Right-wing groups sue US over offshore wind impact on whales

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Reuters

March 18, 2024 3:25 PM EDT


March 18 (Reuters) - Three right-wing groups sued the Biden administration on Monday over its approval of a wind project off the coast of Virginia, alleging it failed to consider the facility's impacts on endangered whales.

The federal lawsuit filed by the Heartland Institute, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and National Legal and Policy Center seeks to stop the construction of Dominion Energy Inc's (D.N) Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project pending a new federal analysis of risks to the North Atlantic right whale by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

Developing offshore wind power is a major part of President Joe Biden's strategy to decarbonize the U.S. power sector to fight climate change. Both Heartland Institute and CFACT have rejected the mainstream science showing that climate change is driven by human use of fossil fuels. They have also criticized offshore wind as expensive and unreliable.

The groups' lawsuit alleges that the NMFS analysis, known as a biological opinion, did not adequately consider the combined impacts of all the offshore wind projects planned along the Atlantic coast on the right whale population.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/right-wing-groups-sue-us-over-offshore-wind-impact-whales-2024-03-18/

[Gore1FL]

1. I am trying to figure out why a windmill above the ocean would hurt a whale.

Are they worried about the "noise cancer" that TFG claimed was a thing with wind power?

[patphil]

9. Hey, we see how high whales can leap out of the water.

They'd be lacerated by the blades.

[Deuxcents]

2. I'd be interested in the science behind this suit. What is their proof?

[Diraven]

12. They have none

I think their whole argument is there's not enough evidence that wind turbines don't hurt whales. Like any legit scientist is going to do a study on a ridiculous hypothesis like that. Also you know what does hurt whales that lots of studies have been done on? Global warming.

[Deuxcents]

14. I agree about global warming..my point was they don't seem at all interested in science

But then file this kind of suit. Just trying to make sense of it..if there’s any sense to be had

[groundloop]

15. I have to wonder if this is funded by the fossil fuel industry.

[Think. Again.]

26. Gee, I wonder...

[Miguelito Loveless]

23. Well, you see...

the whales have an extensive portfolio of oil stocks.

[Think. Again.]

27. Well, the republicans certainly do.

[EarthFirst]

3. Republicans: Champions of endangered species preservation...

“Now; let’s log that old growth forest!”

[Ford_Prefect]

5. Let's pit mine that National monument. Let's toxic waste that headwater to a national basin.

[Basic LA]

4. "Nuke the Whales"

Was the bumper sticker right-wingers would use to own the libs, back in the day.
To pretend they give a damn now--just to strengthen the fossil fuel industry--is the ultimate in cynicism.

[mahina]

6. Bingo. On the noselani.

[markodochartaigh]

16. "Nuke the gay whales"

[DiverDave]

34. With herbicides.

That was a thing in the '80's in Oregon.

[patphil]

7. Yeah, right. Right wing groups don't care about whales; not even one bit.

It's the fossil fuel industry, and nuclear power industry that takes a hit if electricity generated by wind power is expanded.
That's what they're defending; that's where they've invested their money; that's where their profits come from.
Unlike huge power plants, wind power is something even relatively small companies can get involved in. There's no chance of monopolies with wind power.

[hunter]

36. Hybrid wind / gas power systems are a threat to coal generated electric power.

Wind energy by itself is no threat to the natural gas industry. Wind power will in fact only prolong our dependence on natural gas.

The natural gas industry knows this, and will promote wind energy in the same way the plastic industry has promoted plastic recycling all these years -- not because it will save the world, but as a distraction that makes people less disinclined to buy plastic.

As some kind of radical environmentalist I don't believe we can save the world by putting even more of our trash in the ocean or on previously undeveloped land.

I'm not siding with the Heritage Foundation. They oppose this as a threat to the coal industry, which it is, and as a way of mocking liberals.

Personally, I see these wind turbines as the bargaining stage of the grief we feel for the natural environment we've destroyed. They won't bring it back, nor will they decrease the rate of destruction.

[Ford_Prefect]

8. You mean the Right Whales aren't taking a percentage?

Off shore wind has been in use for quite a while. This is a camel's nose suit. It has no merit. I wonder if the groups have standing to bring it?

[Earth-shine]

10. Remember when Trump said that wind turbines cause cancer?

They are obviously worried about whale cancer.

[Traildogbob]

11. I am certain

These right wing environmentalist (as believable as right wing Christian’s) will be suing the fossil fuel industries for oil spills in those whale infested waters, and plastic manufacturer's that have packed whales guts full of microplastics that are killing them.
God bless the whales, and thank you God for those environmental warriors out to save the whales.
And for sending Donald to lead the way to save the whales.

[Think. Again.]

29. Here, you can borrow this one...

[Traildogbob]

31. Thanks, hoped it was obvious.

[Think. Again.]

32. It's been a little touchy around here lately.

[Traildogbob]

33. Damn, I hear that!

[AllaN01Bear]

13. hem.

[NNadir]

17. I oppose wind turbines for quite a different reason.

My opposition is based on the fact that they're short lived and useless for addressing climate change, essentially a waste of money.

Since they are unreliable their only result is to entrench the use of dangerous fossil fuels.

One of the many places I recently made this argument is here:

2024's Unprecedented Terror At the Mauna Loa CO2 Observatory Continues.

...people lie to each other and to themselves but numbers don't lie...

The big lie people tell themselves and each other that these pixilated reactionary schemes, electric cars, solar cells, wind turbines, hydrogen blah, blah, blah is "doing something" about climate change. This is nonsense. That it is nonsense is clearly shown, again, by the numbers. The reactionary scheme of carrying on about so called "renewable energy" that led us here was never about climate change or any other environmental issue and the claim that it is is an afterthought. It was always about attacking the only realistic alternative to fossil fuels, nuclear energy.

The antinukes won and humanity, and in general, the rest of the biosphere lost.

I know these views of reality are not popular, but I'd rather be right than popular.

Have a nice day.

[lonely bird]

18. OK

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/nuclear-power-and-the-environment.php

[NNadir]

19. And the point is what?

Fossil fuel waste, aka "air pollution," according to a Lancet article I frequently link here, and is linked in the post about climate change, kills between 6 and 7 million people per year. It works out to about 19,000 people per day, more than Covid killed on its worst day.

It works out to about 800 deaths an hour.

I frequently ask people who wish to carry on insipidly about so called "nuclear waste" to show that in the nearly 70 year history of the generation and storage of used nuclear fuel to show that such storage has resulted in as many deaths as will result from fossil fuel waste in the next ten hours. To satisfy my challenge, I require a link to a reputable paper in the primary scientific literature.

I never get an answer from the antinukes I so challenge. They change the subject or slither away, but they don't answer.

I can make this challenge because I am intimately familiar with the primary scientific literature related to nuclear energy, having been accessing it for decades.

Covid on its worst day never killed 19,000 people in a single day.

Antinukes are much like antivaxxers with the caveat that antivaxxers have killed vastly fewer people.

Neither vaccines nor nuclear power need to be risk free to save lives. Nuclear power in particular does not to be risk free to be vastly superior to everything else. It only needs to be vastly superior to everything else, which it is.

One result of fetishes about so called "nuclear waste" over the far more dangerous problem of fossil fuel waste is climate change. People have been dying all over this planet from extreme heat. I lay responsibility for this vast death toll which is not covered in the Lancet article squarely at the feet of antinukes.

[lonely bird]

21. The point

Well, wind turbines have a lifespan of approximately 20 years. Coatings manufacturers are constantly developing new materials to protect blades from weather and erosion.

Nuclear plants in and of themselves have an extremely low carbon footprint. Nuclear plant power sources are much higher in CO2 emissions from mining and processing.

The point is that you get nothing for free and that nuclear power is not the answer by itself.

I lay the death toll squarely at the feet of humans.

[lonely bird]

25. Whatever

You are entitled to your opinion.

[NNadir]

28. I certainly am, since i worked very hard to develop it.

I didn't simply recite happy face dogma but rather embraced something called "data."

[DiverDave]

35. There is a reason its not

Popular. You are wrong.
And where should we start?
You just think throwing up our hands and saying "nothing works" is a viable option?
Yep, tell your oil industry paymasters nice try. But we can see right through your "well reasoned" argument against renewable power.

[CousinIT]

20. AS IF RW groups suddenly give a rat's ass about whales?

OH, the pretentious, contrived "concern" over that!

[mackdaddy]

24. Giant pinwheels will hypnotize the whales to swim off the edge of the flat earth!

What is so hard to understand about that, you heartless Libruls!

[Think. Again.]

30. Obviously the permit applications...

...went through the current environmental impact assessments.

If this group wants those assesments beefed up, they'll have to figure out a better strategy, but I seriously doubt that's their goal here.