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Curiously, nobody seems to be very interested in studying the impact of renewable energy projects for bird populations. Probably hard as hell to get grants for

Curiously, nobody seems to be very interested in studying the impact of renewable energy projects for bird populations. Probably hard as hell to get grants for that.

veddox 3y ago
Sorry, that's just not true. Just type "renewable energy bird populations" into Google Scholar and work your way through the results. There's tons of research on that out there. See e.g. here for a recent study: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.211558 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.211...
johnnyworker 3y ago
Why not check first if it's true before you claim it? It takes the same time, too: I simply copied and pasted from your comment and here they are, take your pick: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=the%20impact%20of%20renewable%20energy%20projects%20for%20bird%20populations https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=the%20impact%20of%20re... edit: But IMO more importantly, it's not like farmland practices that endanger birds and renewable energy somehow offset each other. Both are desirable (not the harmful farmland practices are, but farming per se is), even vital things, and their undesirable side-effects need to be reduced.
persedes 3y ago
If you are referring to wind turbines killing birds, those have been studied. First search result, bunch of studies in the footnotes: https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/do-wind-turbines-kill-birds https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/do-wind-turbines-kill-birds And if you want to put in relation to other bird killers: https://www.statista.com/chart/15195/wind-turbines-are-not-killing-fields-for-birds/ https://www.statista.com/chart/15195/wind-turbines-are-not-k...
- hinkley 3y ago
  So, so many times. The upshot is that if we wanted to save birds, we would tear down all office buildings and fossil fuel power plants and replace them with windmills. But first, rid the world of cats.
croes 3y ago
This comes every time when people talk about wind turbines and they are far behind the top 3 killers: Cats Cars Windows in buildings Cats for instance kill billions each year.
- unnamed76ri 3y ago
  Strange to include a natural predator in this list.
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    It seems reasonable given that the vast majority of the cats in this case aren't natural per se, they are pets kept by humans.
  - croes 3y ago
    By that logic everything human related is natural too. The number of cats that kill birds is due to the fact that humans breed them en masse. Nothing natural about that.
  - WhatsTheBigIdea 3y ago
    Cats are not a "natural" predator in the modern context. They have massive advantages over wild animals including but not limited to 1) A guaranteed source of high quality disease free calories 2) Veterinary care 3) Safe places to rest and recuperate As a result, the numbers of domesticated cats in most environments is radically larger than they would be in naturally balanced ecosystems. The vast majority of modern domestic cats are sport hunters. Most will not even eat their prey as they have better food readily available. It is also worth mentioning that domesticated cats are an invasive species in any environment outside the Nile Delta in Egypt. Modern domestic cats are not "natural" predators in any sense. They can be very cute though!
    - lukas099 3y ago
      Not to mention that they were introduced by humans almost everywhere that they exist.
elzbardico 3y ago
Ok. I was wrong. Can someone please flag my comment dead? I don't stand by it anymore and can't delete it.
- BobaFloutist 3y ago
  When I do something like this, I edit the comment, and add something like the following to the top "Edit: I was completely mistaken and no longer stand by this, but I'll leave my mistake up for posterity"
- jeffbee 3y ago
  No, we should leave your comment alive so we can have a larger discussion about why this is a persistent meme in the discourse, why people like you are predisposed to write this nonsense, and how to counter the scourge of misinformation around renewable energy.

Curiously, nobody seems to be very interested in studying the impact of renewable energy projects for bird populations. Probably hard as hell to get grants for that.

veddox 3y ago

Sorry, that's just not true. Just type "renewable energy bird populations" into Google Scholar and work your way through the results. There's tons of research on that out there. See e.g. here for a recent study: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.211558 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.211...

johnnyworker 3y ago

Why not check first if it's true before you claim it? It takes the same time, too: I simply copied and pasted from your comment and here they are, take your pick: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=the%20impact%20of%20renewable%20energy%20projects%20for%20bird%20populations https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=the%20impact%20of%20re... edit: But IMO more importantly, it's not like farmland practices that endanger birds and renewable energy somehow offset each other. Both are desirable (not the harmful farmland practices are, but farming per se is), even vital things, and their undesirable side-effects need to be reduced.

persedes 3y ago

If you are referring to wind turbines killing birds, those have been studied. First search result, bunch of studies in the footnotes: https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/do-wind-turbines-kill-birds https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/do-wind-turbines-kill-birds And if you want to put in relation to other bird killers: https://www.statista.com/chart/15195/wind-turbines-are-not-killing-fields-for-birds/ https://www.statista.com/chart/15195/wind-turbines-are-not-k...

hinkley 3y ago
So, so many times. The upshot is that if we wanted to save birds, we would tear down all office buildings and fossil fuel power plants and replace them with windmills. But first, rid the world of cats.

croes 3y ago

This comes every time when people talk about wind turbines and they are far behind the top 3 killers: Cats Cars Windows in buildings Cats for instance kill billions each year.

unnamed76ri 3y ago
Strange to include a natural predator in this list.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  It seems reasonable given that the vast majority of the cats in this case aren't natural per se, they are pets kept by humans.
- croes 3y ago
  By that logic everything human related is natural too. The number of cats that kill birds is due to the fact that humans breed them en masse. Nothing natural about that.
- WhatsTheBigIdea 3y ago
  Cats are not a "natural" predator in the modern context. They have massive advantages over wild animals including but not limited to 1) A guaranteed source of high quality disease free calories 2) Veterinary care 3) Safe places to rest and recuperate As a result, the numbers of domesticated cats in most environments is radically larger than they would be in naturally balanced ecosystems. The vast majority of modern domestic cats are sport hunters. Most will not even eat their prey as they have better food readily available. It is also worth mentioning that domesticated cats are an invasive species in any environment outside the Nile Delta in Egypt. Modern domestic cats are not "natural" predators in any sense. They can be very cute though!
  - lukas099 3y ago
    Not to mention that they were introduced by humans almost everywhere that they exist.

elzbardico 3y ago

Ok. I was wrong. Can someone please flag my comment dead? I don't stand by it anymore and can't delete it.

BobaFloutist 3y ago
When I do something like this, I edit the comment, and add something like the following to the top "Edit: I was completely mistaken and no longer stand by this, but I'll leave my mistake up for posterity"
jeffbee 3y ago
No, we should leave your comment alive so we can have a larger discussion about why this is a persistent meme in the discourse, why people like you are predisposed to write this nonsense, and how to counter the scourge of misinformation around renewable energy.