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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@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
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Can you not at least make a bad point coherently? #StateOfEU
There’s some argument here that electricity is too costly in the EU. If that *is* true, how do you fix it? Renewables are the only way. Even *were* nuclear the solution you can’t get it in a decade. And you don’t want to burn gas. #StateOfEU
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Just had to deal with a bunch of wind turbine conspiracy theories at #StateOfEU, this polite political event I’m at in Brussels. Damn we‘re fucked. Fucked. Our notional political elite is believing in utter complete garbage.
I don't even know what a wind turbine conspiracy theory is. (Please do not enlighten/endumben* me)
*delete as appropriate
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I don't even know what a wind turbine conspiracy theory is. (Please do not enlighten/endumben* me)
*delete as appropriate
@GracelessHippo for your sake I’m glad you’ve not heard them
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There’s some argument here that electricity is too costly in the EU. If that *is* true, how do you fix it? Renewables are the only way. Even *were* nuclear the solution you can’t get it in a decade. And you don’t want to burn gas. #StateOfEU
@jon Fortum argues it's too cheap.
https://mamot.fr/@nemobis/117270241969099380 -
Just had to deal with a bunch of wind turbine conspiracy theories at #StateOfEU, this polite political event I’m at in Brussels. Damn we‘re fucked. Fucked. Our notional political elite is believing in utter complete garbage.
@jon thanks for fighting the good fight
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There’s some argument here that electricity is too costly in the EU. If that *is* true, how do you fix it? Renewables are the only way. Even *were* nuclear the solution you can’t get it in a decade. And you don’t want to burn gas. #StateOfEU
This is just basically a question of big business profitability. Drive down electricity costs, and shove those costs onto the state to add network capacity to drive down your costs. #StateOfEU
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@jon and the jerk lets the cat roam free, while wind turbines are stationary.
Our cats would love to have a bird to kill.
Thanks to conventional agriculture and overdoing gardenweeders all around here, there is nothing left to feed on for birds.
Neither windturbines, nor cats are the biggest theeat to the birds population.
We humans with our tidy fields and gardens are the cause.
Sad enough
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Our cats would love to have a bird to kill.
Thanks to conventional agriculture and overdoing gardenweeders all around here, there is nothing left to feed on for birds.
Neither windturbines, nor cats are the biggest theeat to the birds population.
We humans with our tidy fields and gardens are the cause.
Sad enough
@Derek_DIY "free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals (...)
More birds die from cat encounters than from collisions with buildings, communication tower, or vehicles, or poisoning by pesticides".
https://www.audubon.org/news/cats-pose-even-bigger-threat-birds-previously-thought
It's a bad conclusion for cat lovers, but all they have to do is keep their cats indoors, simple as that.
@jon -
This is just basically a question of big business profitability. Drive down electricity costs, and shove those costs onto the state to add network capacity to drive down your costs. #StateOfEU
At least the business dude knows how to present. The politicians, not so much. #StateOfEU
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Can you not at least make a bad point coherently? #StateOfEU
@jon
I wonder how many birds and fish and mammals are killed by coal plants...?
Or heat waves, for that matter.Nobody likes loving next to industrial infrastructure, and quite a lot of land is used to import, export, refine, and distribute those archaic power sources.
Whose houses voted to have the gas peaker plants pop up next to them?
Many of those generators were built with the truncheon of State power and later "sold" for "private management"
I'm done asking. I'm demanding parity.
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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
@jon well I strongly agree with your point but then the natural consequence is "I'm ready to accept an increase in inequality in order to stop climate change". I do but this seems to be very uncommon.
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Turbines kill birds. They don’t you jerk. Your cat is more a danger to birds. #StateOfEU
Edit: for clarification - the number isn’t zero. But it’s not a significant issue.
@jon and anyone who's worried about it can paint one blade black and reduce deaths dramatically. If that were standard at the factory, the cost could be negligible.
