Wind Turbine Syndrome - green energy's dirty little secret

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LTLFTcomposite

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Just when you thought you had heard it all. And I thought they were only hazardous to birds.

http://gma.yahoo.com/wind-turbine-syndrome-blamed-mysterious-symptoms-cape-cod-112835454--abc-news-wellness.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
I haven't looked into the issue much, but here is the counter argument to this one:

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/alternative_energy/2013/03/wind_turbine_syndrome_debunking_a_disease_that_may_be_a_nocebo_effect.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
It is a well known medical fact that low frequency vibrations can cause health problems so it is not beyond the realm of possibility, especially for very large turbines...

LTLFTcomposite said:
Just when you thought you had heard it all. And I thought they were only hazardous to birds.l
 
"The name was coined by Nina Pierpont, a John Hopkins University-trained pediatrician, whose husband is an anti-wind activist, criticizing the economics and physics of wind power."

"...But her wind-turbine research has been criticized for improper peer review (Pierpont reportedly chose her reviewers), and for its methodology -- small sample size, no control group and the fact that she did not examine her subjects or their medical records but interviewed them by phone."


I realize it can sometimes be difficult to find enough content to fill up a news page. I have a suggestion for Yahoo: instead of pseudo-scientific crap, why not publish old Bloom County strips?
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
Just when you thought you had heard it all. And I thought they were only hazardous to birds.

“While opponents of wind energy have attempted to use self-published reports to block projects, the science is clear. Independent studies conducted around the world consistently find that wind farms have no direct impact on physical health. In fact, with no air or water pollution emissions, wind energy is essential to reducing public health impacts from the energy sector.”
Authors: Robert J. McCunney of MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering, and Robert Dobie, a clinical professor of otolaryngology at both the University of Texas-San Antonio and the University of California, Davis.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/11/theres_no_evidence_of_health_i.html

'Wind turbine syndrome' was coined by anti-wind astroturf groups and is utter and complete BS. In the US, the money has been tracked back to the Koch brothers. In Australia, it's been tracked-back to the fossil fuel industry as well.

Plenty of history and sources here:
http://climatecrocks.com/?s=wind+turbine+syndrome

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Waubra_Foundation
The Waubra Foundation is a front or astroturf group created by Peter Mitchell on March 1, 2010 to oppose wind farming in Australia. It was registered with Business Affairs as an incorporated body on that date but later deregistered on July 13, 2011.

The Waubra Foundation claims to be an independent organisation but it has direct links to the Australian Landscape Guardians, the Liberal Party of Australia and mining interests who in turn have inks with the right wing thinktank, Institute of Public Affairs, (IPA).

As for birds...

nature_image.jpg


birds_v_nukes.jpg


http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2198024
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11935&page=29
 
Wow, 365M to 1B killed by cats? (love the graphic by the way)

With an estimated 93M cats in the U.S. some of them must really be creating some serious avian mayhem, because I can point to three of them who definitely aren't pulling their share of that load.
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
Wow, 365M to 1B killed by cats? (love the graphic by the way)

With an estimated 93M cats in the U.S. some of them must really be creating some serious avian mayhem, because I can point to three of them who definitely aren't pulling their share of that load.

This is probably based on a terrible study sponsored by the Audubon Society in the Nineties. They counted all the cats in a small rural area - no, wait, they had *school children* count them. Then they extrapolated and got an average of something like 13 cats for *every* household. When you really want to blame someone or something for something else, a way can usually be found. It appears that feral cats are a real problem in island and island-like ecosystems, but not in most areas. People tend to forget that the biggest danger to birds, hands down, is...people.
 
LeftieBiker said:
LTLFTcomposite said:
Wow, 365M to 1B killed by cats? (love the graphic by the way)

With an estimated 93M cats in the U.S. some of them must really be creating some serious avian mayhem, because I can point to three of them who definitely aren't pulling their share of that load.

This is probably based on a terrible study sponsored by the Audubon Society in the Nineties. They counted all the cats in a small rural area - no, wait, they had *school children* count them.
The sources are listed and don't include school children.

It's important to note that feral cats are not the same as house cats.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/09/0907_040907_feralcats.html

LeftieBiker said:
People tend to forget that the biggest danger to birds, hands down, is...people.
Amen.
 
I doubt anyone has a clue how many cats there are in the U.S. ferral or otherwise, much less how many birds they catch. Not like there's a cat census. These people may just be anti catites.

Who knows if any of those stats are valid, everyone has an agenda these days.
 
I must say, siting a huge turbine that close to residences seems a bit rude, regulations or guidelines notwithstanding. It's not like Cape Cod doesn't have a lot of offshore possibilities for turbines.
 
Out of curiosity, I looked at the section of the paper pertaining to cat predation. Here it is:

"Cat Predation Domestic and feral cats might also be considered an anthropogenic source of bird mortality. 1990 U.S. cen-sus data report 60 million cats claimed as pets by own-ers, and an unknown number of unclaimed feral cats.
Coleman and Temple (1996) estimated that between 8-219 million birds are killed by free-ranging cats in
Wisconsin alone. These figures are derived from estimates that there are 1.4 - 2 million free-ranging cats
in rural Wisconsin, that each cat on average kills between 28 and 365 animals per year, and that on
average 20 to 30 percent of the animals killed by cats are birds (5 -100 birds/cat/year). We use the estimate of
100 million birds killed by cats on an annual basis, but this estimate is likely conservative. If the Wisconsin
estimates are representative of the averages nationwide, this estimate is highly conservative given that there are
50 states and because it only accounts for cats claimed as pets by owners. "

I am now 90% sure that this is the infamous "schoolchildren counting barn cats" study, and that the extrapolation is based on something like 8-13 cats per household. Riiiight...
 
LeftieBiker said:
It's important to note that feral cats are not the same as house cats.

The cats counted by children in the study I mentioned were "barn cats" and were deemed representative of feral populations.
While I agree that a small number of studies appear to use barn cats as a proxy, not all do.

http://www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/policy/cats/pdf/loss_et_al_2013.pdf
Domestic cats (Felis catus) are predators that humans have
introduced globally 1,2 and that have been listed among
the 100 worst non-native invasive species in the world 3.
Free-ranging cats on islands have caused or contributed to 33
(14%) of the modern bird, mammal and reptile extinctions
recorded by the International Union for Conservation of Nature
(IUCN) Red List 4. Mounting evidence from three continents
indicates that cats can also locally reduce mainland bird and
mammal populations 5–7 and cause a substantial proportion
of total wildlife mortality 8–10.

I seriously doubt that the bird counts conducted in places like the UK, Arizona, and California used school kids from Wisconsin.
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/ocal/archives/catprey.pdf

It's unlikely that US school children were used collecting these data in Denmark:
http://www.withouthotair.com/c10/page_64.shtml
figure73.png


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AlexH555/Environmental_effects_of_wind_power
 
It's unlikely that US school children were used collecting these data in Denmark:
http://www.withouthotair.com/c10/page_64.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Maybe not, but the author is accused of, among other things, fabricating data and misrepresenting data collected by others. I'll look at the other two later.
 
LeftieBiker said:
It's unlikely that US school children were used collecting these data in Denmark:
http://www.withouthotair.com/c10/page_64.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Maybe not, but the author is accused of, among other things, fabricating data and misrepresenting data collected by others. I'll look at the other two later.
Keep cherry picking, Leftie, but it doesn't change the point of this thread - that ANYONE that says that wind turbines kill more birds than nuclear power, fossil fuel energy, cars, buildings, pesticides, vehicles, or power lines - or yes, even cats - is smoking something that they really should have shared with the rest of us.

You've just killed my stereotype of e-bikers, lefties, and members of Endless-Sphere in one swell foop. Congrats! :p
 
Keep cherry picking, Leftie, but it doesn't change the point of this thread - that ANYONE that says that wind turbines kill more birds than nuclear power, fossil fuel energy, cars, buildings, pesticides, vehicles, or power lines - or yes, even cats - is smoking something that they really should have shared with the rest of us.

You've just killed my stereotype of e-bikers, lefties, and members of Endless-Sphere in one swell foop. Congrats! :p


Since I also hold the above position you may want to change yours - just to be opposite mine! Seriously, my point is that there are lots of flawed studies out here, so we shouldn't automatically accept everything we read just because it's footnoted (albeit incompletely here). I was just countering some old anti-cat propaganda that won't go away, not disagreeing with those who think wind power is one of our best bets for clean energy.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Since I also hold the above position you may want to change yours - just to be opposite mine! Seriously, my point is that there are lots of flawed studies out here, so we shouldn't automatically accept everything we read just because it's footnoted (albeit incompletely here). I was just countering some old anti-cat propaganda that won't go away, not disagreeing with those who think wind power is one of our best bets for clean energy.
I agree that we shouldn't automatically accept everything with a footnote. But just because 2 of dozens of studies appear to be somewhat less robust than the rest doesn't mean it's all anti-cat propaganda. I went for quick and representative, not exhaustive. ;)

When my cat Ada (The Mighty Huntress) brings birds home, I find that quickly stopping the ceiling fans increases the success rate for the "catch/de-spit/check for wounds/release" process. :lol:
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
... 93M cats in the U.S. some of them must really be creating some serious avian mayhem, because I can point to three of them who definitely aren't pulling their share of that load.
Mine is the most docile, affectionate house cat you can imagine and he kills about one a week near our bird feeder...make that cat feeder. I just had to dispose of the remains of one (the wingtips and a few feathers) yesterday. He used to bring them in until he finally figured out that we keep taking them away. He's let live birds, lizards, and one mouse loose in the house. The mouse ran behind the refrigerator and took a month to get rid of. I'd prefer he kill them all before depositing them inside. Sorry for straying ;) off topic, but then this thread has mostly been on this topic.
 
Rat, When is the next book coming out. I have real money to buy.

Rat said:
LTLFTcomposite said:
... 93M cats in the U.S. some of them must really be creating some serious avian mayhem, because I can point to three of them who definitely aren't pulling their share of that load.
Mine is the most docile, affectionate house cat you can imagine and he kills about one a week near our bird feeder...make that cat feeder. I just had to dispose of the remains of one (the wingtips and a few feathers) yesterday. He used to bring them in until he finally figured out that we keep taking them away. He's let live birds, lizards, and one mouse loose in the house. The mouse ran behind the refrigerator and took a month to get rid of. I'd prefer he kill them all before depositing them inside. Sorry for straying ;) off topic, but then this thread has mostly been on this topic.
 
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