US Coastal Communities Push Back Against Windfarms, As More Whales Are Found Dead On Beaches
As dead whales wash up on beaches in the USA, the public are increasingly pushing back against the offshore wind industry.
It’s a mammoth battle - the wind industry wields immense influence over governments and investors, while peddling a very successful public relations campaign, focusing on its dubious ‘green’ credentials and promises of community benefits.
But now, as people begin to see first hand the environmental impact of the wind industry, they are waking up to the massive damage that it leaves in its wake.
Warning signs from the UK…
In 2017 alone, more than 1000 cetaceans (whales, porpoises, dolphins) washed up dead or dying on beaches around the UK.
It was an unprecedented number.
‘Baffled’ scientists pondered on the reason for this catastrophic mortality event, and theories for the demise of these magnificent creatures ranged from Royal Navy sonar noise to ship strike and plastic pollution, all of which may contribute to whale deaths - but none of which alone could satisfactorily explain the huge increase in numbers.
For many environmentalists like myself, (though not the ones caught up in the green dream machine), it seemed that there might be an obvious correlation between the rapid proliferation of wind farm construction around the British coast and the whale strandings. One that at least needed to be explored and debated. But in spite of the fact that we already know there is a link between manmade ocean noise and disorientating deafness in whales, the wind industry’s public relations machine quickly quashed rumours that they were to blame - and the UK public bought into the deceit.
It’s not only cetaceans - sea birds and migrating bats are being slaughtered by the offshore turbines, out of sight and apparently out of mind.
The sea around the UK is already filled with more than 2,500 giant turbines, and the UK government plans to install an additional 3,200 by 2030. It’s a nightmarish vision.
Yet the public here gaze out to sea, smiling inanely, as if mesmerised by the sight of all the destruction.
And even in plain sight, a dead whale on a UK beach doesn’t appear to resonate with onlookers. It’s an odd thing. Why do the British public blindly accept this?
Perhaps because the wind industry in the UK is seen as ‘green’ and a benevolent giver of charity; many wind projects come with the offer of donations, modest community grants designed to pacify locals - a Trojan horse trick that seems to work well in the UK where the public has been won over by the promise of a small injection of cash to local community ventures.
This should be a warning to communities in the USA, not to be ‘bought’ in the same way.
US coastal communities lead the way in opposing the wind industry…
It might be too late for the UK, where massive banks of turbines already blight the horizon, seascapes changed forever, marine ecosystems mortally damaged.
But is the tide turning in the US? It seems to be….
I wrote an article recently, warning of the imminent threat to marine ecosystems from offshore wind. Although it focused on the UK, it very quickly made the news in the USA - where thousands of people are already very worried about proposed developments off their coast. US citizens are keen to hear about the impact offshore wind has already had in the UK. The difference is that US local communities seem to be less hoodwinked by the ‘greenwash’ and more interested in the environmental catastrophe that might result from industrial development of the ocean.
Communities fight back…
Now, as offshore wind companies carry out exploration in the seas around the NE United States, ahead of construction, dead and dying whales are being washed ashore in increasing numbers. And the public are rightly suspicious, making the connection between the wind industry and the dead whales - something that never really happened in the UK, where any suggestion of a link was quickly extinguished by authorities and ‘experts’, some of whom are, just maybe, beholden to the industry.
So there is hope. While the UK continues to blindly follow the money, at the expense of the environment, communities in the US are pushing back, asking questions, making connections. Less naive perhaps than their British cousins, and less inclined to be bought off by cynical charitable donations and ‘green’ spin, US coastal communities are coming together, to save the whales and the wider environment.
More power to them.
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