Hold onto your seats folks, the tea party suddenly got “green.” After years of bashing environmentalists for trying save animal life from Big Oil and Coal, conservatives are now about to do the same thing...but with green energy producers. Ironic, hypocritical...pick your flavor:
NewsMax: The federal government last August imposed hefty fines on
seven petroleum companies in North Dakota over the death of 28 birds near their
open waste pits. The wind farms championed by promoters of “green energy,” by
comparison, kill more than 400,000 birds a year — including dozens of eagles —
yet they pay not a penny in fines.
In the strangest twist yet, right wingers are now worried sick
about birds. And just to make sure conservative idol worshippers are on board (you know the ones that wear flag pins, defend fireworks and throw vet magnets their cars), the
Hoover Institute is blaming Obama for killing eagles, our national symbol.
“Team Obama wants to give wind-power companies long-term
permits to butcher bald eagles, America’s national symbol, on the altar of
green energy,” writes Deroy Murdock, a media fellow with the Hoover Institution
on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.
But as usual, this brutality toward eagles is almost
impossible to prove. But we’re all left wonder what would happen if...
Determining an exact count for dead eagles is difficult
because other animals may eat the carcasses, but 67 golden eagles are estimated
to die annually at just one California wind farm.
As part of his plan for our socialist state, Obama must
destroy eagles:
But a 2009 Obama-era law allows wind farms and others to
kill eagles if the harm is unintentional. This loophole lets wind companies
escape “the penalties that can befall those with eagle blood on their hands but
without political connections,” notes Murdock, a nationally syndicated
columnist with the Scripps. Murdock concludes: “If bald eagles dropped dead
beside oil derricks, Washington would pound the petroleum industry. Instead,
wind propellers chop bald eagles in half. Team Obama then lets wind companies
eradicate even more of this republic’s innocent national bird,” which is being
“sacrificed in the name of environmental correctness...”
...and not energy independence? Please, please, won’t you oppose alternative
wind energy and vote against Obama, the one man bent on destroying our national
American symbol?
But on a more serious note, I found there is ongoing research by the wind industry, who on it's own is trying to reduce the number of birds killed. A few possibilities are in the works, including offshore wind farms:
 |
| Vertical Turbine |
East County Magazine: Wind industry advocates note that bird kills from wind farms counted thus far are lower than total bird kills from flying into glass windows or being hit by cars, and roughly equal to the number killed by cats. Long-term, vertical axis wind turbines hold promise. To date, only small-scale models have been developed--including one recently installed as a pilot program by the San Diego Port District. "Many of these turbines have been installed throughout Japan and because of their unique vertical structure, there have been no reported problems, like the ones that occur with horizontal axis turbines.
Vertical turbines currently are being marketed to homeowners where allowed by law.
What’s not said is how that number could be more honestly attributed
to the normal business cycle and the slowly improving recovery. If employers
are positive, they can thank the Obama administration policies. Of course they
won’t. 
