As I wrote recently, the Green-Left’s environmental fanaticism is decidedly situational. The same army of grotty unemployables and interfering old biddies who’ll chain themselves to a development if it allegedly threatens a single, obscure breed of finch, are conspicuously absent when wind turbines are mincing dozens of endangered eagles. Clearing bush for a housing development is an outrage: clearing bushland for a solar or wind farm makes Gaia smile.
It’s not for nothing that James Delingpole dubbed wind turbines “eco-crucifixes”: they’re both the holy symbols and the high temples of the Cult of Gaia. In fact, the eco-crucifix is so venerated that it’s fast displacing even the whales from the top of the Climate Cult’s totem pole.
Still, it’s not a good look to be continually scraping the mangled remains of birds and bats from wind farms, plus they’re a visual eyesore (the alleged health effects on humans of wind turbines is an unsettled question), so why not shove them right out of sight and mind? Enter the offshore wind farm.
Yet, we already know that the undersea cables carrying power from the offshore farms to where it’s actually needed are having a deadly effect on crabs. Now it appears that the turbines themselves are just as bad for whales.
A humpback whale carcass recently washed up on the beach at Brigantine near Atlantic City, sparking concern over the preliminary work being done for huge offshore wind farms. It was the seventh inconvenient dead whale in a month around the New Jersey and New York areas. While whales do wash up from time to time, seven in a short period has caused concern.
Crabs, after all, are conveniently out of sight. Whale carcasses washing up at the boardwalks of America’s Favourite Playground are a little harder to ignore. So, just hit the Denial button.
Environmental groups, no doubt panicked about their two favourite projects potentially murdering each other, have stepped up and said concerns regarding the wind farm construction are ‘unfounded and premature’.
This, remember, from the same mob who routinely mumble “the Precautionary Principle” as a litany. And when it comes to the Climate Cult’s priorities, whales are now as low in the hierarchy as a straight white male in a Hollywood writing room.
They might be out of sight of the average Climate Cultist smugly ensconced in their EV, but constructing offshore windfarms is essentially building sterile mega-cities at sea.
What is often forgotten about wind turbines is that they are essentially steel skyscrapers, fitted with blades, and affixed to the ocean floor (which is damaged in the process). These ‘cities’ are encroaching on the ocean and carpeting the shoreline, creating constant noise pollution in a sensitive environment full of creatures that use sound to survive.
The end result is a matrix of spinning blades on the surface of the water, disrupting air patterns and massacring marine bird life. Studies on bird behaviour came to the conclusion that wind farms represent lost territory, with many birds choosing to abandon the area entirely. As for how large wind turbines are getting, the tallest offshore wind turbine is GE’s Haliade-X standing at 260 metres – or roughly a 70-storey building.
The Climate Cultists can’t plead ignorance for too much longer, as the damning scientific evidence mounts. In fact, it’s been around for decades: a 2006 report found that offshore wind farm noise, especially the pile-driving during construction, was driving whales away from thunderous noises that the mammals could hear far across the sea. Humpback whales give offshore wind farms at least a 60 km-wide berth. The noise from wind-farm pile-driving can also literally deafen whales who rely on their hearing to navigate.
In 2017, three minke whales washed up on the UK coast, apparently distressed by the offshore wind farm. It was argued that the sonar communication between the whales was being confused by the turbines […]
While the noise is most extreme during the construction phase, the operational continuous low-frequency noise irritates marine life. In particular, [a 2021 Taiwanese] study warned about the danger posed to chorusing fish who may struggle to attract mates, spawn, communicate, or function under such condition resulting in ‘cascade effects on behavioural and ecological processes’.
Offshore wind farms have a similar problem to their onshore cousins, with residents and farm animals living near turbines complaining about low-frequency noises that eventually drive people crazy.
Spectator Australia
The Climate Cult are little better than old-fashioned whalers — except that the whalers at least didn’t hide the blood-and-guts reality of their deadly industry.
