Discussion
Grumfutock said:
Your looking at this all wrong. This is a win/win for the environmentalists. Bear with me here:
Solar power is better than fossil, nukes and fracking. Mega solar is therefore uber good. In the process of generating said super clean electricity it serves up a few cooked ready meals nice and hot then that is even more electricity saved.
The Elderly get fed, Icebergs freeze, trees grow, oceans sink and all the pretty flowers grow for the hippies to put in their hair.
I am a fecking genius!
Except the flowers might not grow because the reduction in birds resulted in a pest problem that ravaged the plantlife and the bees, not having any flowers to collect pollen from, died out and NOW IT'S ALL GOING TO HELL IN A HANDCART!Solar power is better than fossil, nukes and fracking. Mega solar is therefore uber good. In the process of generating said super clean electricity it serves up a few cooked ready meals nice and hot then that is even more electricity saved.
The Elderly get fed, Icebergs freeze, trees grow, oceans sink and all the pretty flowers grow for the hippies to put in their hair.
I am a fecking genius!
TLandCruiser said:
Yes because it leads to consequences which can have a bad effect to the ecosystem, going by the figure thats quoted in the article means that 262,800 birds are roughly killed a year, those birds are not eating the insects in the area which then overwhelm and kill local crops for instance. If you also follow that attitude we may as well dump all our rubbish in the sea because after all, its just some fish that die.
Cute little pussy cats kill 2.5 billion birds p.a. in the US. Grumfutock said:
1. Other Birds
2. Cats
3. Whales
4. Cars
5. Sharks
6. Seals
7. Shot guns
8. Solar death ray's
9. Baking Soda and water within close proximity
10.Gin and bread
11.Jet engines
12. My car. Got a pidgeon this morning, feathers everywhere. recon that death ray would be much 'cleaner'.2. Cats
3. Whales
4. Cars
5. Sharks
6. Seals
7. Shot guns
8. Solar death ray's
9. Baking Soda and water within close proximity
10.Gin and bread
11.Jet engines
Digga said:
Well-intentioned idiots have a history of falling for easy fixes that have unfortunate, unintended consequences.
Serious question: how does harnessing solar energy make you an idiot, well intentioned or otherwise? Forget fracking, wind power, nukes, and all that other faffing about. Tapping into the main power source in our bit of the Galaxy has got to be the way ahead. If we could think of a way to guard them from Bond villains and terrorists, we should have huge fuggoff solar collector set ups in the Sahara, central Australia etc. Even better, put a mega-enormo one on the Moon. We won't, though, as we are too busy arsing about. Breadvan72 said:
Serious question: how does harnessing solar energy make you an idiot...
Simply because they did not consider this risk at all. History is awash with really good ideas that have some fairly worrying side-effects. Enviro-mentalists are very susceptible to golden-bullet ideas that are far from realistic solutions.Oakey said:
So we should throw cats into the solar death ray too?
It's the only fair thing to do.Breadvan72 said:
Serious question: how does harnessing solar energy make you an idiot, well intentioned or otherwise? Forget fracking, wind power, nukes, and all that other faffing about. Tapping into the main power source in our bit of the Galaxy has got to be the way ahead. If we could think of a way to guard them from Bond villains and terrorists, we should have huge fuggoff solar collector set ups in the Sahara, central Australia etc. Even better, put a mega-enormo one on the Moon. We won't, though, as we are too busy arsing about.
I'm sorry, but Scottish Power can't seem to keep the power lines right every time there's a bit of wind afoot. God only knows how much road they'd dig up if they were running a power cable to the moon.Some Gump said:
I spent all of 30 seconds trying to work out how to fix this. You could build a massive net, but that would cause 2 issues.
First, 10 bajillion pigeons would roost on it, and cack all over the solar death mirrors. This would need some sort of fireproof man to polish the mirrors.
Second, we all know that big nets kill sharks - and no-one in nevada wants loads of rotting sharks stinking up the place. The CFC footprint of that much Fabreeze aerosol would probably overdo the benefitr of using a solar death ray to generate electricity in the first place.
I think they should put some warning signs up.First, 10 bajillion pigeons would roost on it, and cack all over the solar death mirrors. This would need some sort of fireproof man to polish the mirrors.
Second, we all know that big nets kill sharks - and no-one in nevada wants loads of rotting sharks stinking up the place. The CFC footprint of that much Fabreeze aerosol would probably overdo the benefitr of using a solar death ray to generate electricity in the first place.
Breadvan72 said:
Digga, you haven't really answered the question I posed. What's so daft about solar collectors? If a bird gets frazzed every now and then, that's hardly a major argument against solar power.
No one can possibly know that yet. Since the issue was never considered and there's yet to be any meaningful research, its significance is yet to be proven. Bit like the Walkie Talkie building cock-up, don't you think? They were forced into a costly work-around because it was clear they could not continue with the building in the form it was built.Environmental 'quick fixes' are often the subject of some fairly limited thinking IMHO. Witness right now the apparent U-turn on diesel which is going to have widespread significance for many and very great cost, both on the way from petrol to derv and now again as the pendelum of legislation swings back.
Who carefully thought through the ideas of having great big smoky factories and lots of smoky cars, then? Was that all risk assessed, with the side effects carefully analysed? Why is it that green technologies have to pass the highest standards of scrutiny, but what we are used to is OK because, well, it's what we're used to? My point is that pointing out the flaws in a new approach may sometimes reflect an undue degree of comfort with an old one, perhaps an unwillingness to accept that change may be needed, and perhaps an unrealistic view of how change happens (rarely smoothly).
Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 18th August 16:54
Digga said:
Breadvan72 said:
Digga, you haven't really answered the question I posed. What's so daft about solar collectors? If a bird gets frazzed every now and then, that's hardly a major argument against solar power.
No one can possibly know that yet. Since the issue was never considered and there's yet to be any meaningful research, its significance is yet to be proven. Bit like the Walkie Talkie building cock-up, don't you think? They were forced into a costly work-around because it was clear they could not continue with the building in the form it was built.Environmental 'quick fixes' are often the subject of some fairly limited thinking IMHO. Witness right now the apparent U-turn on diesel which is going to have widespread significance for many and very great cost, both on the way from petrol to derv and now again as the pendelum of legislation swings back.
McWigglebum4th said:
I live near wind turbines
I have found a few buzzards which have been hit by a blade
A sad end to beautiful birds
I have found a few buzzards which have been hit by a blade
A sad end to beautiful birds
I worked in the wind energy business for a while and the fecking tree huggers were wringing their hands over a few dead birds so someone did a study and calculated that around 10000 birds get dissected by wind turbines in the UK each year. How awful, but to put that in perspective, 180000 are killed just in Denmark each year by domestic cats. unpc said:
I worked in the wind energy business for a while and the fecking tree huggers were wringing their hands over a few dead birds so someone did a study and calculated that around 10000 birds get dissected by wind turbines in the UK each year. How awful, but to put that in perspective, 180000 are killed just in Denmark each year by domestic cats. 180000 blue tits, blackbirds, robins, house sparrows fair enough.
10,000 migrating geese can be a bit more severe when global populations are only in 7 figures.
John145 said:
depends on the species you moron.
180000 blue tits, blackbirds, robins, house sparrows fair enough.
10,000 migrating geese can be a bit more severe when global populations are only in 7 figures.
Yes because no cat ever killed a goose and all geese will be attracted by wind turbines. 180000 blue tits, blackbirds, robins, house sparrows fair enough.
10,000 migrating geese can be a bit more severe when global populations are only in 7 figures.
No need for names.
John145 said:
depends on the species you moron.
180000 blue tits, blackbirds, robins, house sparrows fair enough.
10,000 migrating geese can be a bit more severe when global populations are only in 7 figures.
Sensitive much? 180000 blue tits, blackbirds, robins, house sparrows fair enough.
10,000 migrating geese can be a bit more severe when global populations are only in 7 figures.
I don't think cats give a f
k which species they eat. It'd be pretty unlucky for 10000 geese to fly in to a wind farm don't you think? Digga said:
Environmental 'quick fixes' are often the subject of some fairly limited thinking IMHO. Witness right now the apparent U-turn on diesel which is going to have widespread significance for many and very great cost, both on the way from petrol to derv and now again as the pendelum of legislation swings back.
Sorry have to pull you up on this one.On the face of it you are correct. However tell me that you didn't see this a mile away? Tell me that you were not seeing us discussing on this very forum how it will take a few years and then it will be 'OMG Diesel is bad, we must tax it more!' It's nothing to do with the planet, it's all to do with the tax take.
Those who think that the global governments of the day have any interest in the planet beyond what the individuals involved can get out of it in their lifetime are naïve to be polite.
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