[jlos]

Its crazy reading threads of people casually justifying wildlife impacts as collateral damage for wind turbines, when they would never use those arguments to justify wildlife impact for oil and gas.

"Listen, cats kill millions of birds each year. So a few more die in tailings ponds?"

Not saying either should get a pass; companies installing wind turbines should be held to the same standard and not off just because they are "renewable"[0]

[0] Even the fact we consider wind/solar "renewable" is evidence of how slick the marketing campaigns are for these companies. Solar panels and wind turbines have limited life spans, require rare earth metals that have to be mined. Solar and wind energy are renewable but how we harvest that energy is decidedly NOT renewable.

[kjkjadksj]

You are buying into the fud and letting perfect be the enemy of good. Sure turbines might kill a bird. But then again, probably far fewer birds are dying due to energy production in a world of wind energy than one of fossil fuels.

[coremoff]

Many more birds are killed colliding with windows each year, but we still install transparent windows too.

Much human activity negatively impacts wildlife - we should be pragmatic in addressing these problems, and the harm to wildlife from renewable energy is significantly less than the harm caused by fossil fuel energy.

[rsynnott]

If you're going to stop people building anything that might kill a bird, well, you're essentially stopping people building anything; they tend to hit buildings. You'd probably have to abandon agriculture, too.

[perlgeek]

> [0] Even the fact we consider wind/solar "renewable" is evidence of how slick the marketing campaigns are for these companies. Solar panels and wind turbines have limited life spans, require rare earth metals that have to be mined. Solar and wind energy are renewable but how we harvest that energy is decidedly NOT renewable.

"renewable" is clearly an approximation here, as there is no truly renewable energy source in the sense that it doesn't need any equipment or infrastructure that could degrade over time. Just like "rechargeable" batteries aren't infinitely rechargeable.

But there are studies that look at the whole-lifecycle impact of wind and solar and find them better than most alternatives. Certainly better than oil, coal and natural gas.

[mrguyorama]

>Even the fact we consider wind/solar "renewable"

The ENERGY is "renewable", not the generation equipment. Nobody calls gas powerplants non-renewable because of the blades in the turbine.

C'mon man.