Global warning is coming for birds too. Global warming poses an "existential threat for two thirds of North American bird species" [1] and obviously a similar proportion of bird species around the globe.

1. https://www.audubon.org/climate/survivalbydegrees

https://phys.org/news/2017-12-scientists-survivors-thomas-co...

You won't see anti-wind advocates talking about curfews or outright banning them though.

I'm genuinely confused how they would even be part of this conversation.

Of course, if you care about birds you're going to try to solve it across multiple fronts. But cat damage should be the first thing bird-lovers try to mitigate.

That said, the enormous delta in raw numbers makes this line of argument quite spurious. Wind turbine bird strikes are magnitudes smaller than deaths from domestic cats.

> Collectively, roaming pet cats kill 546 million animals per year in Australia

https://invasives.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Pet-cat-...

> Cats kill more than a million birds every day across Australia, according to our new estimate — the first robust attempt to quantify the problem on a nationwide scale.

> By combining data on the cat population, hunting rates and spatial distribution, we calculate that they kill 377 million birds a year.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-04/cats-killing-one-mill...

> a report on bird and avifauna mortality commissioned by AGL Energy for its Macarthur Wind Farm found that 10.19 birds were killed by each turbine in a 12 month period. This equates to over 1 400 birds killed at the Macarthur Wind Farm alone and over 21 000 if extrapolated across the country.

This is likely underestimated due to scavenging but still magnitudes of difference.

https://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/sen...

until you involve buttered toast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8yW5cyXXRc

It's directly comparable to gun nuts justifying their right to own weapons designed to murder people by claiming that it's for "protection". Those same people have zero interest in better door locks, stronger windows, or anything that would actually protect them. They just want the guns. The protection argument was never made in good faith, it's an excuse at best.

The "wind generators kill birds" argument is the same type of thing, typically made by people that would cheerfully feed every native bird they can into a grinder and sell the pulp for a profit if they could.

They're still impressive little killers, but that's important to keep in mind.

> Birds of prey in Africa experiencing population collapse, study finds > new research used road surveys to find that nearly 90% of the 42 raptor species studied had experienced declines, with more than two-thirds showing evidence of being globally threatened.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/04/birds-of...

If the people involved in this conversation actually cared about birds, they wouldn't be worried about either. They'd be worried about cats. Cats kill about 20-55% of the entire US bird population every single year. Somewhere between 1.3B and 4B birds per year in the US alone. [1] And an order of magnitude more small mammals (6.3B - 22.3B).

It's several orders of magnitude more than turbines and oil-and-gas drilling combined.

Studies put the number of birds killed by wind turbines in the US at 140K-690K. That's 0.0035% to 0.05% of the birds killed by cats. It would literally be a rounding error nobody would ever notice if all the wind turbines came down.

I honestly can't believe we're still having this conversation in the context of wind power. Put some UV stickers or black paint on them and move on. [3]

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380

[2] https://www.denverpost.com/2019/09/20/bird-population-decrea...

[3] https://group.vattenfall.com/press-and-media/newsroom/2022/b...

UK December wind generation: Generation: 2.6 TWh Subsidy/MWh : £86.68 Market Price/MWh: £75.00

Older projects were subsidised much more but around half the current wind capacity has been built from 2016 with far less subsidy.

Humans eat 8 Billion chickens per year in the US alone: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22287530/chicken-beef-fac...

Some 15 MegaKilos of chicken: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/chicken-c...

1. Solar panels are toxic, require more energy to produce than they generate, and can't be recycled.

2. EV's are worse for the environment than ICE vehicles.

3. Lithium mining is worse than oil/gas drilling.

4. Solar/wind prices are skyrocketing and everyone is abandoning solar/wind.

5. Solar/wind can't work because they're too intermittent.

6. Climate change isn't real OR climate change is real but natural and unstoppable OR climate change is helpful to the planet (these opposing beliefs are often repeated back to back)

1. Yes, solar panel production is not particularly good for the environment but not any more so than many other common industrial processes and the panels themselves are perfectly safe. Yes that used to be true decades ago, but not anymore. For many years now solar panels generate more energy than they took to make after just a few years operation. Yes, but the fact that they are not particularly recyclable doesn't matter at all because we are never going to run out of sand.

2. Yes, EV's can have larger carbon footprints that ICE vehicles in the few areas where almost all electricity is from coal. But outside of that specific case EVs are always at least slightly better, typically by 20-30%.

3. Yes, it can be argued that lithium mining is worse than oil/gas drilling but it's not clear cut and would only be worse for the local environment if at all. The effect on climate of oil and gas drilling is always going to be far far worse.

4. No, Solar/wind prices are clearly falling and more solar/wind gets installed every year.

5. Yes, solar/wind are intermittent, so they can't be used alone, but work great when paired with investment in longer transmission lines, grid storage and non-intermittent carbon free sources.

For point 6 I can only say that people are will be less likely to make blanket denials if you tell them the truth in a non-judgemental way, respect their intelligence, and are forthcoming with the problems and challenges of addressing climate change.

However, for your convenience, I used google to search for "are solar panels net energy positive" and found this as the 2nd link:

https://www.solarmelon.com/faqs/solar-panels-use-energy-manu...

This contains a link to at least one peer-reviewed paper:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es3038824

I can almost guarantee that a similar process will elicit similar answers for every other point in the GP's list.

Very early solar cells, the type used to power calculators and the like, may have been so inefficient that their lifetime power generation didn't offset the energy cost of their production. That doesn't matter because the scale is tiny, and the portability and the elimination of batteries is the point, not net energy return.

Someone probably got it in their mind that "solar can't work" back in the 1960s or 70s based on this, and refused to budge half a century later when solar is the cheapest form of grid-scale energy.

[1] This is actually a great way to estimate the total energy that went into a product. It must be less than the wholesale price (or cost-of-manufacture), otherwise at least one profit-motived organisation must be selling the product, its raw materials, or the energy inputs below cost and losing money on purpose. Only in rare cases like gov subsidies, state-owned corporations, etc... is this rule violated.

This is "great" for televised debates but this is kind of passive aggressive for the tone people prefer here. We're talking to people here. More directly than a formal debate.

Someone participating earnestly knows they are capable of either politely expressing interest and asking for sources, or as another mentioned: typing and clicking all by themselves.

I didn't say that, but I do think that providing links is helpful.

paraphrase: the claim that these are lies are just as disingenuous as the claims themselves

claim: I didn't say that

I confess that I can't quite see the difference.

I assume people here will disagree but it's that exact stark difference in perspective that's so interesting to me

If something is killing birds, even a lot of birds, but in a place where those birds are abundant and whatever is killing them will just lower lower their equilibrium population a bit rather than set it on a decline or lower it so far that they might die out in the area then there generally isn't a lot of concern over it.

Hence activities in places with species of birds that have low population or are threatened or endangered tend to draw more concern than activities in places where that isn't the case even if the latter kills way more total birds.

...from cat owners.

There's plenty of concern from wildlife-lovers:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/14/cats-kil...

I watched our neighbour's cat take a bird from a feeder in our garden earlier this month, I was pretty unimpressed :(

Cats are cute, I get that ... I'm just not sure that's enough of an excuse.

I mean, you are explicitly talking about ending our symbiotic relationship with the domestic chicken. We certainly would not have 20 billion chickens in the world if we all stopped eating eggs.

One reason you might not think it's a big deal is because the genocide is almost complete. They've already killed off 63 species and more in progress: https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/

We could start by requiring all domestic cats to be sterilized, so that they don't breed. Then the cat population would be limited to certified breeders and wild cats.

We could also have the same restrictions on cats as dogs. They should not be allowed to be outside unless they are in leash or in a controlled environment (the latter is hard, as cats can climb over standard fences). I guess fully enclosed "cat parks" would be an option.

You may have a harder time training a cat to wear a leash compared to a dog, but it's possible.

It's strange to me that we think cats need to be outside to satisfy their predator instincts, as if dogs and other animals like to be inside all day while we are at work. If someone doesn't like that thought, they have the option of not owning a cat.

I know that we've come a long way and pets have had humans around them for ages, but to me it still feels like we're doing them harm. I know that nature is even harder, but it's not like pets decided to live that way.

It's also hard to understand why people love one species, but also breed others on an industrial level, so they can eat them more easily.

Probably going to get a few downvotes for this.

We have feral cats in our neighborhood. One of them moved into our house and had a litter in the study. (We kept one, and found homes for the other 3). One of her daughters from an earlier litter moved in and fed the same.

All have been sterilised now obviously, but we stoll get regular visits from a local Tom, likely a brother to the first one. The all get along fine, and he's used to us but basically comes in for food or shelter and doesn't socialise with us like the others do.

I don't think we "own" them. They all come and go as they please. But I'd say 3 of them definitely live here, and tolerate us.

Interestingly none of them seem interested in birds. The occasional mole, otherwise the occasional lizard - mostly for sport.

I'm not negating your ethics at all, but it seems some cats like being part of the family, and others are aloof. They all have distinct personalities.

I've owned cats and dogs. I can let them outside and leave the door open, and they may go outside to explore or play briefly, but they'll want to come inside shortly afterward. Especially my dog - he doesn't even want to be outside by himself, except to relieve himself. He has herding instincts and is uncomfortable being alone outdoors for more than a short time. He would much rather be around people, but if he had to be by himself, then he'd rather be indoors. (Observation: if I were to leave the house, and left the back door open, he'd still spend most of the day inside rather than in the yard.) My cat acts downright frightened being outside.

It's not really possible to discuss what is "natural" here, and I'd recommend being cautious about the naturalistic fallacy [1]: the idea that because something is 'natural' it must be better. It is 'natural' for humans to die of all kinds of diseases, yet we do not wish to, and so we treat ourselves with antibiotics and other medicines. It is 'natural' for children and women to die in childbirth, but we take substantial steps to prevent that, and so on.

In the case of domesticated animals, it's hard to reason about what "natural" even is. The animals have adapted to living with humans; they want to be around humans. They aren't feral, and wouldn't want to live by themselves in the wilderness any more than a human would. They have a choice every time I open the door.

(And yes, if they ran away, I would feel obligated to find them, but that's because I'm responsible for their health and safety, not because they are my prisoners. The point is that they don't even come close to making the choice to do that. It is far more likely that they would simply get lost outside than actually intentionally run away. This has happened once before to my dog, and his emotional reaction upon me finding him demonstrated compellingly that he felt lost and was happy to be found and reunited.)

I might feel conflicted if I ever had a pet that behaved like it wanted to escape from me, but that's never been the case. Even pets that do enjoy to spend time outdoors alone - and I'm happy for them to do that - always want to return to the safety of the home after a time. I would not enjoy having a pet if I thought at all that it felt like a prisoner.

Lastly, I would remark on the fact that these animals were raised from infancy by humans and around humans. They are socialized to be part of the family, just like people are. While it is true that they would have different personalities if they were raised in the wilderness, the same would also be true of a human child. If a human child were abandoned alone in the wilderness and somehow survived, then this human would undoubtedly have great difficulty socializing as an adult, and fitting into a family - yet we would not say that this wild person is somehow better or more natural. We would say that their upbringing was cruel.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy

Most summers the reserves turn into more of a free dog toilet, and with the vast numbers of dogs going through, it ends up smelling quite bad to.

As something of a response to your proposed solutions, I'm a proponent of TNR and adoption, and teaching people to be better animal caretakers. You make some assumptions about "us" and "we" that doesn't line up with my personal take, so I won't say more.

A serious discussion of the safety of birds would sound very different, but that isn't the goal. The goal is to talk about anything other than reducing fossil fuel production.

Natural vs. unnatural is irrelevant though. "Nature" is normally out to kill you for its own benefit and does not care if the planet or any of its lifeforms survives. What matters is our interests in preserving the world we know or improving it in our eyes, and picking the best option for that.

The option that minimizes worldwide cancer development and doesn't screw up weather systems and various biomes would be the winner in that regard.

I'm curious, what are you thinking of when you say 'natural processes'? I hope it's not cats.

The only case where your point would matter is if we could only fix one or the other - human- or cat-induced damage - but that is not the case. They can be addressed independently and in parallel.

I like cats though...

Whataboutism is if someone says something like "Oh, yeah well, we have a bigger problem - humans kill more, so who cares about cats?" No. I'm literally saying that when it comes to cats killing birds, there is no problem. There's no radical ecological devastation happening. There's nothing to fix.

What is happening is that the number of birds killed by cats is emotionally large, such that humans interpret it as a problem, because big numbers are scary. "Did you know cats kill close to 4 billion birds every year? That's awful! We have to do something!"

"Did you know that spiders kill and consume 600 million metric tons worth of animals every year? That's awful! That's more meat than humans eat! We have to do something!" Except, we don't, because no matter how scared you are of big numbers, their presence doesn't mean there's a problem.

Similarly, with cats, we can maybe make their bird-killing sound even scarier by framing it like the spiders above: "Cats are killing 1 million metric tons worth of birds every year! Birds are doomed! We have to do something!"

Big numbers scare me too, especially the spiders one. 600 million metric tons is a lot of meat. Four billion birds sounds like a lot. But are these problems? Don't think so.

They wouldn't exist in such large masses if they weren't bred and fed by humans.

So, there is at least the argument to make, that if we didn't hoard so many cats, the naturally occurring ones would probably kill less birds.

We're a few billion exceptions to the rules walking around, very few people want to give up their fun. I've had this conversation with gun owners, oversized truck owners, people interested in public transit it always comes down to something they want everybody else to have to do but not them.

We're not going to give up our toys til we're dead.

I’m not seeing the collective action problem here. All the personal shaming stuff feels like a big grift.

edit: forgot to add the link ( which was reposted to HN earlier today) https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/03/repost-epistemic-learn...

One launch, once, sent some concrete debris onto a beach. Literally some rocks.

You're still going on about it, as if it was some sort of catastrophe that wiped out all of the native wildlife in Texas.

"Our data about US were so poor that we needed to add data from other continents"

> cats kill 1.3–4 billion birds each year in the U.S.

"But we still ended somehow with this bold and likeable value made with a mix of pure air, foreign data and statistical spice"

Another case of turd data polished to gold by the magic of science. People will repeat it for decades online.

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380?WT.mc_id=FBK_NCOM...

"Methods: We searched JSTOR, Google Scholar, and the Web of Science database [...] within the Web of Knowledge search engine [...] to identify studies that document cat predation on birds and mammals"

"We initially focused this search on US studies, but due to a limited sample of these studies, we expanded the search to [...] other temperate regions. We also searched for studies providing estimates of cat population sizes [on] the contiguous USA and for US studies that estimate the proportion of owned cats with outdoor access and the proportion of cats that hunt wildlife. [Our] search terms included: ‘domestic cat’ [combined] with ‘predation,’ ‘prey,’ ‘diet,’ ‘food item’ and ‘mortality’;"

"We estimated wildlife mortality in [...] USA by multiplying data-derived probability distributions of predation rates by distributions of estimated cat abundance"

"[]" edited by me for clarity

Data-derived distributions based on a poor sample were extrapolated to every ecosystem in US?

Data with a special focus on temperate areas were extrapolated to temperate and non temperate? Have deserts the same amount of birds as forests?

Assuming that preys are equally distributed on USA would need to assume that every ecosystem is equal, or that cats are equally successful chasing birds in all terrains. This seems unlikely. To start because birds migrate and its distribution is patched. Cats can't migrate. Taiga in winter don't has the same birds as Florida in winter

If you base your search on bibliography you are pruning all the negative results. This is like removing all negative numbers before calculating an average value.

We need to remember also that "Local cats killed minus 1000 birds", would be a perfectly acceptable result [1] that is excluded from the search and the article.

[1] (= Cats save 1000 birds by killing egg-eating rats)

I know that is both an idealistic and hyperbolic take on things. The bigger point is that when people say "affordable", they often really mean "profitable". But we cannot afford not to fix the problems.

By definition, sustainability is a waste management, that allows recycling rates of 90% or higher. CO2 is just one of our waste products we totally didnt care about.

How much of the GDP should we be willing to spend to actively replace pollution generating energy plants with lower polluting alternatives?

Sorry, wrong. The Apollo program cost about $25B in 1960's dollars. That's over the entire period, not just one year.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190712-apollo-in-50-num...

"In 1965, Nasa funding peaked at some 5% of government spending,"

But government spending != GDP.

According to this,

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-...

GDP in 1965 was $743B

... so the question stands. How much are we willing to spend, and do we think it will actually damage either the economy or people's quality-of-life (when having a major industrial project in fact creates job and business opportunities, historically speaking)?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1022937/history-nasa-bud...

1965 NASA budget in billions: $5.25 (the peak year)

1965 GDP: $743 billion

giving us a NASA budget of 0.007 of GDP, or 0.7%

The fossil fuel industry receives $760 billion in subsidy. We're already spending more on energy; we're just spending it on the wrong energy.

5B is for 1965 alone, the peak year. As I said.

25B is the total over all years.

Now about the point, which is "How much should we be willing to spend on something that may be life-or-death for much of humanity?"

Because, again, $760 billion in fossil fuel subsidy. A tenth of that for renewables.

It was pretty easy to look up NASA budgets and GDP's. I haven't studied energy subsidies, though, so maybe someone else wants to jump in.

What, you mean like the existing WEEE directive which requires all electronics to be lead-free and recyclable? China would, obviously, start selling repairable and recyclable products into those markets.

"Clean" and "affordable" map immediately and obviously onto wind and solar; what then happens is people engage in a lot of wrangling around "reliable" to push nuclear, requiring bending both "clean" and "affordable" quite a bit and running into an invisible other criteria of "quick to deploy" and "politically acceptable".

Speaking of countries, I could reduce this answer to one word, which refutes every single point you make: France.

And the EDF reactor project in the UK is of course overrunning on time and budget.

(when is the next French nuclear reactor new build scheduled to come on line?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...

It's now behind. Basically no one wants to fund new nuclear plants. They're incredibly risky considering how front-loaded the cost is.

But the OP's question is loaded too. We don't need "reliable" right now. Fossil fuel can cover the reliability gap on the short term perfectly well. Until the question becomes "well, we replaced all the peak consumption with renewables, now what?", asking for reliability is status-quo propaganda.

> I find the question "what is a reliable, clean and affordable energy source?" much more relevant and productive.

Seems to me like examining externalities of different energy sources is a part of the nuance of this question. Feels like you're being a bit of a hater.

In the context of "what is a reliable, clean and affordable energy source?", we need to address that whatever we pick will necessarily hurt somebody's bottom line, and they will dig in and fight tooth and nail to prevent that happening, even if their livelihood is at the expense of the species. So rationally addressing a bad faith argument against many options that answer your question is, I think, worthwhile.

316K Eagles vs 150 confirmed deaths due to windmills over a decade.

So yes, they're wrong. And amplifying this sort of thing is exactly what those campaigns hope for, so you're doing their work for them. You're in good company, Donald Trump did the exact same thing (and made up a number to go with it rather than to claim 'vast' numbers).

Does it mean that any numbers of Bald Eagles killed by windmills is acceptable? No, of course it doesn't. But either we have a different idea when we hear the word 'vast' or 'vast' is exaggerated.

edit: here is an article to back this up:

https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-are-thousands-bald-eagle...

So which seems more believable that only 150 eagles died over a decade or thousands? Something is off here. Is anyone even checking properly? You can't have two completely distinct numbers like that.

Yes, the problem is exaggerated by the eagle people and the fossil fuel people and the nuclear people and simultaneously underreported by the wind energy industry and the renewables people etc. This should not surprise you.

You're regurgitating pure propaganda put out by a multi-trillion-dollar industry that is orders of magnitude worse in every way.

"Americans execute record number of prisoners" -- Joseph Goebbels.

The American Eagle Foundation (AEF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Contributions to the American Eagle Foundation are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. The AEF’s tax identification number is 58-1652023.

... birds respiratory system being so sensitive, it is vitally important that the bird's breath fresh, pure air. Toxins or pollutants in the air can quickly become a major source of problem and even death for the bird: https://cdn.ymaws.com/petsitters.org/resource/resmgr/virtual...

Air Pollution Kills 10 Million People a Year[1]. Air pollution must impact birds a lot more than humans.

[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/environment/air-p...

I had an argument with a vegetarian cat owner about this the other week….

Disclaimer: I pulled these numbers from the first google search results. I don't know why they all look 5 years ahead. I am not an energy or financial expert.

[0] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/solar-power-market-size-2022-...

[1] https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/wind/global-wind-pow...

[2] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/global-nuclear-energy-market-...

Meanwhile, the green energy industry is not-for-profit, volunteer, altruistic and unbiased.

That's incredibly naive. If you don't think the global capitalists are moving towards a green transition, I'm not sure what to tell you.

What is it about these places that made them effect the bird population?

Did it negatively effect it?

So let's just have that discussion, on those terms?

I cannot believe that someone like Donald Trump, for example, actually gives a shit about birds, and that that is what informs his opposition to the use of wind turbines. It seems unlikely, although possible, that that argument would persuade others of a like mind? And there have been other, similarly pitiful positions advanced, such as that an increase in the use of solar and wind power increases our exposure to UV radiation and skin cancer, from the sun?

I just don't understand why these arguments are made, and to whom. I cannot imagine that either 1) they would convince anyone who cares about the debate, or 2) that the population of people who WOULD be convinced by such arguments, would amount to much - either in the size of the population or the force of their support.

I think this type of argument fills a totally different role:

“I don’t believe or care about climate change and would like to keep my life as is, but this creates cognitive dissonance when someone shows it’s bad. I can use this argument to say your idea is as bad too! Dissonance lessened.”

At least when I’ve heard it it’s that context. The person saying it doesn’t really care if it’s accurate or equivalently bad, just that they have a gotcha to say when presented evidence for wind being good.

So basically it's a billionaire complaining that we should stop saving the entire planet because his millionaire friends might not get a pristine view of the ocean at their exclusive club.

The bird thing is just a talking point he latched onto.

Don't get me wrong, that looks extremely annoying, especially if it happens in the evening hours. And I don't whish it on anybody. But the people in that video don't have to endure it the entire day, only while the sun is very close to the horizon.

Given the video clearly depicts sunset, that is indeed an imaginary problem.

But yeah wouldn’t want to live by that either.

However do take care of not breathing any fumes or stepping into any toxic spillages in the vicinity of oil equipment as not to pollute your immersive experience with any negative effects that are unrelated to the wind turbines.

They are not exactly located in urban areas...

I would love to live about five miles away (infrasound might be a real issue for some people) from a hundred acre installation of them. Here in Maine we have capped a few small mountains with them up north and it's very aesthetic.

Pumpjacks are also pretty cool though I've never seen one in person. Their simple design and brutal metal structure are pretty in their own way. Flares look pretty neat too.

..... Alright maybe infrastructure is just cool to me

These are not serious people. Do not waste your time arguing with people that don't actually care.

  Two words: Condor attack. Don't want that. Got to say no.

Obviously I’m being sarcastic except for the part about GOP being Big Oil.

If you think this argument doesn’t make sense, then you aren’t GOP. That’s how they come to congressional conclusions to the rest of us.

I didn’t see a link to the paper on my first read. When I decided to go back and get the author’s name, Economist’s paywall kicked in.

If anybody can see the full article, it would be lovely if you put the name of the researcher in the comments so I can read the original paper.

So in your world we're going to do whatever because it can't be as bad? Sounds like a terrible plan.

Anyway, we should all be part of the solution, and also work on convincing the worst polluters to join us. In fact, doing the former would help with accomplishing the latter.

Maybe we should also stop building highrises, and kill all the predators, and stop eating meat, and.., and..

https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/do-wind-turbines-kill-birds

> A 2012 study found that wind projects kill 0.269 birds per gigawatt-hour of electricity produced, compared to 5.18 birds killed per gigawatt-hour of electricity from fossil fuel projects.

The real danger to birds (and humans, and all other wildlife) is not flying into turbines, but systemic failure caused by extremely rapid environmental changes. You know, the kind that fossil fuel consumption is causing.

Where in the thread have I or anyone else done that?

> You know, the kind that fossil fuel consumption is causing.

So confidently incorrect. It is well known agriculture (and we really mean animal agriculture) produces more greenhouse gases than the fossil fuel industry. Your anger at the state of the world has been misdirected at the wrong culprit.

Agriculture is a fossil fuel industry. The fertilizer it depends on comes from fossil fuel, the machines that till the fields run on fossil fuel, etc.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/82194/err-224....

"The food system accounts for a large share of fossil fuel consumption in the United States, and energy accounts for a substantial and highly variable share of food costs."

It's also not an either/or scenario. Both fossil fuel use and cow farts cause said climate change.

The question doesn't even make much sense; the animals raised for eating are a form of human usage of fossil fuels. Even if they didn't, a single human and a single chicken don't have anything like the same carbon footprint. No animal uses fossil fuels independently of human activity; eagles don't eat coal, whales don't drink oil.

(The answer is still "the humans", though; agriculture is about 10% of our emissions. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...)

I cannot believe you are making this argument in good faith.

Of course we can reduce fossil fuel consumption without reducing animal agriculture. I can reduce fuel consumption by going literally one day without driving my car. The question is whether we can reduce it enough, and I agree that "no more cars" alone would not get us across the finish line. But it's very unlikely any single lever or mode of consumption will get us across the line.

> Well that is the point: animal agriculture also uses fossil fuels.

Is that your point? Okay, well now that you've made it: agreed.

The canonical suggestion for achieving this wrt wind turbines is to shut down the turbines. If you have a proposal for killing fewer animals without doing so, I'm sure everyone is open to hearing it. Of course if you're just muddying the waters and saying, despite this thread being about bird deaths caused by turbines, that it'd be good if we killed fewer animals and perhaps should even curtail our animal agriculture: no dispute there!

> It is well known agriculture (and we really mean animal agriculture) produces more greenhouse gases than the fossil fuel industry.

And this means that fossil fuel consumption isn't causing climate disruption? Most big trends in the world are both multicausal and overdetermined. So no, I'm not confidently incorrect.

This is a big talking point against renewable energy. If you just look at a couple of those think-tanks that are firmly in the climate denial business, you'll see its a favorite (and effective) one.

The same line of reasoning is used against EV (needs cobalt! cobalt is evil!) and solar (all that non-recycled waste! using up precious farmlands!). Somehow in this discourse the alternatives are always either not realistic (nuclear will magically and cheaply solve our problems) or in some distant future, or even less realistic (bring down capitalism, stop consuming anything). That, conveniently, leaves use in apathy with our gasoline fueled status quo, which is precisely the goal.

For whatever reason, wind, solar, geothermal, fission aren't good enough to pursue for the American political party that has the most oil and and gas funding.

Plenty of people are fine with killing animals to eat, and are also not fine with animals dying for no point. That should not be difficult to comprehend. Other people get upset when they learn how the sausage is made because they don't have a very strong imagination, or a strong understanding of what American capitalism tends to do to "resources" like cattle.

Yes, factory farming is awful. But a pasture raised cow has a pretty nice cow life all things considered. Sure it comes to an abrupt end and becomes food, but so what? Coming to an abrupt end and becoming food is the fate of all living things. There’s no avoiding it.