Feldheim village near Berlin, Germany.

H/T The GWPF

Consider the uproar that greets most kinds of environment-related proposals that even might have a negative impact on any sort of wildlife. Then wonder at what the wind industry has so far been allowed to get away with. Does the pushback stand a chance in the face of current climate change mythology?

The ban on killing endangered species is turning into an ‘absolute obstacle to planning’ new wind farms in Germany, says Die Welt.

Now, the wind lobby wants to water down conservation laws protecting endangered species. The wind power industry can hardly erect any new turbines because of a flood of complaints.

The ban on killing endangered wildlife is turning into an “absolute obstacle to planning” – extrapolated death figures show that tens of thousands of birds are affected.

When the wind power industry presented its interim results at the end of July, the shock waves went far beyond the eco-electricity scene: in the first six months of the year, only 35 new wind turbines were added in Germany.

The German Wind Energy Association (BWE) actually considers it necessary to build more than 1400 turbines per year in order to achieve the national renewable energy targets by 2030.

The German government has been alarmed. It had just set itself the 65% target of renewable electricity by 2030.

Now wind energy, the most important driving force behind the green energy transition, is at risk of falling away just when young climate activists are dominating the headlines and citizens’ climate fears prove to be important for the election. Federal Economics Minister Peter Altmaier (CDU) has therefore convened a “wind energy summit” this Thursday.

The wind power industry has very precise ideas as to what this meeting must decide in order to get their business going again. Most wind farm projects fail because of complaints from forest and bird conservationists and the lack of permits under species protection law.

The ban on killing endangered wildlife under Section 44 of the Federal Nature Conservation Act has developed into an “absolute obstacle to planning” from the point of view of the industry. At Altmaier’s Wind Summit, the industry wants to remove this obstacle.

It is not often that an eco-industry, of all industries, demands that conservation laws should be softened. After all, the “Progress Study” already estimated in 2015 that the then 12,841 wind turbines in the North German study area were responsible for the deaths of 7865 buzzards, 10,370 ringed pigeons, 11,843 mallard ducks and 11,197 gulls within one year.

Victim numbers such as these happened although the nature conservation authorities had a say in the approval of the wind parks.

In view of the thousands of dead animals, one could conclude that the officials were not exactly overly strict. But that is exactly what the German Wind Energy Association claims.

Full article here.

via Tallbloke’s Talkshop

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September 5, 2019 at 10:19AM