on fossil fuels is just as problematic as dependence on Chinese solar panels. These are NOT equivalent! Once you’ve got your solar panel it is yours. #StateOfEU
@jon
„Social panel“ is nice.
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@jon Curiously, no one asks where the uranium for your nuclear power plant is coming from
@rainerzufall_le not in your back garden. So ok. Or something. (I’m not being serious of course)
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@jon
„Social panel“ is nice.@Moss_the_TeXie oops. Editing!
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And the moderator used the typical fossil fuels talking point that dependence on fossil fuels is just as problematic as dependence on Chinese solar panels. These are NOT equivalent! Once you’ve got your solar panel it is yours. #StateOfEU
And the moderator then “there are two ways to see it” about my complaint about conspiracy theories about wind. No there aren’t. Wind turbines aren’t a serious danger to birds, compared to other dangers. #StateOfEU
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@rainerzufall_le not in your back garden. So ok. Or something. (I’m not being serious of course)
@jon If Russia is involved, that's also fine
https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/niedersachsen/osnabrueck_emsland/lingen-bund-haelt-an-atom-kooperation-mit-russland-fest,rosatom-114.html -
And the moderator then “there are two ways to see it” about my complaint about conspiracy theories about wind. No there aren’t. Wind turbines aren’t a serious danger to birds, compared to other dangers. #StateOfEU
@jon False balance at work.
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@jon False balance at work.
@giggls exactly. And a complete inability to see this! Aaaagghhhhhhh. I hate it.
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And there was another line. “It’s rich landowners in Brandenburg taking the subsidies from the state to build wind turbines”. This is an equality / distribution issue, not an energy issue! Think of the opposite: “we shouldn’t build turbines there because the land owners are rich!” Errrr… #StateOfEU
@jon Actually rigorous academic paper from researcher at UCLA (presented while I was there and now I can't remember the author's name, sorry) found that transition to renewable energies had consequences for land ownership equity — bunch of plots of small landowners in the area had been purchased by few large energy companies, so ownership was concentrating. Guess what? Didn't recommend stopping the transition!! just taking that equity side into account when planning and setting public policy.
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And the moderator then “there are two ways to see it” about my complaint about conspiracy theories about wind. No there aren’t. Wind turbines aren’t a serious danger to birds, compared to other dangers. #StateOfEU
This panel is so dreadful. A business “I know how to fix it!” dude. A “everything is complex” politics lady. A “we’re doing our best” national civil servant dude. #StateOfEU
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@jon Actually rigorous academic paper from researcher at UCLA (presented while I was there and now I can't remember the author's name, sorry) found that transition to renewable energies had consequences for land ownership equity — bunch of plots of small landowners in the area had been purchased by few large energy companies, so ownership was concentrating. Guess what? Didn't recommend stopping the transition!! just taking that equity side into account when planning and setting public policy.
@annasdtc totally. Of course!
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@mike this isn’t personal survival. It’s species survival. I’ll survive personally.
@jon and probably better than many that don't have that option.
@mike We, collectively, as Humanity (even including the ones that are fighting against climate change) are facing extinction by our own hands and can either do something to solve it (not soften the blow), or start whistling as if it isn't for us to solve and end up with the biggest case of FAFO ever (what we've seen up until now is nothing, it's going to get much much worse, and faster, and maybe only obscene amounts of money will save some of us, sometimes, and just for some time) until there's no single human left on Earth.
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@jon They did an experiment where they painted (one of?) the blades in black to make it more visible, which reduced the number of dead birds by 70%.
https://www.intelligentliving.co/norway-bird-deaths-black-turbine-blades/
I'm still not sure how they reached that conclusion.
They monitored two groups of 4 turbines each, from 2006-2016. In 2013 they painted blades of one turbine group.
The numbers of dead birds found at these turbines (excluding Willow ptarmigan):
Before:
control group: 7
impact group: 11After:
control group: 18
impact group: 6(plus 40 Willow ptarmigan)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.6592
And yes, that's 82 dead birds in 80 turbine years.
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And the moderator then “there are two ways to see it” about my complaint about conspiracy theories about wind. No there aren’t. Wind turbines aren’t a serious danger to birds, compared to other dangers. #StateOfEU
@jon 'One is based upon facts, the other upon lies. Which one do you prefer?'
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@jon 'One is based upon facts, the other upon lies. Which one do you prefer?'
@AndiBarth Yeah. But I offended polite society.
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I'm still not sure how they reached that conclusion.
They monitored two groups of 4 turbines each, from 2006-2016. In 2013 they painted blades of one turbine group.
The numbers of dead birds found at these turbines (excluding Willow ptarmigan):
Before:
control group: 7
impact group: 11After:
control group: 18
impact group: 6(plus 40 Willow ptarmigan)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.6592
And yes, that's 82 dead birds in 80 turbine years.
By comparison, the number of killed birds by pet cats with outdoor access seems to be around 3-12 (Canada, Germany) per catyear.
https://ace-eco.org/vol20/iss2/art12/
https://www.riffreporter.de/de/wissen/katzen-versus-voegel-hauskatze-amsel-elster-vogelschutz
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This panel is so dreadful. A business “I know how to fix it!” dude. A “everything is complex” politics lady. A “we’re doing our best” national civil servant dude. #StateOfEU
Most of these people have been buttering up notionally powerful people for so long they can no longer make a coherent point or have a coherent thought. It’s grim. #StateOfEU
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Most of these people have been buttering up notionally powerful people for so long they can no longer make a coherent point or have a coherent thought. It’s grim. #StateOfEU
Can you not at least make a bad point coherently? #StateOfEU
