Whale deaths?

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Everything has it's downside. Coal is Dirty, Nuke is Scary if Accident, NG is cleaner than Coal by Long Shot. Wind kills Birds. Solar don't work at Night or last long time. Where I live it's all Hydro 100%.
 
Meanwhile, entire habitats around the world are being destroyed by fossil CH4 and CO2 emissions... Hmmm.

Whales are injured by (illegal) fishing, getting caught in nets (often discarded nets), noise (often fossil fuel surveying) and boat collisions.

I am sure that the fixed foundations of offshore wind will do them in.
 
Everything has it's downside. Coal is Dirty, Nuke is Scary if Accident, NG is cleaner than Coal by Long Shot. Wind kills Birds. Solar don't work at Night or last long time. Where I live it's all Hydro 100%.

Cats kill way more birds than wind turbines. And all we have to do is keep them inside, and we can't be azzed to even do that.

Also solar works just fine at night though this invention called the battery. Also, solar kills birds.
 
Cats kill way more birds than wind turbines. And all we have to do is keep them inside, and we can't be azzed to even do that.

Also solar works just fine at night though this invention called the battery. Also, solar kills birds.
well technically that's not solar that's a battery. Solar is not working at that time, the battery is. Any energy source can charge and discharge a battery. :)
Solar is pretty cool, and always intrigued me. That's why it was one of the first engineering gigs I got into.
I really wish full roof solar was less expensive and more of a viable option for me. I havent seen the sun but once in about 14 days, and of course it didnt last long. Came out at around noon and went bye bye at 6pm.
If I ever move to a sunny state, Im absolutely putting an array, out in a field behind my house if possible. Having to climb a roof myself ...nah. Having to call someone to fix it...heck nah.
 

Imagine we’ll ignore this as we do the dead eagles, and massive mining pollution and lack of disposal plans for the old blades.
NG electricity is much more environmentally friendly.
Everything has it's downside. Coal is Dirty, Nuke is Scary if Accident, NG is cleaner than Coal by Long Shot. Wind kills Birds. Solar don't work at Night or last long time. Where I live it's all Hydro 100%.
There is no free lunch. We need to be mindful of how we use the planet's resources and the impacts of our activities.

Hydro is a good renewable, but not without cost. Massive habitat destruction can also occur when large dams are put in. Damming large rivers like the Columbia, turned it into a series of warm lakes in which many fish, including salmon, can no longer survive. This is what a wilderness habitat looks like before it is dammed.
beaver marsh.jpg

Geothermal and nuclear will be needed to provide baseload power until we get fusion harnesses. In the meantime, the idea of perpetually increasing growth and consumption is a flawed model to build the future on.

As for the whales, where is the cry from the masses against the testing of high-powered sonar that the Navy keeps testing and the seismic testing for offshore oil, in spite of knowing it deafens whales? Where is the mass reduction of plastics going into the oceans that these filter feeders suck into their guts? Where is the concern about ocean acidification due to the massive output of industry into the air and seas?
 
There is no free lunch. We need to be mindful of how we use the planet's resources and the impacts of our activities.

Hydro is a good renewable, but not without cost. Massive habitat destruction can also occur when large dams are put in. Damming large rivers like the Columbia, turned it into a series of warm lakes in which many fish, including salmon, can no longer survive. This is what a wilderness habitat looks like before it is dammed.
View attachment 308938

Geothermal and nuclear will be needed to provide baseload power until we get fusion harnesses. In the meantime, the idea of perpetually increasing growth and consumption is a flawed model to build the future on.

As for the whales, where is the cry from the masses against the testing of high-powered sonar that the Navy keeps testing and the seismic testing for offshore oil, in spite of knowing it deafens whales? Where is the mass reduction of plastics going into the oceans that these filter feeders suck into their guts? Where is the concern about ocean acidification due to the massive output of industry into the air and seas?
Well, it's not something the constituents who voted the politicians want so...yea, we will talk about it and figure out a new way to profit from it vs actually thinking about it logically without $ in mind.
But you are right, hyrdo does come at a great cost. There is a small lake above where I live that was damned up for entertainment purposes. It goes mostly unused aside from weekends and really is only busy about 1 month out of the year. But it's enough to warm up the waters so that no trout live in my little river year around. Even with a sizable cold water spring fed stream coming in, that the trout group up to during the summer months, they dont last long. SO every year they stock the fish there to give fisherman the impression of fishing a beautiful natural mountain river, that in reality is not doing well because of evaporation and heating that occurs from that lake.
 
The false concern expressed by the shabby article posted is an example of how shallow their worry over whales really is. That is the tragedy. Whales, for the article's author, are only important as a tool for mockery.
 
This pretty much says it all. Basically they don't know what's causing the whale deaths but they don't like alternative energy so they are blaming that because they can.

Screenshot_20230201-173935.png
 
why would surveying kill whales?
The correlation is speculative, but if the wind companies are doing seismic soundings then they could be damaging the whales' hearing. This testing also can kill all the zooplankton that these mammals feed on for up to a mile, per test. This is the same problem with research for off-shore oil and gas drilling rigs.
 
Meanwhile, entire habitats around the world are being destroyed by fossil CH4 and CO2 emissions... Hmmm.

Whales are injured by (illegal) fishing, getting caught in nets (often discarded nets), noise (often fossil fuel surveying) and boat collisions.

I am sure that the fixed foundations of offshore wind will do them in.
Whales are injured and killed by legal fishing as well. There was recently a big "hubub" about it over the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery.
 
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Whales are injured and killed by legal fishing as well. There was recently a big "hubub" about it over the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery.
Yup and it’s 100% accurate. The lobster fishery is huge to ME and I understand that however their claims that the traps line are not killing the Right whale in particular is BS. There has been repeated examples of both Right and Humpback being entangled especially in their mouths preventing feeding. The state gov of course is behind the lobster fishery all the way but here is the thing, there are traps used today elsewhere that would eliminate the ropes that go from the surface all the way to the ocean bottom. Sure it’s costs some money but like many industries these days, evolve or die that is the choice.
 
Yup and it’s 100% accurate. The lobster fishery is huge to ME and I understand that however their claims that the traps line are not killing the Right whale in particular is BS. There has been repeated examples of both Right and Humpback being entangled especially in their mouths preventing feeding. The state gov of course is behind the lobster fishery all the way but here is the thing, there are traps used today elsewhere that would eliminate the ropes that go from the surface all the way to the ocean bottom. Sure it’s costs some money but like many industries these days, evolve or die that is the choice.
Funny you bring this up, I was just talking to Dr. Beal today! If you ask anyone in the lobster industry, magically gear belonging to Maine lobster crews doesn't get entangled with the whales, just Canadian gear... For my college term I'm working on a short film about the clam fishery here in Downeast, but long term I want to make a longer film about the entire shellfish industry, lobster included.
 
Discarded fishing nets are a huge problem. Finally, a local solution has been developed under the leadership of the amazing Nicole Baker. This has spread to the Alaskan fishing industry and now she is in Florida working to setup fish net and plastics recycling programs there. Her eventual goal is to make this a worldwide recycling program for the fishing industry. To learn more, and maybe donate? go to www.netyourproblem.com.

Meanwhile in Hawaii:
 
Funny you bring this up, I was just talking to Dr. Beal today! If you ask anyone in the lobster industry, magically gear belonging to Maine lobster crews doesn't get entangled with the whales, just Canadian gear... For my college term I'm working on a short film about the clam fishery here in Downeast, but long term I want to make a longer film about the entire shellfish industry, lobster included.
Yeah the lobster industry in ME has evolved somewhat but the BS they spout about it’s all Canada’s fault is plain wrong. I have dove off a number of locations on the coast and have at times come across lobster lines and it resembles a kelp like forest off Monterey. No wonder the whales get entangled. I know there a few lobster fisherman “experimenting” with the newer style traps that come up off the ocean floor at a press of a button, no hanging ropes. Here is Snowcone, she likely died recently off the GA coast and her offspring likely will die too without a mother.

EC5CD370-CD22-4439-B3AD-2D33D9696EBD.png



Discarded fishing nets are a huge problem. Finally, a local solution has been developed under the leadership of the amazing Nicole Baker. This has spread to the Alaskan fishing industry and now she is in Florida working to setup fish net and plastics recycling programs there. Her eventual goal is to make this a worldwide recycling program for the fishing industry. To learn more, and maybe donate? go to www.netyourproblem.com.

Meanwhile in Hawaii:
Nicole is bloody brilliant IMHO. I read about her a while back and she is doing so much good while working with the fishermen. This is the way to go, work together for a better solution than pointing fingers and laying blame.

As for the original posting about sea turbines and such, I don’t believe there is enough facts on whether it harms or not. Whereas the Navy has ample facts their testing has and still does harm whales, porpoises and other wildlife. They try to be careful and avoid but I doubt we know how far underwater their testing travels, we can guesstimate but only a whale truly knows. Fun fact or odd one is the Navy does a lot of their acoustic testing in an Idaho lake, not the ocean!
 
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I've read about the ropeless gear, but it's hard to get such an entrenched industry to change. Most lobster fishers I've met don't even want to talk about it!
 
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The pols have gone from being balloon experts to whale experts.
 
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Huh. I wonder if it could be related to the giant wild animal pandemic that is going on right now all arond us and over our heads:


Bird flu is bad. Not a lot of evidence of mammal to mammal transmission, yet. It has spread across a mink farm in Holland (worrying bc mink immune systems are molecularly similar to humans). But it looks like lots of animals with bird contact (including sea mammals) are coming down with it.

And compared to Covid (which did not have an animal reservoir spreading the virus around the world and pooping it on our heads) the death rate in many mammals that manage to get infected is well over 20%.

The 1918 'Spanish' flu pandemic also started from an avian flu, that jumped to humans at a chicken farm in Kansas, and then spread to a nearby army base. And ofc we now raise about 20X as much chicken as we did then, and are culling and burning the sick birds as fast as we can.

And yet the news is filled with chinese balloon and UFO stories, and not covering the great wild animal and chicken pandemic of 2023.

Welcome to the "pandemicene".
 
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It's political posturing. There was not a peep about off-shore oil exploration and their sonic testing at that time. Not to mention the US Navy's testing of high-powered sonar and its effects.

Meanwhile, this is having a direct effect on the marine environment off the Atlantic coast.
 
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