Unfounded claims about offshore wind threatening whales have surfaced as a flashpoint in the fight over the future of renewable energy.
In recent months, conservatives including former President Donald Trump have claimed construction of offshore wind turbines is killing the giant animals.
Scientists say there is no credible evidence linking offshore wind farms to whale deaths. But that hasn’t stopped conservative groups and ad hoc “not in my back yard”-style anti-development groups from making the connection.
The Associated Press sorts fact from fiction when it comes to whales and wind power as the rare North Atlantic right whale’s migration season gets underway.
Do they only kill flying whales or are the others at risk of accidently jumping into the blades, too?
Last night someone was telling me that the resin they use to make the blades deteriorates over time and covers the area in microplastics. Oh and each turbine needs 40 tonnes of cement which is not carbon neutral.
They main contributors for micro plastics are polyester clothing and car tires. Those people likely use both.
Sure ok. This guy drives Australian road trains. Typically 15 axles, 58 tyres.
we gonna get you on board the fuck cars movement if microplastics are a big enough concern to not build renewable energy? Cus boy let me tell you about tire wear and microplastics.
The only actual solution is to consume less power, but no one wants to talk about that yet.
What a silly thing to say.
I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t want to use less power.
I suspect what you really mean is that you want to reduce power requirements by some authoritarian policy.
What I want is to save the world from overconsumption, and yes, that’s going to require governments rationing power and enforcing efficiency.
Calling that “authoritarian” is nonsense, though. It doesn’t require the army going house to house and killing people with incandescent lightbulbs or something. Grow up.
Sure mate, I guess the question of whether it’s authoritarian is subjective. Suffice to say rationing would be daft. What about roof top solar?
We can’t do that without an extremely exploitative supply chain that uses child slaves to mine for cobalt and lithium, that is built on an imperialist supply chain that subjugates nations under the boot-heel of the likes of the US and France, that releases massive amounts of CO2 and causes huge amounts of deforestation from mining and shipping and manufacturing and installing this “green” technology.
We also can’t do that on a reasonable timeline that will prevent catastrophic warming. The majority of estimates put us past 2040.
Also? You aren’t going to get rooftop solar to replace coal and gas without “authoritarian” measures like mandates and penalties.
There are valid concerns about building these in sensitive coastal ecosystems (such as kelp forests), but this is the first time I’ve heard someone suggest that whales could be endangered.
I’m concerned, too, but I guess relying on fossil fuels will devastate the ecosystems even further eventually.
There are probably plenty of areas to use that aren’t as sensitive.
Like Republicans are anti-whaling anyways… 🙄
The selective outrage over animal rights is such manufactured bullshit. But if I am being honest, democrats, progressives and leftists are all equally culpable in these do nothing virtue signal outrages.
Gotcha. So both sides then?
Not quite, the whole “Enlighten centerist” is a cop put crap argument to side with oppressers out of personal convience, far from a legitimate political perspective.
But this isn’t politics, it’s me as part of the <1% outsider vegan community in a EXTREMELY carnist world. I’m just so bloody tired of people talking about the horrors of “animal abuse” as they pay others to perpetuate it. It’s less centerist, and more annoyance at large scale cognitive dissonance from a historical norm.
people talking about the horrors of “animal abuse” as they pay others to perpetuate it.
no one does that
Paying others to pay others to do something is, via the transitive property, paying others to do something
Imagine being a leftist and not opposing animal exploitation.
one has nothing to do with the other
iknorite?
Cows are the finest example of the proletariat. The only service they provide to the economy is their body itself, so they are literally stripped of it to enrich others with more power, just an endless cycle of suffering.
If you are … financing animal factory farming,
only bankers do that
What exactly do you think happens to the money you spend at the grocery store on bacon? It goes to the people producing it. And then they make more.
they were already paid before the store bought or received the bacon. and after you spend money, it’s not yours and you can’t decide what happens to it.
Lmao. I hope you are just trolling because that’s a 2nd grade answer. There is no way you are a serious person who has serious opinions about the world.
you can’t decide what happens to it.
But what DOES happen with it? The store restocks.
But what DOES happen with it? The store restocks.
what happens when you buy beans on june 25? the store takes your money, and increases their orders of hotdogs and hamburgers using your money in preparation of july 4. the fact that the store is making that decision is not your fault, it’s theirs. it’s their decision to make.
Lmao.
this is an appeal to ridicule, not a rebuttal.
5 responses in 3 minutes? Yeah, no. I’m not engaging with whatever tf this is. Think as you please and I encourage you to tell/show as many people as you can about this interaction.
this is a thought-terminating cliche.
packing 3 appeals to ridicule and a personal attack into 2 sentences is impressive in its own right.
There is no way you are a serious person who has serious opinions about the world.
this is a personal attack… and an appeal to ridicule, not a rebuttal
I know it’s hard for the communist mind to understand commerce, but when you buy something from the store, that store buys more of that thing to fulfill the demand.
While it’s true that the money I spend on soy milk and tofu goes into the same bank account as the money that pays for bacon and goat brains, stores are aware of what people are buying, and will likely not spend my lentil and black beans money on more dead animals.
The money that you give them for your dead three month old chicken is money that they will spend on more three month old chickens, which those chickens’ producers will spend on making more chickens to kill at three months old. They will spend the money I gave them for my kale and spinach on more kale and spinach.
NOW I CAN SEE THE WHALES
Only during whalenados
But it use up the wind 🤪