Turbines kill rare eagles

From today's Guardian:

Wind turbines have caused the death of four rare, white-tailed eagles on islands off the Norwegian coast, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said yesterday.

The failure of as many as 30 other white-tailed eagles to return to breeding areas has added to concerns about the impact of wind farms on wildlife.

The Norwegian Ornithological Society, which monitors the 68-turbine Smola wind facility in question, has also found eight dead white-tailed (also called sea) eagles under the facility's power lines. All of these discoveries are not the result of systematic surveys but are only come upon by chance.

tags:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism

Authoritarian democracy

Juan Cole writes in today's Salon (in an essay about Hamas's electoral victory in Palestine):

Democracy depends not just on elections but on a rule of law, on stable institutions, on basic economic security for the population, and on checks and balances that forestall a tyranny of the majority. Elections in the absence of this key societal context can produce authoritarian regimes and abuses as easily as they can produce genuine people power. Bush is on the whole unwilling to invest sufficiently in these key institutions and practices abroad.

That's the case at home, too.

On censorship

In most cases of censorship, it is the censor who thus proves his "stupidity."

tags:  wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism

Signing away the farm

Here is a lovely part of the lease contract that Irish company Airtricity presents to landowners in New York.

9. Waived Right to Object. LANDOWNER acknowledges that certain aspects inherent to the operation of the Wind Energy Facility may result in some nuisance, such as visual impacts, possible increased noise levels, possible shadow flicker on residences, and other possible effects of electrical generation and transmission including without limitation potential interference with radio, television, telephone, mobile telephone and other electronic devices. LESSEE will attempt to minimize any impacts to LANDOWNER in part by taking every reasonable measure to meet or exceed standard U.S. wind industry practices in designing the Wind Energy Facility, and abiding by all regulations pertaining to the permitting and design of the Wind Energy Facility. LANDOWNER understands and has been informed by LESSEE that the Wind Energy Facility on the Leased Property may result in some nuisance, and hereby accepts such nuisance and waives their right to object to such nuisance provided that LESSEE complies with its obligations herein.

Also see "Signing it all away for crumbs from the table," about the contract presented to New York landowners by Singapore-based Noble Environmental.

tags:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms

The Wind Watchdog

Click the title of this post for the Jan. 23 issue of "The Wind Watchdog," a collection of recent news items, opinion pieces, and other documents from National Wind Watch .


categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines

Dear eco-entrepreneur et al.

I'm sorry to bother you guys, but if the whole scheme is so simple, why circle the wagons like this and fire barbs at us just because someone asked to see the numbers?

It's a bit of an overreaction, to say the least.

No one is challenging your reasoning or logic -- much less your sanity, intelligence, or patriotism [as you and yours have done]. It is a simple request for the numbers that back up your statements.

[Of course, the lack of real-world evidence does call into question your reasoning (and threatens your profits, I dare say), so perhaps lashing out a like a trapped animal is indeed your only recourse. It certainly suggests that you have no other, i.e., showing proof of your claims, or even trying to explain why no numbers are available.]

[The above, minus the sections in brackets, was posted to the comments section of whip-snapping eco-entrepreneur Shea Gunther's blog. It was almost immediately removed. There is clearly a problem with dissent over there.]

categories:  wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism

Eco-terrorist feds

On Counterpunch, Michael Donnelly has some distressing but not surprising information not being generally reported about the feds' big cracking of what appears to be a rather small network of Earth and Animal Liberation Front activists. (Click the title of this post for his article.)

One of the conspirators, Arizona bookstore owner William Rodgers, died in custody, which, outside of anarchist circles, hasn't been reported at all except to echo the bland official -- apparently uninvestigated -- story of suicide. It appears that that may be the case, but suicides aren't supposed to be allowed to happen in custody, either.

The feds had infiltrated the network, and one of their agents admits that he is the one who set many of the fires. The first case of arson in the indictments is of a pickup truck at a forest ranger station. Graffiti were spray-painted on the building as well. Two days later, a rigged incendiary jug was suddenly found on the roof. Donnelly asks, why would they paint slogans on a building they were planning to burn to the ground?

An actual burning of a ranger station a few days later is just as, if not more, likely to have been done by loggers angry at the defense of the spotted owl's old-growth forest habitat. The research that justified Earth First's two-year blockade of logging at Warner Creek (Oregon) was lost in that ranger station fire.

It should also be noted that although the indictments were "unsealed" last Friday, most of the arrests were actually made on Dec. 7. It is clearly another case of the Mayberry Machiavellis saving announcements until their distraction is most useful, such as when the White House is trying to defend warrantless spying on fellow citizens.

Not just the logging companies and their duped workers, but industrialists too are grateful. "These folks appeared ready to stop at nothing in their zeal to prevent development and to stop any perceived environmental threats, from logging to larger vehicles," says the National Association of Manufacturers. "Their targets are not, fundamentally, a particular ski resort, logging company, meatpacking center or medical research project, but what these represent: human technology, human progress, human life," writes Onkar Ghate of the Ayn Rand Institute.

Adding this to reports that the FBI has been spying on People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, it is clear that anyone who defends the plants and animals of our world, the natural world whose vitality our own lives is part of and depends on, anyone who considers the universe outside our human skins as worthy of our moral response -- we all have reason to fear the terrorist thugs of our own industry and government.

categories:  environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism, animal rights