4 ms·
> wind turbines kill about 300k birds per year, power lines kill 30 million (mostly through collision), cars kill 200 million Statistics like that have to be a
by computator 9y ago
> wind turbines kill about 300k birds per year, power lines kill 30 million (mostly through collision), cars kill 200 million
Statistics like that have to be adjusted "per capita" in some fashion. It's going to difficult to pick the right units for comparison. Maybe the basis could be birds killed per kilowatt-hours or joules worth of electricity generated (windmills), carried (power lines), and consumed (cars).
- iamatworknow 9y agoI think the GP was just trying to make a point that the "what about the birds?" argument against wind power is a convenient talking point/straw man for people who actually don't really care about the welfare of birds, since they face far greater dangers than flying into turbines. Bringing up hundreds of thousands of birds dying in a debate against more wind turbines is more sympathetic than, "I think they're ugly and I don't want them in my yard," which to me is the primary reason people oppose them.
- rsynnott 9y agoI mean, you could do this, certainly, but is it necessarily useful? The point of the numbers was just to show that turbines are very small compared to other bird hazards. Even if there were 1000 times as many turbines as they are, they'd still kill fewer birds than building collisions, and no-one but ornithologists is really calling for anything to be done about buildings as a hazard to birds. The whole bird thing is a complete red herring.