{"id":8988,"date":"2019-11-08T00:44:51","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T00:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socialpanic.org\/?p=8988"},"modified":"2019-11-08T00:44:51","modified_gmt":"2019-11-08T00:44:51","slug":"climate-communications-windfarms-kill-10-20-times-more-than-previously-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/2019\/11\/08\/climate-communications-windfarms-kill-10-20-times-more-than-previously-thought\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate communications: “Windfarms kill 10-20 times more than previously thought”"},"content":{"rendered":"

This item came across my Facebook feed this morning. It seems to be advocating not using wind power, which is a component to mitigate green house gas contributions to the atmosphere. In effect, it seems to be climate communications oriented towards being opposed to reducing green house gases caused by power generation.<\/p>\n

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Source: Windfarms kill 10-20 times more than previously thought | Save the Eagles International<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Practicing “factfulness” finds this is a loaded propaganda message.<\/p>\n

First, this is an old item, as illustrated by reference to “The Obama administration….” That is the initial clue that this social media item is probably an old propaganda message that lives on forever.<\/p>\n

Next, the linked text presents lots of facts – but lot and lots of facts can be used to bury you such that you stop thinking. Do you see the problem with this quote, below?<\/p>\n

In 2012, breaking the European omerta on wind farm mortality, the Spanish Ornithological Society (SEO\/Birdlife) reviewed actual carcass counts from 136 monitoring studies. They concluded that Spain\u2019s 18,000 wind turbines are killing 6-18 million birds and bats yearly.<\/a><\/p>\n

Extrapolating that and similar (little publicized) German and Swedish studies, 39,000 U.S. wind turbines would not be killing \u201conly\u201d 440,000 birds (USFWS, 2009) or \u201cjust\u201d 573,000 birds and 888,000 bats (Smallwood, 2013), but 13-39 million birds and bats every year!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One cannot extrapolate a study done at various locations in Europe, with different species of birds, using different wind technology, in different geographical conditions – to the U.S. An estimate of 13-39 is a 3 to 1 range and now they’ve bundled “birds and bats” because “birds and bats” creates an even larger number.<\/p>\n

“Millions” of bird deaths sounds bad – until you learn domestic cats in the U.S. kill an estimated 2.4 BILLION birds every year! Context matters.<\/p>\n

This propaganda message leaves out context to put those numbers in perspective.<\/p>\n