Posted on 05/20/2016 5:55:55 PM PDT by Kaslin
“The founding fathers made an appropriate choice when they selected the bald eagle as the emblem of our nation. The fierce beauty and proud independence of this bird aptly symbolizes the strength and freedom of America.” JFK 1961
The last seven years may have diluted that patriotic sentiment. Yet, square our national veneration of the bald eagle with a federal rule to allow the rotor blades of wind turbines to butcher 4,200 bald eagles per year for thirty years—four times the previous limit. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), an agency legally bound to protect wildlife and with no jurisdiction over energy, stated that the rule’s purpose was to help spur more renewable installations.
The bald eagle is probably the most honored and protected wildlife species in U.S. history. Initially protected in 1940 under the Bald Eagle Protection Act, the majestic bird was one of the first species listed under the Endangered Species Act in the late 1960s. When first listed, perhaps only four hundred breeding pairs existed. When officially delisted in 2007, the bald eagle population had increased to 10,000 pairs that mate for life. The noble bird is still protected by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.
With the new rule, the Service apparently aims to legitimize what has become politically selective enforcement of wildlife protection laws under the Obama administration. The feds have largely given renewables energy facilities a pass on bird and other wildlife kills while repeatedly trying to nail oil and gas operations with criminal prosecution and onerous fines for the inadvertent kills of a few common birds. In 2012, a federal judge in North Dakota threw out the Department of Justice’s criminal indictments of three oil and gas companies on the grounds that the law was too vague to criminalize basic commercial activity.
Various industrial operations including wind turbines inadvertently kill hundreds of thousands of birds every year. Feral and domestic cats may kill five hundred million birds. There is something heinous, however, about authorizing the slaughter of over 4,000 bald eagles every year for thirty years to promote renewable energy—a diffused, parasitic form of energy, wholly dependent on subsidy- at the expense of our redoubtable bald eagle. Emblazoned on the Great Seal of the United States adopted in 1887 and only delisted from the Endangered Species Act in 2007, does not the American Bald Eagle deserve a pride of place among protected wildlife in our country?
On the other hand, disregard for our national symbol is consistent with our president’s policy to diminish the strength and clout of the United States. If renewable energy systems on a mass scale could “save the one planet we have,” then farewell to the living symbol of our country. It’s becoming increasingly undeniable, however, that renewables are not capable of providing the energy services on which our society is utterly dependent and cannot displace 80–90 percent of our fossil fueled–energy supply without creating extreme energy scarcity. Even Google’s green engineers regrettably concluded that existing renewables are a “false hope.” As a German newspaper put it, renewables are a “blunder with ugly consequences.” And the most ugly impact is the unimaginable scale on which the planned renewable build-out would damage and disfigure the environment.
Replacing fossil fuel–based electric generation with wind and solar generation requires massive amounts of land and the destruction of natural habitats in return for less energy at a higher price. In contrast, fossil fuels, whose density and reliability far exceed those of renewable energy fuels, have reduced the size of man’s footprint on the earth, while technology has greatly reduced polluting emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels.
Wind and sunshine may be free, but the many indirect costs of concentrating the diffuse and variable flows from these energy sources drives the cost per unit of electricity far higher than fossil fuel generation. For solar to meet total U.S. electric demand, ten thousand square miles would have to be given over to solar panels.[i] And renewables are not as clean and green as promoted.
Current renewable systems require massive material use. For example, an average wind system uses 460 metric tons of steel and 870 cubic meters of concrete per megawatt of electricity to anchor the turbines. In contrast, a natural gas combined cycle plant of comparable capacity uses about three metric tons of steel and twenty-seven cubic meters of concrete. Although likely regarded as punishable heresy by the climate crusaders, mankind’s carbon footprint has shrunk the physical footprint of human societies on the natural world.
It’s time to lift the veil on renewables. The preoccupation with carbon emissions risks major gains in genuine environmental protection and now would trash our national symbol—the American Bald Eagle.
***to allow the rotor blades of wind turbines to butcher 4,200 bald eagles per year for thirty years***
Well, the American Indians will be able to get plenty of feathers from the US government, unless they are chopped up too fine.
This is but one thing out of a gazillion that are wrong with IWTs. They are an unmitigated disaster and if you are fortunate enough to live in an area that doesn’t yet have them, either count yourself lucky or support what you have to keep them out.
To say nothing about the absolute blight these politically correct windmills inflict on the landscape.
At least the 4,200 deaths per year for 30 years are politically correct and should be considered just a small down payment on the much larger and more important issue of profitable Global Warming scams for think tanks, gov’t bureaucrats, professors, and crony capitalists. /s/
Yesterday, from my front porch, I had the honor of watching two bald eagles frolic on the creek. Maybe they were fishing, they were there a few hours. They are absolutely gorgeous!
This is going in just north of where I live. It will be the biggest wind farm in the country. The only thing wind turbines run on is subsidies.
http://www.powercompanyofwyoming.com/
On the page is a link for the eagle take permit.
exactly
I on;t really worry about the eagles...but these windmills are a waste of money, an eyesore, and pointless sop to the greenie morons.
That headline is one reason we're losing. Headline should read:
Obama admin calls for slaughter of 126,000 bald eagles.
But now, the government is just fine with the deaths of thousands of Bald Eagles every year, in the name of some of the most expensive "free" energy that has ever been foisted on a gullible public.
It boggles the mind.
Mark
Rachel Carson, `Silent Spring’?
I think Rachel Corrie was run over by a bulldozer.
Greentards are the blood enemies of God and the human race.
But don’t you get caught with a feather from one of the government-pureed eagles. You could do jail time.
And has anyone noticed that the highway beautification push from the federal government, dating back to Ladybird Johnson, keeps me from looking at the Black Velvet girl on a billboard, but now I get to ogle hundreds of ugly windmills by the side of the interstate?
There is a wind turbine located just north of the Grand Traverse Resort, north of Traverse City, Mi., and, I swear I’ve never seen those blades rotating.
Too bad it wasn’t wolves
Every time I drive by these windmill farms I’m left asking myself, where are they connected to the grid? I see no transmission lines, and these things are all over the place by the hundreds around here out in the middle of corn fields. Yet I see no way that they are connected to anything.
Well it's okay if the government does it...just like the EPA's toxic yellow river deal in Colorado.
wi-fi
lol
They kept making the claim that no non-leaseholder neighbor ever loses value on their homes, but they refused to back that up with their own money.
We sent almost all of the County officials responsible packing at the next Primary. The last ones are gone this year.
The whole damn deal destroyed local family relationships and generations old friendships.. Make no mistake about it, Industrial Wind Turbine Farms in your community WILL do just that.
These people had built their retirement home on land they've owned for decades. But their neighbor did this to them. Their son had a new house next door.
They both sold out and moved away.
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