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Surge Summary: Enviro-radicals crow about the need to diminish fossil fuel use in order to “Save the Planet” – but their deficient alternatives are literally threatening wildlife and people. There are solutions to environmental concerns … but all sides of the debate have to work together reasonably to develop them.
by Nathan Clark
In yet another stunning chapter of the Law of Unintended Consequences, the scope and magnitude of the damage done to nature by the Green movement is inconveniently depositing itself on New Jersey beaches in the form of hordes of dead whales.
What’s the connection, you say? Hundreds of dead great whales are showing up ever since the offshore wind farms program has ramped up. The megasonic testing being done to determine suitable sea bed composition for erecting wind turbine stanchions is making whales deaf. Whales are almost completely dependent on sonar to navigate, avoid contact with ships, locate each other and more importantly, locate their food. Without this vital hearing faculty called echo-location they are literally blind, leading to starvation, which would explain why they have the inconsiderateness to continue washing up dead on posh East Coast beaches.
This has happened before, where thousands of dead whales deposited themselves ashore in England after similar high-intensity sonar activities for wind farm development over there. But don’t expect the Green enviro-nazis and climate change alarmists to shed a crocodile tear. Their unwillingness to evaluate the true cost of their rabid campaign to return humanity to the Stone Age confirms that this is a religious movement, not a scientific (or benevolent) one. To appease the environmental gods, a few sacrifices have to be made…at no cost to them, naturally.
Whales won’t be the only creatures harmed by the expansion of wind farms offshore, as fish and other sea creatures also depend on underwater sensory apparatuses for many of the same functions as the big cetaceans. We already know the toll (or do you?) that these wind farms exact on bald eagles, condors, hawks and owls, killing hundreds of thousands each year by impact with the whirling vanes. Perhaps of greater consequence to the environment and humans is the fact that over a million bats are killed annually by wind farms. That’s a lot of uneaten mosquitos, and unpollinated crops.
Time magazine’s 2008 Hero of The Environment Michael Shellenberger illustrates the inconsistency of the Green movement’s rejection of nuclear power and embrace of solar power, when he demonstrates the fact that it takes 450% more land for solar panels to equal the output from a single nuclear power plant. That land has to be cleared of wildlife, and rendered devoid of ‘nature’ to suit its new, ‘earth-friendly’ purpose. Not to mention that thousands of birds die each year by combusting in mid-air as they fly over solar arrays. This is hardly enviro-friendly, evoking Joni Mitchell’s song line ‘they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.’ Solar farms are also not efficient from a resources standpoint, requiring seventeen times more materials than nuclear plants to build.
But nukes are evil – just ask Greta Thunberg….no, don’t. The weaponized adolescent high priestess of the narcissistic enviro-nazis is too busy planning her next arrest for ecoterrorism, instead of working to come up with feasible solutions to the problems we all face.
Lastly, let’s turn to the human cost of radical environmentalism and climate alarmism. The movement towards carbon neutrality sounds wonderful and beneficent. Except in the developing world, where reliance on cheap, reliable energy and high food production is the only hope these regions have of moving from abject poverty and poor land use to greater affluence and technological and societal progress. Cheap, reliable energy is the single greatest contributor to prosperity and better living standards. Yet this is what is being denied on the people who most need it by those who already have it, in the name of saving the planet. Natural gas is needed to produce the fertilizers that allow us to maximize food production most efficiently. It is also on the ‘hit list’ of the climate alarmists.
Continued policies to restrict and phase out fossil fuels use along with rejection of nuclear power without suitable replacement sources at cheap prices (none of the renewables cost less than several times fossil fuels, and have a much lower energy yield comparatively) will accomplish one thing; one billion people in the developing world will starve to death or freeze in the dark. If you do the math and look at the facts of what the radical Green/Climate movement is proposing, this is the conclusion you arrive at. Save the planet, and to hell with the people and wildlife.
The irony of this is that as nations develop and prosper, they tend to become better stewards of the environment. Why? As affluence replaces the grueling struggle just to survive, people can afford to care about the environment, and taking care of the place you live becomes more important. No sane person wants to live in a toxic waste dump.
We will get where we need to be by intelligent compromises, not an all-or-nothing alarmist agenda that guarantees the misery and death of millions. When we stop treating the climate like an existential threat and tackle it like a solvable problem where everybody is important and the facts matter, we’ll find the answers we need to shape a future that is friendly.
If we don’t, what are we saving, anyway?
The views here are those of the author and not necessarily Daily Surge.
Image: Screen shot; CBS New York; Connie Pyatt Photography; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aljHhpmBUg
Nathan Clark is a conservative commentator who resides with his wife in New Hampshire. He is passionate about preserving the vision of our nation’s Founders and advancing those tried and true principles deep into America’s future. His interests range broadly from flyfishing, cooking and shooting to pro sports, gardening, live music and fine-scale modeling.
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