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Comment by m0llusk | Hacker News Reader

This is broken logic. Working primarily with averages leads directly to repeating the mistakes of the statistician who drown in a lake that was an average of three feet deep. Currently one of the notably large wind farms being operated is in the Altamont Pass in California which also happens to be the preferred spawning site for golden eagles. Does it make sense to assert that since wind farms are generally beneficial that we should not worry about drastically reducing or even eliminating golden eagles in California? The issue isn't wind farms or fossil fuels, it is exactly how we should build and maintain these wind farms and where. Using the critically needed energy transition to wipe out species of wild animals may not be an appropriate strategy.

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> Does it make sense to assert that since wind farms are generally beneficial that we should not worry about drastically reducing or even eliminating golden eagles in California?

Yes. Boiling our atmosphere will harm bald eagles in addition to everything else. Bald eagles are cool birds, unless you live somewhere that they’re as common as seagulls and 20x as annoying. If forced to choose, I’d rather have a healthy world with few bald eagles than Venus with none.

If you honestly believe installing any number of wind turbines is going to stop our "atmosphere from boiling" I've got a couple of bridges to sell you.

Awesome! I haven't talked to a real live environmental scientist in a few months. What aspect are you studying?

CO2 levels were between 1500 and 3000 ppm during the Carboniferous era, a time of vast forests and thriving life. We are never going to end up like Venus, since its atmosphere is 100 times as dense as Earth's and 96.5% CO2. Since Earth is only 0.04% CO2 we would need to increase the amount of CO2 by more than 200,000X.

This is an easily debunked fossil-fuel industry propaganda talking point.

You either work in this industry and are being purposefully disingenuous, or you're carrying water for billionaires that will be dead from old age by the time the consequences of their lies are made manifest.

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqA4bDVmBB8

TL;DW: Yes, CO2 levels were higher hundreds of millions of years ago, but the layout of the continents was different and the Sun had lower power output, so it worked out. If CO2 levels reached the same point now, 80% of the land surface would turn to desert and most higher forms of life would be wiped out by heat waves. Awesome! Let's aim of that then because some Shell Oil executive wants his bonus.

> Does it make sense to assert that since wind farms are generally beneficial that we should not worry about drastically reducing or even eliminating golden eagles in California?

Absolutely, 100% yes, fuck eagles, who needs them when windmill can go brrrbrbrbrbrbrbr, in fact it would be even better to manually hunt them before even installing the windmills so that they do not damage them.

That's a second order question - and one worth asking when decision-makers and stakeholders are being intellectually honest.

The problem is that Trump et al. are disingenuously saying that we shouldn't build wind turbines at all because of the birds.

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