Category: environment

Readers’ wildlife photos

October 5, 2025 • 8:15 am

Athayde Tonhasca Júnior has returned with an edifying text-and-photo essay on animals and wind turbines.  His captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them:

Ecofriendly hazards  

In November 1883, Nature magazine informed its readers about The Vienna International Electric Exhibition, where electric motors, electric clocks, telegraphic equipment, telephones, railway signalling and other wonders of the modern world were to be presented to the public. One novelty was missed by Nature‘s correspondent: the windmill installed by the Austrian engineer Josef Friedländer (1836-1905) in the exhibition grounds. Friedländer’s contraption drove a dynamo that fed electricity into a series of batteries, which in turn powered electrical tools, lamps and a threshing machine. The little-known Austrian engineer is believed to have assembled the first ever engine that generated electricity from the wind (Bruyerre, 2022).

Poster advertising Vienna’s International Electrical Exhibition, 1883 © Wikimedia Commons:

Wind technology evolved rapidly since 1883, but it took the 1970s’ oil crisis for wind power to be considered a viable alternative or supplement to carbon-based energy sources. The first wind farm in the world, consisting of 20 turbines, was installed in the American state of New Hampshire in 1980. From then on, the wind industry never looked back. Wind now meets about 10% of US’s electricity needs and 20% of Europe’s, and demand around the world is growing rapidly. It’s no wonder. Wind is a renewable energy source, with a much smaller impact on the environment than fossil fuel alternatives: for one thing, wind turbines do not produce greenhouse gases.

The San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm in California, USA, comprises 3,218 units © Ken Lund, Wikimedia Commons:

Alas, just like trusted and popular medications, diets and political choices, the planet’s thousands of wind turbines have side effects.

Volant creatures who venture into the path of massive blades rotating at high speeds can’t have bright life prospects. Indeed, wind turbines do kill many birds and bats. And one aspect of turbine maintenance suggests a considerably larger number of victims of other kinds. If rotor blades are not cleaned regularly, the turbine’s power output may drop by 25%. The culprits of this reduced performance are promptly identified on a stationary turbine: insects, thousands of them, who ended up splattered against the blades, interfering with their aerodynamics (Corten & Veldkamp, 2001).

(a) A blade cleaner in action, (b) insect detritus on a blade’s leading edge © Voigt, 2021:

Migrating insects are the most likely victims because they usually travel way above the flight boundary layer, which is the space above ground where regular activities such as feeding, mating and nesting take place. Seasonal migrants such as the monarch (Danaus plexippus) and painted lady (Vanessa cardui) butterflies, who travel long distances at high altitudes, are particularly vulnerable if turbines are installed along their routes. Other forms of translocations also increase insects’ exposure to the dangerous blades. Some species fly to a topographic summit such as the top of a hill to meet the opposite sex and mate. This phenomenon, known as hill-toping, is common among species of flies, butterflies, dragonflies, wasps and beetles that occur naturally at low densities. By flying to the same conspicuous meeting point, these insects don’t waste time and energy looking for sparsely scattered mates. Lamentably, hill tops are exactly the type of place suitable for wind turbines.

Typical wind turbine heights and worldwide power capacity since 1990. Turbine shapes are compared to insects’ flight boundary layer (FBL) and to the turbulent surface layer that insects attempt to overcome during migration © Thess & Lengsfeld, 2022:

Even though numbers vary widely depending on local conditions, wind turbines do dispatch many birds and bats. But the important question is: are the numbers killed large enough to make a difference? Cats, buildings and cars, in that order, kill far more birds than do wind turbines (Ritchie, 2024), but people and organisations who keep an eye on birds’ welfare don’t seem to rank those factors as main threats. As for insects, wind turbines wipe out quite a few of them, but it’s impossible to gauge impact without a measure of proportion. About 3.5 trillion insects (3,200 tons of biomass) migrate above southern Britain annually (Hu et al., 2016); for hoverflies alone, up to 4 billion of them (80 tons of biomass) travel from Europe to Britain every season (Wotton et al., 2019). In East China, ~9.3 trillion nocturnal insects (15,000 tons of biomass) migrate at heights of up to 1 km over a 600 km-wide area every year (Huang et al., 2024). Would wind turbines significantly dent those figures? Probably not. But we don’t know.

Death by collision may not be substantial, but that’s not the only concern about wind turbines. They have an indirect but sizable impact on mammals, birds of prey and other wildlife without killing them. Noise, vibration, blade rotation and flickering lights prompt some animals to move away from onshore windfarm areas (Tolvanen et al., 2023). Avoidance may have cascading effects; in India, the abundance and activity of predatory birds were reduced near a wind farm, resulting in increased densities of the superb large fan-throated lizard (Sarada superba) (Thaker et al., 2018).

The superb large fan-throated lizard is not a NIMBY. Areas with wind turbines had lower abundance of predatory birds, lower frequency of raptor attacks on ground-dwelling prey and higher densities of lizards © Rushikesh Deshmukh, Wikimedia Commons:

We know very little about indirect outcomes on insects. Nonetheless, we do know that wind turbines cause a range of local environmental disturbances such as artificial lights, noise, vibration and changes in temperature and wind patterns – all known to affect some insect species at different levels (Weschler & Tronstad, 2024, and references therein). Thus, it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect insects and other invertebrates to carry on unscathed by turbines.

Wind turbines influence the environment by mixing the air and increasing turbulence (a), changing humidity patterns (b), increasing carbon dioxide respiration (c), warming near-surface air temperatures at night (d), reducing wind speed at hub height (e), light pollution (f), audible noise (g), and infrasound (h) © Weschler & Tronstad, 2024:

 

Any impact of wind turbines on wildlife is going to become more severe just because there will be a lot more of them. Reaching the 20 C limit set up in the Paris Climate Agreement will require nearly complete shifting to low-carbon sources and renewable energy. If that’s to be done with wind and solar power, which are the leading instruments for offsetting fossil fuels, the world may have to dispose of over 11 million hectares of land to accommodate wind and solar farms (Kiesecker et al., 2019).

Wind is a clean, readily available and unlimited source of energy, so wind turbines – together with solar panels – are deemed essential for reducing emissions and mitigating the effects of climate change in the short run. Even still, we can’t gloss over their known and potential risks. By addressing these, we can find mitigation measures. This has been done for birds and bats: avoiding migration corridors and breeding spots, stopping blade rotation when bats and birds are most active, painting one blade black to make the rotating blades more visible, using acoustic deterrents and illuminating turbines with ultraviolet light or painting them purple are among the measures proposed – even though not all have been tested. Insects, who account for the bulk of the planet’s animal biodiversity and are crucial for so many ecological services, have been all but neglected in these investigations. That’s regrettable, as we are missing the opportunity of learning effective techniques to reduce the effects of a warmer planet in more biodiversity-friendly ways.

Dear god, can this administration get much worse?

August 17, 2020 • 9:45 am

Hot off the press (click to see the CNN story):

Early details:

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on Monday announced plans for an oil and gas leasing program in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, clearing the way for drilling in the remote Alaskan area.

Bernhardt said a future lease of the federally-owned land will make the entire 1.5 million acre Coastal Plain area available.

Bernhardt said the announcement “marks a new chapter in American energy independence” and predicted it could “create thousands of new jobs.”

But nothing can go wrong here, can it?

Asbestos imports rise under Trump administration

October 27, 2018 • 1:30 pm

On August 7 I reported that the Trump administration had loosened restrictions on products containing asbestos, which is totally banned in 60 countries because the material is a deadly carcinogen. According to the new rules, asbestos-containing products can be created or imported into the U.S. on a case by case basis.

Now, according to a report by the Environmental Working Group, which seems to be a bit kooky (they’re in favor big time of GMO labeling, for instance), asbestos imports are starting to rise dramatically: 2,000 percent (20 fold) between July and August (click on screenshot below). Most of them, as the graph further below shows, come from Brazil.

 

We don’t need to use asbestos, as there are safe substitutes. There were about 3,000 deaths per year due to asbestos in the 15 years before 2015, most from mesothelioma, a deadly form of cancer that can show up decades after a small amount of the product is inhaled. And it’s a horrible way to die: I’ve seen it at work. The EPA should ban it, but lobbyists from the chemical industry are pushing to keep a ban from being enacted.

h/t: Woody

Trump jumps the shark on energy, about to damage environment even more

August 21, 2018 • 12:30 pm

According to a new report by CNN, Trump is heading to West Virginia today to celebrate the further dismantling of prudent environmental regulations. In this case the EPA is going to deregulate federal supervision of coal-fired electric plants, giving the regulations back to the states. Coal states will, of course, scrap those regulations as fast as they can, for fewer regulations mean more jobs for state residents—not to mention more pollution-related diseases. As CNN notes:

The move would reverse Obama administration efforts to combat climate change and marks the fulfillment of a campaign promise at the heart of his appeal in coal-producing states like West Virginia — an appeal embodied by Trump’s 2016 campaign stops in the coal country of West Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania, where Trump supporters waved “Trump Digs Coal” signs and where the President-to-be donned a coal-mining helmet.

The EPA Tuesday morning formally unveiled the details of its new plan to devolve regulation of coal-fired power plants back to the states, one that is expected to give a boost to the coal industry and increase carbon emissions nationwide.

The move is expected to spark an intense legal battle, with environmental groups already readying legal challenges to the new regulations.

Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler on Tuesday argued the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan — the policy being replaced by this week’s proposal — “exceeded the agency’s legal authority” and argued the old regulations led to rising energy prices which have “hurt low and middle income Americans the most.”

Yes, the same people who are also hurt by pollution! Coal contributes not only to global warming compared to other forms of energy, but also creates particulates that contribute to diseases like asthma and heart and lung disease. This translates into deaths.

But there is some pushback:

The move is just the latest effort by the Trump administration to revive an ailing coal industry and strip climate change-fighting regulations established by the Obama administration. He previously announced plans to withdraw from the Paris climate accords, calling it an unfair deal for Americans.

“I was elected by the citizens of Pittsburgh,” Trump said at the time, “not Paris.”

Those moves have been rebuffed by California and a dozen other states, which have led a push to maintain high environmental standards and legally challenge the Trump administration’s rollback of the Obama-era rules.

In a statement on Tuesday, California Gov. Jerry Brown decried the Trump administration’s latest proposal as “a declaration of war against America and all of humanity.”

“It will not stand,” he said. “Truth and common sense will triumph over Trump’s insanity.”

As a harbinger of this new era of despoiling the environment, Trump made some very bizarre statements at a fundraiser in New York—comments so bizarre that the Washington Post, in the article below (click on screenshot), had to translate them into English.

First the comments as given by the Post:

The Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale tweeted the pertinent section, modified from Factba.se’s transcript.

Here it is in its entirety.

“We have — clean coal exports have increased, 60 percent last year — clean coal, which is one of our big assets that we weren’t allowed to use for our miners. You remember Hillary with the coal, right, sitting with the miners at the table? Remember? That wasn’t so good for her. So the people of West Virginia and all over, you look at Wyoming, you look at so many different places where they just, Pennsylvania, where they loved what we did, and it’s clean coal and we have the most modern procedures. But it’s a tremendous form of energy in the sense that in a military way — think of it — coal is indestructible.”

“You can blow up a pipeline, you can blow up the windmills. You know, the windmills, boom, boom, boom [mimicking windmill sound] bing [mimes shooting large gun], that’s the end of that one. If the birds don’t kill it first. The birds could kill it first. They kill so many birds. You look underneath some of those windmills, it’s like a killing field, the birds. But you know, that’s what they were going to, they were going to windmills. And you know, don’t worry about — when the wind doesn’t blow, I said, ‘What happens when the wind doesn’t blow?’ ‘Well, then we have a problem.’

“Okay, good. They were putting them in areas where they didn’t have much wind, too. And it’s a subs — you need subsidy for windmills. You need subsidy. Who wants to have energy where you need subsidy? So, uh, the coal is doing great.”

This is like a twisted version of Ulysses: a mind dump by a demented narcissist. It’s horribly embarrassing to have our President talking about killing birds, blowing up pipelines, and once again bashing Hillary Clinton.  But the Post claims there’s a message in there, and translates it. Trump’s references—and lies—include these:

  1. There’s no such thing as “clean coal”. What he’s referring to is apparently coal whose carbon dioxide emissions can be captured and re-used. That’s not what we were exporting: we were shipping out regular “dirty” coal. But even his figure is suspect given that in 2016 coal exports were abnormally low because of low global prices, and exports in 2012 ande 2014 were actually higher than those in 2017.
  2. Clinton did speak to a town hall meeting in West Virginia, and angered locals by talking about “putting a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” Maybe a good policy, but not a good thing to tell West Virginians.
  3. The blowing up refers to Trump’s idea that attacking a coal company whose fuel is onsite is harder than blowing up a pipeline and windmills. (What he meant by the windmills killing birds is obscure to me, unless he’s somehow appealing to environmentalists!). But blowing up windmills is in fact harder than blowing up a single coal-fired plant, as you’d have to target a lot of windmills.  And Trump has an animus against windmills. The Post notes that Trump was ticked off that his Scottish golf courses were going to be affected by local windmills, and he fought their construction, even saying that the sound from the windmills (“boom boom”) would hurt people’s health!

  4. As for subsidies for wind power, that assumes that you have to pay people to generate power with wind farms because they’re more expensive per kilowatt hour generated than are coal plants. But the Post says that’s untrue:

While it can be tricky to compare the costs of electricity generation across methods, the financial advisory firm Lazard each year creates an index of the costs of production without subsidies. The 2017 iteration of that report found that wind power was less expensive than producing energy by burning coal. The long-term trend has been a drop in the cost of wind production, while coal production costs have been fairly steady.

Remember, too, what Trump said about those coal plants that are essential to national security: His administration wants to mandate purchases from them to ensure their viability. That’s a subsidy in its own right.

There’s no question that Trump pledged to prioritize the coal industry as a candidate and that, as president, he has tried to do so. But the rhetoric he uses, often picking up well-worn threads he’s been offering for years, can often be inscrutable. It can also often be wrong.

I lived through Nixon, G. W. Bush, and Reagan, and although I was disaffected then, that’s nothing compared to the horror embodied in having this man as the President of the United States.

Trump administration loosens regulations on products containing the carcinogenic mineral asbestos

August 7, 2018 • 2:30 pm

In the midst of dismantling environmental protections, allowing the shooting of bears in their dens, and calling for forests to be cleared, the Trump administration has also taken one environmental action that’s been under my radar. According to the article below, from The Architects Newspaper (click on screenshot), companies can now create new products containing asbestos, one of the most carcinogenic substances known to humans, without the Environmental Protection Agency being able to evaluate their second-hand effects.

One of the most dangerous construction-related carcinogens is now legally allowed back into U.S. manufacturing under a new rule by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Fast Company recently reported that on June 1, the EPA authorized a “SNUR” (Significant New Use Rule) which allows new products containing asbestos to be created on a case-by-case basis.

According to environmental advocates, this new rule gives chemical companies the upper hand in creating new uses for harmful products in the United States. In May, the EPA released a report detailing its new framework for evaluating the risk of its top prioritized substances. The report states that the agency will no longer consider the effect or presence of substances in the air, ground, or water in its risk assessments.

It’s bad enough that 60 countries absolutely ban the use of asbestos, but the U.S., while restricting its use, still allows it to be used. It is so toxic, I’ve heard, a that a single inhaled fiber can cause the invariably fatal cancer mesothelioma (Steve Gould was one of the rare survivors). When I had my lab renovated after arriving in Chicago in 1986, they found asbestos insulation around the overhead pipes. My lab was promptly declared a hazardous area, and it had to be decontaminated by walling it off with heavy plastic, putting the room under negative pressure, and requiring the workers to wear moon suits. Our building manager at that time, Dennis, was a prince of a man, but he’d worked with asbestos in shipbuilding plants earlier in his life, and, sadly, he got mesothelioma and died on our watch. It was a terrible loss.

Asbestos should simply not be used, as it poses a risk to everyone exposed to it. But what does Trump or his new EPA care?

Here’s a scary sidelight on the asbestos industry from the same article, again involving Trump

As the world’s largest exporter of asbestos, the Russian company Uralasbest operates an enormous open mine nearly half the size of Manhattan in a mountainous town 900 miles northeast of Moscow, according to the Center for Public Integrity. The company has support from the government and President Vladimir Putin, even though their economic success exposes the local residents to major health risks. Once referred to as “the dying city,” Asbest’s residents have reported the carcinogenic dust is often found as a thick film over garden vegetables, laundry lines, and even on the floors of their homes.

Earlier last month, The Washington Post noted that the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and the ADAO had discovered a controversial post on Uralasbest’s Facebook page showing photos of company pallets stamped with a seal of U.S. President Donald Trump’s face. Trump has long been vocal about his skepticism on the harmful effects of asbestos, citing in his 1997 book, The Art of the Comeback, that anti-asbestos efforts were “led by the mob.” In 2012, he tweeted that the World Trade Center might not have burned had the fire-retardant material not been removed from the towers. It’s estimated that 400 tons of asbestos fiber went into the structures before the developers stopped it from being used further in 1971.

Here’s a photo of those pallets. (I cannot vouch for their accuracy, but the Washington Post must have. Perhaps they were Photoshopped by the Russians.) But there’s no denying that Trump is a pro-asbestos guy. After all, it isn’t his life at risk.

 

h/t: Woody

Scott Pruitt resigns

July 5, 2018 • 5:40 pm

I’d normally say “There is a god after all,” but I’m pretty sure there isn’t, for if there was, we wouldn’t have either Trump or Pruitt, and another hyperconservative Supreme Court nominee wouldn’t be in the offing.

Nevertheless, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Scott Pruitt, beleaguered by accusations of financial malfeasance and other ethics violations, has resigned.

Just to show there is no god, this won’t affect the direction of the EPA. Pruitt’s successor will be, for the nonce, Deputy EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. Wheeler was a lobbyist for the coal industry. Meet the new boss, etc. etc.

God what a debacle the Trump administration has been—probably worse than any of us even imagined.

 

Interior Department proposes legalizing cruel and previously prohibited hunting methods

May 23, 2018 • 1:15 pm

NBC News has highlighted some of the Interior Department’s proposed changes to the federal regulations about hunting. First designed to take effect in Alaska, but now proposed for the entire U.S., these changes (proposed regulations here) will overturn the following Obama-era prohibitions and thus allow barbaric forms of hunting (well, many forms of hunting, like using bows and arrows, already are barbaric):

The Trump administration is moving to reverse Obama-era rules barring hunters on some public lands in Alaska from baiting brown bears with bacon and doughnuts and using spotlights to shoot mother black bears and cubs hibernating in their dens.

Under the proposed changes, hunters would also be allowed to hunt black bears with dogs, kill wolves and pups in their dens, and use motor boats to shoot swimming caribou.

These and other hunting methods — condemned as cruel by wildlife protection advocates — were outlawed on federal lands in 2015. Members of the public have 60 days to provide comment on the proposed new rules.

From the regulations themselves; this will now be allowed (note that you can use light to lure bears too). It’s horrible!

The Final Rule codified prohibitions on certain types of harvest practices that are otherwise permitted by the State of Alaska. The practices are: Taking any black bear, including cubs and sows with cubs, with artificial light at den sites; harvesting brown bears over bait; taking wolves and coyotes (including pups) during the denning season (between May 1 and August 9); taking swimming caribou; taking caribou from motorboats under power; taking black bears over bait; and using dogs to hunt black bears.

I don’t understand the mentality of people who would permit these things. They value trophies more than the lives of animals, and as for shooting mothers and hibernating cubs, well, I have no words except it’s Trump and his environment-hating minions.

The rationale for the regulations, at the Federal Register, includes “increasing outdoor recreation.” How “recreational” is it to lure bears with donuts and then kill them? Or slaughter hibernating mothers and cubs? CUBS, for crying out loud:

Part of the stated purpose of Secretarial Order 3347 is to increase outdoor recreation and improve the management of game species and their habitat. Secretarial Order 3347 directs the Department of the Interior to identify specific actions to (1) expand access significantly for recreational hunting and fishing on public lands; and (2) improve recreational hunting Start Printed Page 23622and fishing cooperation, consultation, and communication with state wildlife managers.

What can you do about this? Here’s what:

You may submit comments, identified by Regulation Identifier Number (RIN) 1024-AE38, by either of the following methods:

Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.

Mail or hand deliver to: National Park Service, Regional Director, Alaska Regional Office, 240 West 5th Ave., Anchorage, AK 99501.

Instructions: Comments will not be accepted by fax, email, or in any way other than those specified above. All submissions received must include the words “National Park Service” or “NPS” and must include the docket number or RIN (1024-AE38) for this rulemaking. Comments received will be posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided.

Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to http://www.regulations.gov.

In short, go the the link, put RIN: 1024-AE38 in the search box, and then make a comment and submit it. I ask readers who are opposed to this proposed legislation to at least say a few words. Please!

h/t: Ken