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.
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.
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.