Wind turbines kill far fewer birds than domestic cats

Among Donald Trump's favorite topics, in addition to the deranged conspiracy theory according to which he won the last presidential elections, there is one that might surprise some:concerns wind turbines.

The last time it happened this week, during his testimony for the trial in which he is accused of fraud in New York City. Former US President Donald Trump he has long been known for his obsession with wind turbines, which led him to declare in court to “not be a windmill person”.The reason for Trump's aversion to these plants comes from afar, since he tried to stop a project for a wind farm in Scotland, near his property, in a legal battle against the Scottish government which he lost in 2015, shortly before becoming President.

In recent months, the current Republican candidate has continued to attack this enemy like a new Don Quixote.Recently, for example, he associated the noise of the shovels to the increase of cancer among those who live nearby, and then argue that the shovels somehow make "crazy” the whales.But above all, the worried former president often repeats, these plants kill people birds.En masse.According to Trump, there would be the basis of any wind farm a cemetery of birds, which he finds to be “very sad.”

It is a very common refrain in our area too, even if the national variant seems to accuse wind turbines of "deface the landscape”, as “our” Vittorio Sgarbi has been doing for years now.The final goal is always the same:delegitimize these plants by presenting them as having a major impact on the environment.If you look at the data, however, the reality seems to be different and the news of the role of wind energy in the death of birds grossly exaggerated, to quote an old quip attributed to Mark Twain.This is not to say that wind turbines are not responsible for the death of birds, let's be clear, just that if we really want to take care of the health of birds we should have other priorities I respect wind power.

Let's start with the data to get an idea of ​​the overall picture.According to a study cited from the MIT Climate portal, in fact, Every year between 140 thousand and 679 thousand birds die due to wind turbines (the updated numbers are from about ten years ago, today they could be higher).There are many, there is no doubt about that.

As mentioned, however, wind turbines are not exactly the only structures that birds tend to crash into: the impact with buildings it would generally be the cause of the death of 988 million birds a year, for example.Not to mention the enormous damage done by domestic cats, responsible for a silent massacre that costs the lives of between 1.3 and 4 billion birds per year.69 percent of the latter would be attributable to stray cats.But that's not all:another 200 million specimens would die every year due to cars and various vehicles.The weight given to wind power in this phenomenon is therefore interesting, especially if we consider them the damage caused by fossil fuels:coal mining, for example, causes deforestation and therefore the disappearance of entire ecosystems essential for many bird species.And then there are the consequences ofpollution and gods climate changes in general, which has an impact on the entire environment.

This obviously does not mean that the problem of wind turbines does not exist and should not be addressed:Fortunately, some experiments have shown that it is possible to make wind turbines more visible, painting one blade of each blade black.With this method bird deaths are decreased by approximately seventy percent.

That of wind turbines that make noise and mostly exterminate birds therefore has every appearance of being a bogeyman thought to defame a clean and sustainable energy source (besides continuously increasing).The numbers actually tell a completely different story, in which they are fossil fuels and their supply chain to be the main risk factor for these animals.But all this – strangely – does not seem to worry Trump.