Now more than ever, we urgently need to switch to renewables.
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@markwyner @greenpeace just relating a feeling. maybe it's because i have no true sense of the scale of the us.
@markwyner @greenpeace so, recorded car deaths divided by square kilometers suggests ~6 birds hit by car per km² over a year. alright that seems plausible.
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Now more than ever, we urgently need to switch to renewables.
This is about more than saving the planet; it's about peace and stability - renewables are cheaper and provide greater energy security.
@greenpeace should we read this as a modest proposal to demolish Moscow and fill the freed land with these machines? Hmm, that may actually do the job, I guess.
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AND…all of those stories about how the turbines kill birds is just oil-industry propaganda.
Source:
https://www.statista.com/chart/15195/wind-turbines-are-not-killing-fields-for-birds/@markwyner @greenpeace The graphic mentions sources, but then the actual article does not have any list of sources. Disappointing. It is not simple to fact-check this. But I was interested in the cat number.
The linked article says "Estimates places the number of U.S. bird deaths at the paws of cats at between 365 millions and 2.4 billion." It doesn't give sources for this. It does contain a link to the page https://www.fws.gov/library/collections/threats-birds that lists various threats to birds. It has a table with various things that kills birds, and for cats it gives much higher numbers than the graphic. It gives the source for that as "Loss et al 2013a", but has again no list of sources.
If I do a bit of web searching I find this, which apparently is the source: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
And yes, the number is huge. Even larger that in the graphic, even. "We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually."
I have no way to know how good and reliable the scientific methods used by Loss et al were. Some people seem to be suggesting they used very unreliable extrapolation from extreme cases. I found this paper, but it is on a cat-lover site, so can hardly be seen as neutral... https://www.alleycat.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/LossEtAl_Report_GregoryJMatthews_6-10.pdf
One obvious thing is that possibly cats to a large extent kill birds that would have died soon anyway.
In general I don't find it unbelievable that domestic and feral cats kill huge numbers of birds. The order of magnitude mentioned in the graphic might be way off from reality, though. (But still, it would be much larger than the number for wind turbines.)
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Now more than ever, we urgently need to switch to renewables.
This is about more than saving the planet; it's about peace and stability - renewables are cheaper and provide greater energy security.
just one turn provides electricity for a 1000 km ride!
@greenpeace
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AND…all of those stories about how the turbines kill birds is just oil-industry propaganda.
Source:
https://www.statista.com/chart/15195/wind-turbines-are-not-killing-fields-for-birds/None of the people i've heard using the "wind turbines kill the little birdies!!!" argument have ever given a shit about birds or wildlife in general. It's just pure propaganda
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@markwyner @greenpeace so, recorded car deaths divided by square kilometers suggests ~6 birds hit by car per km² over a year. alright that seems plausible.
Nice. That’s great math. Also, I want to apologize for my reply to you. It sounded mean, which wasn’t my intention. That’s what I get for responding while gaming. Anyway, I’m sorry for my snarky tone.
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Nice. That’s great math. Also, I want to apologize for my reply to you. It sounded mean, which wasn’t my intention. That’s what I get for responding while gaming. Anyway, I’m sorry for my snarky tone.
@markwyner it's fine, i get it. we're all micro-PTSD'd from the past 10 years of social media experience. i keep forgetting this
i should have qualified my statement better. -
@markwyner @greenpeace The graphic mentions sources, but then the actual article does not have any list of sources. Disappointing. It is not simple to fact-check this. But I was interested in the cat number.
The linked article says "Estimates places the number of U.S. bird deaths at the paws of cats at between 365 millions and 2.4 billion." It doesn't give sources for this. It does contain a link to the page https://www.fws.gov/library/collections/threats-birds that lists various threats to birds. It has a table with various things that kills birds, and for cats it gives much higher numbers than the graphic. It gives the source for that as "Loss et al 2013a", but has again no list of sources.
If I do a bit of web searching I find this, which apparently is the source: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
And yes, the number is huge. Even larger that in the graphic, even. "We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually."
I have no way to know how good and reliable the scientific methods used by Loss et al were. Some people seem to be suggesting they used very unreliable extrapolation from extreme cases. I found this paper, but it is on a cat-lover site, so can hardly be seen as neutral... https://www.alleycat.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/LossEtAl_Report_GregoryJMatthews_6-10.pdf
One obvious thing is that possibly cats to a large extent kill birds that would have died soon anyway.
In general I don't find it unbelievable that domestic and feral cats kill huge numbers of birds. The order of magnitude mentioned in the graphic might be way off from reality, though. (But still, it would be much larger than the number for wind turbines.)
The point here is that the wind turbine death fear is propaganda. There are various sources with a range of data. All of them very high overall. Some cite even higher numbers.
Either way, it’s not renewable energy killing birds.
The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States - PubMed
Anthropogenic threats, such as collisions with man-made structures, vehicles, poisoning and predation by domestic pets, combine to kill billions of wildlife annually. Free-ranging domestic cats have been introduced globally and have contributed to multiple wildlife extinctions on islands. The magnit …
PubMed (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
Hundreds of Millions of Birds Are Killed Annually from Building Collisions
A new study finds that certain species are at greater risk—and that skyscrapers aren't the biggest culprits.
Audubon (www.audubon.org)
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Now more than ever, we urgently need to switch to renewables.
This is about more than saving the planet; it's about peace and stability - renewables are cheaper and provide greater energy security.
Fixed your #Alt text for you:
A large wind turbine rising above trees in the evening light with a clear blue sky.
Caption reads: This machine stops wars.
In smaller print: (It's a big fan of peace) -
AND…all of those stories about how the turbines kill birds is just oil-industry propaganda.
Source:
https://www.statista.com/chart/15195/wind-turbines-are-not-killing-fields-for-birds/@markwyner @greenpeace no worries, there is much more that needs to be clarified first.
We still have insects smashed at the blades, infrasound (from the WTGs) terrorising the neighbourhood, microplastics abrasion from the blades poisoning the environment (particularly the groundwater), drying out of the surrounding due to the area sealed of by the WTG's foundation, etc.
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/sarc -
Now more than ever, we urgently need to switch to renewables.
This is about more than saving the planet; it's about peace and stability - renewables are cheaper and provide greater energy security.
I’m sorry, your use of alt text is not helping blind and partially sighted people.
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Now more than ever, we urgently need to switch to renewables.
This is about more than saving the planet; it's about peace and stability - renewables are cheaper and provide greater energy security.
@greenpeace Don't put them in nature, but on highways, so nobody can complain about the noise.
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@markwyner it's fine, i get it. we're all micro-PTSD'd from the past 10 years of social media experience. i keep forgetting this
i should have qualified my statement better.@lritter @markwyner loved the interaction there. Thanks for making the world a better place
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Now more than ever, we urgently need to switch to renewables.
This is about more than saving the planet; it's about peace and stability - renewables are cheaper and provide greater energy security.
@greenpeace What's in the image?
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@lritter @markwyner loved the interaction there. Thanks for making the world a better place
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