Leading Bird Conservation Group Formally Petitions Feds to Regulate Wind Industry

[kristopher]

9. ABC might be unduly influenced by antirenewable interests.

Sourcewatch:

American Bird Conservancy (ABC) "is a 501(c)(3), not-for profit organization whose mission is to conserve native wild birds and their habitats throughout the Americas." [1]

"Among the major corporate partners that ABC has recently engaged with are the Mitsubishi Corporation Foundation for the Americas, Swarovski Optik, and ConocoPhillips." [2]

Mitsubishi is nuclear and Conoco is fossil.Others on the board include:
an executive from a major PR firm that specializes in social outreach and greenwashing corporate activities.
Martha Boudreau, serves as General Manager of Fleishman-Hillard’s Washington, DC office

V. Richard Eales, of Malvern, Pennsylvania, is currently Lead Director of Range Resources Corporation, an oil and gas exploration and production company.


http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Bird_Conservancy

As far as I know it was founded by a genuinely concerned bird lover, but it didn't register on the national scene until it started making hyperbolic attacks against renewable energy as a major threat to avian populations. The primary mission of the group undoubtedly is aimed at avian conservation. Wowever, with the corporate influences that have direct involvement in shaping the organization's policies, and given the disproportionate focus on the compartively damage from renewables relative to nuclear and fossil fuels, it seems prudent consider the possibility that they are really little more than a front group for a well crafted astroturfing campaign by the entrenched energy industry.

For example, here is one such assertion from the group and a response from the wind industry trade group the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

"Bird deaths from wind power are the new inconvenient truth. The total number of birds killed and the amount of bird habitat lost will dramatically increase as wind power build-out continues across the country in a rush to meet federal renewable energy targets."²
--Mike Parr, Vice President of the American Bird Conservancy


The Reality: Wind power is far less harmful to birds than the fossil fuels it displaces. Incidental losses of individual birds at turbine sites will always be an extremely small fraction of bird deaths caused by human activities.:

- Wind is the only source of energy that does not present population-level risks to birds, according to a study of coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric, and wind power. ³
- Wind turbines are estimated to cause less than three out of every 100,000 human-related bird deaths in the U.S., and will never cause more than a very small fraction no matter how extensively wind power is used in the future, the National Academy of Sciences found. 4
- Wind power causes far fewer losses of birds (approximately 108,000 a year) than buildings (550 million), power lines (130 million), cars (80 million), poisoning by pesticides (67 million), domestic cats (at least 10 million), and radio and cell towers (4.5 million). 5
- Non-renewable energy sources "pose higher risks to wildlife" than renewable sources. Coal - which wind directly replaces - "is by far the largest contributor" to wildlife risks. 6



¹ " Windmills Are Killing Our Birds," Robert Bryce op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, September 7, 2009
² "Bird Deaths from Wind Farms to Continue Under New Federal Voluntary Industry Guidelines," American Bird Conservancy press release, February 8, 2011
3 6 "Comparison Of Reported Effects And Risks To Vertebrate Wildlife From Six Electricity Generation Types In The New York/New England Region," New York State Research and Development Authority, March 2009
4 "Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects," National Academy of Sciences, 2007
5"A Summary and Comparison of Bird Mortality from Anthropogenic Causes with an Emphasis on Collisions," USDA Forest Service, 2005

AWEA has worked closely with environmental organizations as it has developed in an effort to ensure that their business practices