Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
Saving birds from power lines, wind turbines?
By my count there are at least two dozen dead white storks in this photo taken in Saudi Arabia after they flew into the power lines — part of a wider problem in which millions of birds die every year by flying into obstacles put up by people.
This weekend, May 9-10, thousands of people around the world are marking a U.N.-backed “Migratory Bird Day” (yes, it’s a long day) with a theme about “Barriers to Migration” — such as buildings, wind turbines, power lines and fences.
It’s easy to see how birds might fly by accident into thin wires like those above south of Jeddah but harder to understand why they slam into enormous buildings — some, apparently, may be flying towards what they think is the safety of a tree and end up crashing into a window in which the tree is reflected.
And the blades of wind turbines spin at up to 200 km (125 miles) per hour, making them all but invisible.
“It is estimated that bird-strike due to collisions with man-made structures is responsible for the deaths of many millions of birds worldwide every year,” a statement from the organisers says.
And the obstacles come in addition to problems for birds such as clearing of forests or woodlands for farmland and desertification linked to climate change.
Among recommendations are siting power lines, communications masts, turbines etc away from migratory routes or out of valleys or wetlands where many birds congregate.
New clock ticks at sluggish U.N. climate talks
A curious thing is happening at a U.N. meeting in Bonn this week on a new climate pact – countries least interested in a deal such as OPEC members are doing more and more of the talking.
Organisers of the talks have set up a new ”Countdown to Copenhagen” clock in the main hall (above left) to try to spur the sluggish negotiations. It shows 248 days left until the talks in the Danish capital in December.
But in many ways it’s misleading because, as U.N. climate change chief Yvo de Boer pointed out at the start of the 11-day meeting on March 29, there are only 6 weeks of formal negotiations left to work out a new global response to climate change.
Delegate after delegate has spoken of a need to speed up the negotiations.
You might expect to hear more and more advocates of a deal to fight global warming passionately outlining innovative proposals – U.S. delegates have spoken warmly of a renewed commitment under President Barack Obama but without yet giving many details.
But in Bonn the countries most worried that a climate deal would damage their economies are talking more and more, compared to many past meetings I’ve been to.
Saudi Arabia (which won a “Fossil of the Day” award from environmentalists on Wednesday for the delegation they judge to be most obstructive) has repeatedly expressed worries in plenary meetings about side effects such as a loss of oil export revenues if the world shifts to renewable energy. Like Saudi Arabia, other oil exporters have also spoken at length.
Yes there’s a better way, to simply end the senseless debate over who can and/or should achieve this or that emissions reduction targets,–which is seeming as likely to be counterproductive to the goals of a new treaty– and place the emphasis of negotiations squarely into a global framework that will stimulate economic growth and reward those who achieve greater advances in sustainability; the worst case scenario of the scientific consensus should be THE reference, and it probably is making sense now to also account for the likely-hood that global warming/climate change impacts will be felt with increasing escalation of severity over the term of the new treaty rather than a predictable course; … many, if not virtually all of the oil exporting countries have gained extreme wealth and so they are in a position to spearhead new tech. to measurably cancel out at the minimum, the current impacts of fossil fuels extractions and consumption, and if they achieve this their main economic drivers need not be negatively impacted by a very strong and forceful treaty, in fact how much they may end up benefiting becomes up to them!
Vertical axis wind turbine is better performance than horizonal one in protecting birds. However this is difficult to avoid in current technology. A new radar device is testing for saving birds but it is just a testing product.