Conflicting objectives of environmental conservations
A yahoo headline screamed out at me as soon as i logged online a few moments ago.
Wind farms could drive bird species to extinction!!!
ok, i'm exaggerating. There's no exclamation marks and the fonts aren't exactly humongous, but that headline does exist.
Since we've been talking about alternative energies in the last GP lesson I thought I might want to be more friendly to wind farms and check them out.
>O<
Basically, a summary of the article goes as follows:
Construction of new wind farms along the coast of Texas and Northwest Territories in Canada by the expanding wind harnessing industry is facing a loud "no no" from nature conservationists, because the windy patch of land wind companies are eyeing overlaps with the migration corridor of an endangered species, the Whooping Crane.
Nature conservationists fear that these huge birds may collide into the even larger turbines.
However, of greater concern than collisions with turbines is the reduction of natural habitats of the Whooping Crane and other native birds in North America. Wind farms basically need to occupy vast areas of space in order to harness an economically profitable amount of energy, but the problem is loss of natural habitat is the key factor driving the Whooping Cranes to their near-extinction.
Yet wind companies argue that wind farms can't be built just anywhere. It's not economically feasible to construct wind farms on, for example, low-lying flatlands which experiences a nice breeze once in a blue moon.
So... it's a competitive supply in a sense that both wind farms and the Whooping Cranes need that same patch of windy field. It's either a trade-off of less cranes for more wind energy or vice visa.
But wind companies again point out that reduction of natural habitats is not solely the fault of the wind farms. Indeed, town development and deforestation for the paper industry also play a huge role in it.
Either way, this is not some whooping news for the environment lover.