But What About the Birds...?
Does Green Power Have Grim Consequences?

'''When the topic of wind power is raised in conversation, it is rare for everyone to embrace it unequivocally. It usually generates at least a few furrowed brows within the group of appreciative smiles. Top of the list of expressed concerns is nearly always the issue of whether birds will be killed by the turning blades. In fact, modern wind turbines have an impact on wildlife that is miniscule in comparison with that of other man-made objects. High-rise buildings, power lines, and cats kill 30,000 times more birds than do wind turbines in the US.

But even those hundreds of millions of deaths pale in comparison with the losses that will be caused as climate change engulfs us. A scientific study published in Nature magazine in 2004 considered species survival in 2050, and came to the conclusion: "Our analyses suggest that well over a million species could be threatened with extinction as a result of climate change." And that was assuming only mid-range climate warming scenarios!

Yet, in spite of this dire news, the past few years have not seen leadership from all in the environmental community.

The Audubon Society's President says that: "For Audubon, wind power is a good news, bad news story." The Sierra Club's statement that "proper siting and design of wind turbines can greatly reduce harmful impacts on birds, animals, and plants" is not exactly a ringing endorsement of wind power installation. The American Bird Conservancy's claim is even worse: "Wind farms, however, kill birds and bats... We all want clean, renewable energy, but we cannot sacrifice large numbers of birds..."

This suppression of enthusiasm for wind power among the public at large is not the only bad result from qualified, lackluster statements of support. Endless, unnecessary, repetitive wildlife studies demanded for every new installation mean costly delays for most projects, and a complete halt for others. We are being hindered in our essential fashioning of those benign tools to save our planet. The web site of National Wind Watch, an organization devoted to fighting the establishment of wind farms, makes use of references -- not from fossil fuel industries, but from environmental organizations -- which have thus become part of the problem, not the solution.

For a growing number of citizens, however, there is no way to describe our planet’s peril too strongly. As leading climatologist James Hansen said recently:

"We must be on a new path within the next several years, or reducing CO2 levels this century becomes implausible. Developed countries, the source of most excess CO2 in the air today, must lead in developing clean energy and halting emissions."

Similarly, Paul Gipe, wind energy pioneer, says: "We're all in this together” and "There's no time to lose."

Or, to quote the priorities listed by Ted Glick, the coordinator of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council, "No new coal plants, invest in renewables, cap and rapidly reduce carbon pollution, and 5 million green jobs in a sweeping national mobilization for change. Time is literally running out. It's all hands on deck time."

It is time for a combined national press conference, of all organizations that would claim to have bird protection as part of their mandate, at which strong, unequivocal, support is announced for wind power, to be put in place as soon as possible. It is completely inadequate for such organizations to offer half-hearted enthusiasm.

What is essential is that the existing, carefully researched studies, indicating the neutral, and sometimes benign, environmental effects of modern wind turbines, be made common knowledge.

As long as people continue to obsess about wind power's effect on wildlife, and while the eyebrows continue to knit when the subject of wind power is raised at social gatherings, those national organizations will have failed in their core purpose. Only if they transmit the understanding that all species, including birds, will suffer catastrophic loss, and quite possibly extinction, unless we address global warming in all possible ways, and as rapidly as possible, will they have done their job.

Our destruction of our fellow inhabitants of this world will then have a chance of slowing down, and after that, hopefully, coming to a halt.

From Cool Cleveland reader Sarah Taylor sarahATwindustrious.org

Taylor would like to direct readers to the large Danish study on the effect of offshore turbines on wildlife, which is accessible from a link titled "Environmental Issues" on the Windustrious home page at http://www.windustrious.org.
(:divend:)