Environmentalists eating their own

By Ethel C. Fenig

Uh oh! Environmentalists have a problem with other environmentalists over so called clean and cheap energy. Gerry Smith of the Chicago Tribune reports on their sad dilemma.

Wind turbines cause bats' lungs to explode. More specifically, a sudden drop in air pressure created by the blades can cause fatal internal hemorrhaging, researchers at the University of Calgary said in a study.

(snip)

Some of the best sources of wind—coastlines and mountaintops—also happen to be in the path of migratory birds. Wind farms installed on mountain ridges also have triggered fears over soil erosion, and some environmental groups—citing land use laws designed to keep Mother Nature unspoiled—have fought proposed wind farms.

E-w-w-w! Exploding bat lungs are not good for human lungs. And we definitely cannot disturb Mother Nature with human caused soil erosion; Mama Nature does it so much better with ice storms and drought during this period of global warming or climate change or something.

And of course the worst environmental problem with clean, cheap and renewable energy is the aesthetics. Just ask such noted beauty--and not in my backyard--connoisseurs as Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and "that's the way it is" former broadcaster Walter Cronkite both of whom opposed wind turbines five miles off the coast of Cape Cod because it would ruin their view and spoil the value of their waterfront properties. Hey, that's the way it goes.

And as for that other natural, renewable and oh so clean energy source--the sun--well, whaddayaknow, it too poses serious environmental problems according story to Smith.

Last month, a non-profit group in San Jose, Calif., found that the solar energy industry is facing the same issue as electronics manufacturers: how to dispose of the products once they've outlasted their usefulness.

Though solar energy currently produces less than 1 percent of the nation's electricity, the most popular solar photovoltaic panels could create "a huge new wave of electronic waste once they are discarded," according to the report by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. The panels have an estimated life span of 20 to 25 years.

The latest solar PV technologies may be cheaper and more efficient, but many use "extremely toxic materials" with "unknown health and environmental risks," the group found.

Oh dear! What to do? I know! I know! Let's go nuclear! It is clean. Renewable. Even haughty France, is mainly nuclear without any major problems--their sometimes difficult culture and national personality were formed long before the nuclear industry took hold in France so don't blame nuclear radiation for that. Because of their nuclear resources France is not as dependent on Russia and its energy blackmail as its other European neighbors.

Or, I know! I know! Let's use natural products from the earth such as our oil from Alaska and offshore and coal in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Illinois for cheap, easily available energy. If we do that we can also provide jobs while reducing our dependency on hostile countries such as Saudi Arabia's and Venezuela's oil. Oh, what's that? Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, who is a Republican suggested that so that idea has to be discarded and also because the moose would suffer. Similarly with coal--better let those miners remain jobless and the rest of us freeze or pay more than disturb the fantasies of the elitist environmentalists.

No! Time to protest--let's spread the tea party and dump these elitists into the water also.