Britain must build thousands more bat-chomping bird-slicing eco crucifixes in order to stave off “dangerous climate change” says the RSPB.
By James Delingpole
RSPB stands for Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and, no, this is not The Onion.
Yes, Britain’s oldest and biggest ornithological society really has put out a report demanding the erection of yet more avian Cuisinarts – despite swathes of evidence showing that these monstrosities are responsible for killing many millions of birds around the world every year.
Its rationale:
The way that we currently use energy in the UK is not sustainable. We use too much of it, we use it inefficiently, and our main sources of energy, fossil fuels, are driving us towards dangerous levels of climate change – one of the greatest long-term threats to wildlife.
In order to save Britain’s wildlife from the alleged threat of climate change, in other words, we’ve got to first got to slice and dice it with the turbine blades that, by some estimates, kill 22 million birds a year.
Britain currently has around 5,000 wind turbines. According to the RSPB, it could do with around 20,000 more. More solar panels too. And wave power. And carbon capture and storage. And herds of organic unicorn to harvest all waste and pollution and magically transform it to special fairy energy which can be sprinkled on the cots of every new born child so as to instil in it a true appreciation of Mother Gaia’s beauty. (I may have invented the last one)
Mysteriously no mention is made of the actual cost of this exercise.
We’re shown a triangle at the beginning which illustrates our ‘energy trilemma’ – Environmental Sustainability; Energy Security; and Affordability.
Cats that live in the wild or indoor pets allowed to roam outdoors kill from 1.4 billion to as many as 3.7 billion birds in the continental U.S. each year, says a new study that escalates a decades-old debate over the feline threat to native animals. The estimates are much higher than the hundreds of millions of annual bird deaths previously attributed to cats... The report is scheduled to be published Tuesday in Nature Communications.
"I was stunned," said ornithologist Peter Marra of the Smithsonian's Conservation Biology Institute. He and Smithsonian colleague Scott Loss, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Tom Will conducted the study. It's part of a three-year Fish and Wildlife Service-funded effort to estimate the number of birds killed by predators, chemicals and in collisions with wind generators and windows...
By James Delingpole
RSPB stands for Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and, no, this is not The Onion.
Yes, Britain’s oldest and biggest ornithological society really has put out a report demanding the erection of yet more avian Cuisinarts – despite swathes of evidence showing that these monstrosities are responsible for killing many millions of birds around the world every year.
Its rationale:
The way that we currently use energy in the UK is not sustainable. We use too much of it, we use it inefficiently, and our main sources of energy, fossil fuels, are driving us towards dangerous levels of climate change – one of the greatest long-term threats to wildlife.
In order to save Britain’s wildlife from the alleged threat of climate change, in other words, we’ve got to first got to slice and dice it with the turbine blades that, by some estimates, kill 22 million birds a year.
Britain currently has around 5,000 wind turbines. According to the RSPB, it could do with around 20,000 more. More solar panels too. And wave power. And carbon capture and storage. And herds of organic unicorn to harvest all waste and pollution and magically transform it to special fairy energy which can be sprinkled on the cots of every new born child so as to instil in it a true appreciation of Mother Gaia’s beauty. (I may have invented the last one)
Mysteriously no mention is made of the actual cost of this exercise.
We’re shown a triangle at the beginning which illustrates our ‘energy trilemma’ – Environmental Sustainability; Energy Security; and Affordability.
MEANWHILE , BACK IN THE UNIMAGINED PRESENT :
Cats kill up to 3.7B birds annually
Chuck Raasch, USA TODAY
Cats that live in the wild or indoor pets allowed to roam outdoors kill from 1.4 billion to as many as 3.7 billion birds in the continental U.S. each year, says a new study that escalates a decades-old debate over the feline threat to native animals. The estimates are much higher than the hundreds of millions of annual bird deaths previously attributed to cats... The report is scheduled to be published Tuesday in Nature Communications.
"I was stunned," said ornithologist Peter Marra of the Smithsonian's Conservation Biology Institute. He and Smithsonian colleague Scott Loss, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Tom Will conducted the study. It's part of a three-year Fish and Wildlife Service-funded effort to estimate the number of birds killed by predators, chemicals and in collisions with wind generators and windows...
