You cannot support Wind Power without consciously accepting the reality of innocent bird deaths!!! :::head explodes:::

I prefer to think of bird blenders as a potential cheap source of protein. :yum:

Ahhh...synergy! We collect the "processed" birds for use as cat food!

I am, right now, working on a (top secret) wind farm perimeter security system, which will completely eliminate bird deaths from wind turbines.

It consists of a series of high-powered lasers that will detect and instantly fry any bird that tries to enter the wind farm's air space.

Now I just need a clever name, like Clear Skies Initiative.

I think most people who oppose wind power just don't want the ugly windmills in their back yard. They use the birds as a "reason," but really it's simple NIMBYism. Can't say I blame them. I wouldn't want them in my view either if they can go somewhere else instead.

I'd say that you're right on the NIMBY deal. I think windmills are beautiful in form and function, powerlines are another story though.

A good site I just ran across. It is squarely against global warming skeptics, but each question and answer page allows comments, so the skeptics can try to pick holes in the argument.

What is a Global Warming Skeptic? Anyone that doesn't buy Gore's Dog & Pony show?
I don't think the arguments on that page are particularly strong. There's a lot of vague references and generalizations although it might work on Grandma if she trusted the person telling her. Anyone with real skepticism would need much more than I see there.


I was looking at some Ariel photos of Europe and noticed this caption under a picture of an Airbus field in France.

Ariel? Is that the part around the nipple?

Spelling Nazi.

The other problems with wind farms (over here) is the high price landowners are paid for the lease on their land. This causes reverse NIMBYism problems.

You really just can't win when you're trying to save the world.

tw, you're trying to make it seem like I've said something I didn't. you just go your own way with your rant matey.

Not what you said, what you didn't say.

Wind Farms and Birds:

http://www.celsias.com/blog/2007/03/...ered-wildlife/

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007...more_letha.php

Yes well, it's very unfortunate that birds are killed because of windfarming. I don't know what the answer is, and I don't think anyone else does either.

The fact remains that it's a technology which works and is relatively inexpensive to run once it's set up.

Reconciling the cost to wildlife against the benefits to humans is difficult in all such situations however in this case, I believe the cost is not as high as that which will be paid if we don't explore this technology.

As one of the articles TheMercenary linked to said, there are many human-related bird deaths due to other factors, such as tall buildings, windows, cats and cell towers. To put things into perspective, here are some statistics from the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Some numbers:
Building window strikes: 97 to 976 million/yr
Communication tower strikes: 4 to 40 million/yr
Cars: 60 million/yr
Cats: hundreds of millions/yr

Another source said "According to the Bird Conservancy, the 15 000 existing US wind turbines kill 10 000 to 40 000 birds per year, which compares with 50 million US bird deaths per year due to transmission towers and 200 million worldwide due to avian flu in 2005. Extrapolating to 5 million 5-MW turbines needed to satisfy all electric power and energy needs worldwide gives 3 million to 13 million bird deaths per year, much less than transmission towers in the US alone."

There is obviously a lot of uncertainty in the numbers, but if people are truly concerned about bird deaths they would get rid of their cats, their cars and their cell phones.