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How the U.K. broke its own economy

theatlantic.com

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Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#241

Post by lenkite »

cycomanic wrote: post #236
lenkite wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I have trouble believing you are being honest. Piling under wind turbines?! I have yet to see a dead bird under a wind turbine myself (but I acknowledge they do kill some). Published estimated averages are 4 to 18 birds per turbine per year [1]. Compare that to buildings (where we also don't pile up either) which kill man estimated 1 billion birds a year [2] [1] https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/wind-power-bi…

Yes, explicitly piling up under wind turbines. This was in the Western Ghats in India and my mother was sickened - (she used to be a regular trekker before Covid). I didn't initially believe her either. Btw, they were so effective as bird killers that wind-turbines were even acknowledged officially as "top predator". They change ecology drastically within a couple of years.

“Our central discovery is that wind turbines can act as top predators, by reducing the density and activity of birds, their prey are now released from the typical level of predation. This release causes a range of changes in lizards,” explained Dr Maria Thaker of Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science

https://iisc.ac.in/wind-farms-are-the-new-top-predator-in-th...

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#242

Post by yunesj »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #82
piker wrote: post #78

My own [local government] is so stupid its own massive 7-figure park project got blocked by [local government] planning halfway through. For about a year instead of a park we’ve had two massive holes surrounded by fences. Too many taxes, too much nimbyism. This one really is that simple.

This happens everywhere in enterprise and government because policies and processes are designed to avoid mistakes or embarassment at any cost (because those risks are internalised by the bureacracy and therefore "real") but do not account for the cost of not being able to get anything done, because those are externalised and everyone involved in the various committees and review processes gets paid regardless. I wis…

> I wish there were better ways to align incentives here.

I have a crazy idea that might work to hold organizations accountable if they never get anything done.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#243

Post by lenkite »

tw04 wrote: post #232
lenkite wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't these also massive mass bird slayers ? The last I read, over half a million birds were killed (official under-estimate) by wind turbines in UK alone every year

Did you read a Donald Trump tweet? Because no reputable source has ever said wind turbines are a major risk to birds. If you’re trying to save birds, the first place you should be looking is outdoor cats. https://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mor...

> Did you read a Donald Trump tweet? Because no reputable source has ever said wind turbines are a major risk to birds.

I don't care about Donald Trump. (How did this even become about him ?) And your second statement is laughably false as even elementary research would tell you.

Do note that there are ~100 million cats and only ~70k wind turbines, if you use US as a reference. Cats are clearly not the top-predators of birds anymore.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#244

Post by yndoendo »

rangestransform wrote: post #69
yndoendo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NTU only goes back to the 1980s and does not actually include any analysis of the 1950s. Looks like NTU also is positing their stance on the ideology that the 1% are the only ones that create jobs but they are the ones to most likely invest in large corporations. There seems no prospect to help the mom and pop shops or small companies that have stronger solutions beyond what large corporate tunnel vision provides…

The majority definitely benefits from being able to buy cheap Chinese goods and go on cheap Europe trips while $BIGCOMPANY vacuums up money from the rest of the world to prop up the USD. In which other country can a guy cutting hair (out of many examples) afford so many international vacations?

This sounds like you are applying shifting baseline syndrome. [0] [1] [2]

Another way to phrase shifting baseline is when people apply what they experience with an over weighted value. For example, the cost of living has skyrocketed in the USA compared to older generations, with the cost of a home, healthcare, and basic goods and services. Wages have been stagnant while the wealthy keep gaining more and more of economic power. Economic mobility is also quite low compared to 10 or 20 years ago.

Those trips are most likely more cost effective compared to the 1950s because the technology was new and still evolving. Air travel was a luxury and now it is a commodity. Engineers have improved the technology to craft air plains while finding ways to reduce production cost. Cost savings have not be pushed to the working class and are shifted to the wealthy.

If the wage increase of CEOs was linear with your wage. It would be higher and also be less of an economic for burden the masses.

People over value the rare lucky ones as being the average of all. Kind of how a number of Americans are against taxing the wealthy because they believe they are or will become wealthy. It is rare to become wealthy and often those that are lacking in empathy and morals. Just like my Uncle that worked for Arbys, which is a millionaire because he believes and supports the idea that those below him should not be payed a living wage.

At leas I learned from him that those franchises often run on debt because they try and pull out every last dollar into the owner's pockets. He was looking to become the owner but the debt was too great to buy in, as a millionaire.

[0] https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fee.... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shifting_baseline [2] https://earth.org/shifting-baseline-syndrome/

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#245

Post by tw04 »

lenkite wrote: post #192
triceratops wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the Exxon Valdez and the Deepwater Horizon were good for birds? Bringing up bird welfare to oppose wind turbines is bullshit. If people cared about birds or wildlife we wouldn't be in this mess at all.

[flagged]

You haven’t, which is why you have no citation just a ridiculous, unproven anecdote. There are literally hundreds of turbines in my area, there are not and have never been “birds piling up under them.”

Your own link further down estimates 4-18 per year. 1 bird per month would be gone before you had a chance to collect it, much less have a chance to “pile up”.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#246

Post by onlypassingthru »

rounce wrote: post #112
kmeisthax wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brexit is a symptom, not the cause. The people who were most screwed by Britain's prior mistakes voted for it in a vain attempt at fixing the problem by throwing misguided nostalgia at it.

What were those prior mistakes?

Allowing the concentration of wealth solely amongst the super wealthy.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#247

Post by throwaway2037 »

WeylandYutani wrote: post #223
cupcakecommons wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is why the Netherlands builds them out in the sea. Just far enough so that you cannot see them. Even the biggest reactionary NIMBY has no complaints.As for wildlife come on man who the fuck cares?

Minus the last sentence, this is a great point. Do any downvoters have any issue with everything but the last sentence? If anything, the Netherlands is probably Europe's most intensely developed country. There is hardly a square meter that hasn't been carefully planned out over the last 500 years.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#248

Post by lenkite »

mulmen wrote: post #212
lenkite wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real number is well above that. Everyone involved in bird conservation agrees this number is a fraction only reported for public consumption - real number is well into the millions. You can ask organizations like ABC birds.

I doubt everyone agrees on anything. If you have contrary numbers please just save all of us the time and share them.

Ugghh. I meant everyone in bird conservation. The ABC article explains why the official numbers are a heavy underestimate. But this was in 2021 - it has gotten worse since then. This is not unique to the US - my personal experience of this was in India.

https://abcbirds.org/blog21/wind-turbine-mortality/

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#249

Post by JackYoustra »

patrickdavey wrote: post #81

Fascinatng that `brexit` isn't mentioned once in that article. Making trading harder with your closest neighbour can't be a great move for the economy.

It's not great, sure, but it's only something like a long-run 2% drag. 2% is a lot, don't get me wrong! But the loss from planning is pretty high double digits, well over 10% in the US, to say nothing about the gains from liberalizing migration

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#250

Post by lenkite »

tw04 wrote: post #245
lenkite wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You haven’t, which is why you have no citation just a ridiculous, unproven anecdote. There are literally hundreds of turbines in my area, there are not and have never been “birds piling up under them.” Your own link further down estimates 4-18 per year. 1 bird per month would be gone before you had a chance to collect it, much less have a chance to “pile up”.

I am honestly surprised - you should see dead birds at-least a couple of times a week. Not annually or monthly, but weekly esp for a full wind-farm like what you are stating.

Which part of the world do you live in ? It is possible that the location of the farm was chosen wisely. Are you also sure someone is not clearing the corpses ? There are laws mandating the collection of corpses in many western nations. My personal anecdotal opinion is that data is more honest in the non-Western nations since nobody cares about bird-deaths all that much and so the deaths are not sanitized.

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