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Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

economist.com

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Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#301

Post by naremu »

fsflover wrote: post #273
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an HN comment thread, not a peer-reviewed paper on "lies convenient to the fossil fuel industries". 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…

This is an HN comment thread, hence we expect a higher quality of comments than elsewhere on the Internet. Thanks for the links.

Well quite frankly, saying "the claim that these are lies are just as disingenuous as the claims themselves" is a pretty low quality, classic stick-in-the-spokes "debate" tactic that essentially hand waves the ball back in the other person's court with minimal effort or contribution or real debate and puts maximum onus on someone else in public in the "flow" of discourse.

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.

Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#302

Post by cpx86 »

jewayne wrote: post #295
sprucevoid wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a descriptive matter people do support a lot of species preservation efforts. But we have strong reasons to increase our care for birds and other sentient animals as individuals, with their own subjective experiences and the suffering and harms they endure. After all we already take that view when it comes to companion dogs. We know they can feel a range of emotions and we have as individuals and as society taken…

If we accept that we are responsible for minimizing the suffering of both domestic and wild animals, isn't the logical conclusion that we need to drive those species to extinction as quickly as possible, thus completely ending their suffering? 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 sto…

That is an interesting argument. Do you believe that the same would apply to humans? I.e. if someone wishes to minimize the suffering of humans, is the logical conclusion that they should pursue omnicide?

Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#303

Post by fsflover »

jf22 wrote: post #281
fsflover wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an HN comment thread, hence we expect a higher quality of comments than elsewhere on the Internet. Thanks for the links.

I think there is more of an expectation here to Google simple things for yourself rather than condescendingly ask for a source that is a few keystrokes away.

Everyone can search things on the Internet. However when I state something on HN, I usually try to add some good links, which are not top Google results. Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38725734.

Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#304

Post by logifail »

tzs wrote: post #173
rootusrootus wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we cared about birds we'd be aggressively controlling the cat population.

Generally we care about a bird species as a whole rather than about individual birds of that species. 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 ove…

> If something is killing birds, even a lot of birds [..] then there generally isn't a lot of concern over it.

...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.

Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#305

Post by fsflover »

naremu wrote: post #301
fsflover wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an HN comment thread, hence we expect a higher quality of comments than elsewhere on the Internet. Thanks for the links.

Well quite frankly, saying "the claim that these are lies are just as disingenuous as the claims themselves " is a pretty low quality, classic stick-in-the-spokes "debate" tactic that essentially hand waves the ball back in the other person's court with minimal effort or contribution or real debate and puts maximum onus on someone else in public in the "flow" of discourse. This is "great" for televised debates but th…

> saying "the claim that these are lies are just as disingenuous as the claims themselves"

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

Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#306

Post by [deleted] »

pvaldes wrote: post #290
callalex wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You provide quotes but no attribution for those quotes.

Fair point. This is the original article in nature. 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 expan…

[deleted]

Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#307

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

fsflover wrote: post #305
naremu wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well quite frankly, saying "the claim that these are lies are just as disingenuous as the claims themselves " is a pretty low quality, classic stick-in-the-spokes "debate" tactic that essentially hand waves the ball back in the other person's court with minimal effort or contribution or real debate and puts maximum onus on someone else in public in the "flow" of discourse. This is "great" for televised debates but th…

> saying " the claim that these are lies are just as disingenuous as the claims themselves " I didn't say that, but I do think that providing links is helpful.

quote: simply saying they're lies is just as disingenuous as the people making the statements in the first place

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.

Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#309

Post by Grimburger »

SamBam wrote: post #25

The local birds killed by oil drilling aren't even what we should be comparing to. Even if that number were zero, bird populations world still be better off in a world powered by wind turbines than oil and gas. 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. ht…

Domesticated cats are by far the biggest threats to birds worldwide.

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

Re: Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

#310

Post by roc856 »

The article has some logical flaws. The allegation is that wind turbines kill birds, not that they chase them away. There was no evidence at all that oil and gas drilling kills birds, only that their numbers are decreased in that area. Perhaps oil and gas drilling does kill birds; if so, the article's author should have explained how that happens. True, global warming might also kill birds, but none of the evidence in the article was about the effects of global warming.
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