Tag: wildlife

Wrong, Los Angeles Times, Climate Change Is Not Turning Nature into a Horror Movie

The Los Angeles Times (LAT) claims in “Killer mosquitoes, rabid bats and bear attacks: Climate change is making eco-horror feel real” that climate change is the common denominator behind a spate of rabid bats attacks, mosquito-borne illnesses, dangerous wildlife encounters, rattlesnake bites, hiker deaths, and flooding in California in 2026. These claims are pure hyperbole and demonstrably false.

The evidence shows these hazards have different causes and trends, and the LAT provides no trend analysis or attribution evidence demonstrating that climate change caused the collection of 2026 incidents. In lieu of science, the LAT stitched together a fictional eco-horror story.

A satirical infographic titled 'Climate Change: Nature Strikes Back!' featuring various animals and environmental concerns related to climate change, presented as a horror movie theme. The image highlights issues like rabid bats, hungry bears, killer mosquitoes, and apocalyptic floods, alongside advice for safety and climate awareness.
AI generated by ChatGPT

From ClimateRealism

By Anthony Watts

A frightened woman in the foreground reacting to various threats, including a bear, snake, and insects, with a newspaper headline about climate change-related dangers in the background.

The Los Angeles Times (LAT) claims in “Killer mosquitoes, rabid bats and bear attacks: Climate change is making eco-horror feel real” that climate change is the common denominator behind a spate of rabid bats attacks, mosquito-borne illnesses, dangerous wildlife encounters, rattlesnake bites, hiker deaths, and flooding in California in 2026. These claims are pure hyperbole and demonstrably false. The evidence shows these hazards have different causes and trends, and the LAT provides no trend analysis or attribution evidence demonstrating that climate change caused the collection of 2026 incidents. In lieu of science, the LAT stitched together a fictional eco-horror story.

The article begins with a grab bag of frightening events: “Rabid bats and rattlesnakes. Mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus and dengue fever. Increased bear and mountain lion attacks. A summer full of tragic hiker deaths.” After acknowledging that development, increased outdoor recreation, and diminished awareness of wildlife dangers have contributed to these incidents, the LAT nevertheless declares that they share a single “common denominator. Climate change.”

That is opinionated assertion, not factual scientific attribution.

As Climate at a Glance explains, weather occurs over days, months, and individual seasons, while climate is measured over much longer periods, conventionally 30 years. A collection of unusual California events during 2026 does not establish a climate trend.

Consider the article’s most dramatic example, rabid bats. Los Angeles County really has experienced an unusual increase, with 69 rabid bats reported by late September. But the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health says something the LAT neglected to mention: although rabies in bats has increased in recent years, “the reason behind this increase remains unknown.” Public Health also estimates that fewer than 1 percent of healthy bats carry rabies.

If the public health agency actually monitoring rabies says the cause of the increase is unknown, on what scientific basis does the Times declare climate change the common denominator?

There is another obvious factor the article briefly acknowledges and then largely ignores: people.

California’s population and developed areas have expanded enormously over the past century. Houses, roads, businesses, recreation areas, and suburbs increasingly occupy what was once wildlife habitat. More people also hike, camp, mountain bike, walk dogs, and otherwise recreate in areas inhabited by bears, bats, coyotes, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, and other wildlife. More overlap naturally creates more opportunities for encounters.

California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife says precisely this. The agency states that “as our human population expands into wildlife habitat, human-wildlife interactions have increased.” It also says encounters with black bears resulting in human injury remain rare.

That is a direct observation, with no further “climate change” explanation required.

The bear data makes the LATs’ narrative even shakier. California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates the state’s black bear population at between 49,000 and 71,000 and reports that it has been stable for the past decade. The agency says high bear densities can occur around urban areas where unsecured food is available, and identifies garbage and other human food sources as important causes of bears becoming habituated to people. So, a human cause, poor trash and food management, just not climate change.

Climate Realism has documented the same phenomenon elsewhere: expanding human populations, development in bear habitat, growing bear populations in some regions, unsecured garbage, and intentional or accidental feeding can all increase encounters without climate change being the cause.

Mosquitoes provide an even better example of the LATs reaching for climate change when more immediate causes are buzzing right under its nose. Mosquitoes require water to complete their life cycle, and many species thrive in standing water around human habitation. Buckets, flowerpots, clogged gutters, birdbaths, neglected pools, rain barrels, tires, toys, and countless other containers can become breeding sites.

Los Angeles County Public Health’s advice during this year’s West Nile outbreak is straightforward: eliminate standing water where mosquitoes breed. The county notes that mosquitoes can reproduce in very small quantities of water and specifically recommends emptying containers, cleaning pools, draining water from pool covers, and removing other sources.

Recent Los Angeles weather supplied plenty of that opportunity and it was primarily driven by moisture from Hurricane Marie in early September 2026, which brought up to an inch of rain, powerful surf, and coastal flooding.

Ironically, the LAT itself reported in February that major rainfall in December and early February created what local vector-control officials described as ideal mosquito-breeding conditions. Mosquitoes were found breeding in people’s backyards at unusually high levels after the rains.

In other words, rain fell, water accumulated, temperatures warmed, mosquitoes reproduced, and a lot of standing water was not eliminated. The climate hadn’t changed but the amount of standing water and thus breeding conditions had. That’s weather and vector control, not proof of climate change.

The Times’ own reporting this month attributes part of the current mosquito problem to extraordinary humidity associated with El Niño conditions. El Niño is a naturally occurring ocean-atmosphere cycle and a major source of year-to-year weather variability. Once again, not evidence of a climate change link.

Nor is 2026’s West Nile outbreak unprecedented. Los Angeles County currently reports 135 infections this year. That’s serious, but the county recorded 268 cases in 2017, 300 in 2015, 218 in 2014, and 309 in 2004. A bad mosquito season is not evidence by itself of a worsening climate trend.

Climate change can affect vector-borne disease risks, but even the IPCC notes that disease transmission is primarily a function of built environments, urbanization, population mobility, lack of vector control, human behavior, and other ecological factors. The IPCC also discusses the fact that some already hot areas, area’s where malaria bearing mosquito populations are viable, may become too hot for their continued habitation.

Climate Realism has similarly documented how international travel, transportation, urbanization, water management, mosquito-control practices, and human behavior complicate simplistic claims that climate change is responsible whenever mosquito-borne disease increases.

Also, as detailed in Chapter Four of Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels, the vast body of scientific literature refutes the LATs’ claim that climate change has been exacerbating the spread of mosquito borne diseases.

Studies from Africa, to England and Wales, to North and South America, to Thailand and beyond refute any link between climate change and the spread of malaria, Dengue fever, West Nile virus, and other vector-borne diseases. For example, a 2010 study in the peer-reviewed journal Nature reports, “[The study’s authors] compared historical and contemporary maps of the range and incidence of malaria and found endemic/stable malaria is likely to have covered 58% of the world’s land surface around 1900 but only 30% by 2007.” Clearly, malaria has become less prevalent and deadly as the climate has warmed.

The rattlesnake argument is weaker still. Three tragic California snakebite deaths during an unusual season are anecdotes, not a climate trend. Warm weather can certainly bring snakes and people outdoors earlier, increasing opportunities for encounters, but establishing that fact is not the same as demonstrating a long-term climate-driven increase in fatal snakebites. There is no sustained trend in the data of snake bite incidences corresponding to long-term modest warming.

The same logical problem appears with hikers. Hot weather can be dangerous, and long-term warming can increase heat exposure. But an individual hiking death can involve temperature, hydration, preparation, physical condition, route choice, time of day, experience, access to rescue, and simple human error. The LAT does acknowledge in passing that the increased popularity of “amateur nature tourism” contributes to accidents. But that is not a minor detail, but is likely the largest contributing factor to more hiking accidents. More, often out of shape, people venturing into hot deserts and remote wilderness areas which they may not be familiar with inevitably creates more opportunities for emergencies. A count of hiking tragedies cannot be transformed into a climate trend without controlling for how many people are actually hiking, where they are hiking, and under what conditions.

Then there is flooding, which the Times confidently calls a “hallmark of the warming planet’s increasingly extreme weather.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report concludes there is generally low confidence in attributing changes in the probability or magnitude of flood events to human influence, because flooding depends on numerous factors including rainfall, soil moisture, land-cover change, river management, drainage, and development. The IPCC explicitly warns in chapter 11 that attributing changes in heavy precipitation to human influence cannot simply be translated into attribution of flooding.

Climate at a Glance’s California state climate assessment also reports little overall change in statewide annual precipitation since 1900 and no long-term increase in extreme precipitation in its analysis.

Urban development further complicates the picture. Pave formerly absorbent ground, build in floodplains, expand roads and parking lots, alter drainage, and put more expensive property in vulnerable areas, and flood damages increase without requiring a corresponding increase in the underlying meteorological hazard. The logic is pretty simple, more people moving to and developing more property in areas with wildlife or prone to weather extremes results in more damage when animal encounters or disasters occur.

This is the basic mistake repeated throughout the article.

More people living along the wildland-urban boundary means more opportunities to encounter bears, bats, coyotes, mountain lions, and snakes. More people hiking and camping means more opportunities for wildlife encounters and outdoor accidents. Rain followed by uncontrolled standing water creates mosquito habitat. Garbage and pet food attract bears. International travel can transport pathogens. Urban development alters drainage and puts more people and property in harm’s way.

These are direct causes of the issues raised in the article.

Yet the LAT takes bats, mosquitoes, rattlesnakes, bears, mountain lions, hikers, floods, and even COVID-19 and staples the words “climate change” across the entire collection.

The LAT does raise legitimate public-health issues. Rabies is deadly. West Nile virus can kill. Rattlesnakes deserve respect and distancing. Bears should not be fed or approached. Hiking in extreme heat can be dangerous. Inclement weather can cause harm. And all of these things have been, are, and likely will be problems, regardless of long-term climate change.

Ignoring this fact, the LAT concludes ominously that if humans continue to ignore experts, “nature will correct the course on its own terms.” They could channel The Wizard of Oz and say: Mosquito’s, and bats, and bears, oh my! That’s a great line for an eco-horror movie but it’s lousy science journalism.

Nature isn’t staging a revolt against humanity. The LAT is simply staging a clickbait style horror story for its readers, and calling it climate science. That’s probably why it is listed as being in the paper’s entertainment section, because it is pure fiction.

Wind Ecology Pushback (biodiversity loss joins the list)

“A growing body of research illustrates that the effects of utility-scale wind energy production can be far reaching and some times have large and unexpected consequences for biodiversity. Furthermore, achieving renewable energy targets will require converting large areas of land to support wind power . . . often located in remote and high-biodiversity areas.”

From The Master Resource

By Robert Bradley Jr.

“A growing body of research illustrates that the effects of utility-scale wind energy production can be far reaching and some times have large and unexpected consequences for biodiversity. Furthermore, achieving renewable energy targets will require converting large areas of land to support wind power . . . often located in remote and high-biodiversity areas.” (- Nature Reviews Biodiversity, below)

MasterResource has long given voice to the ecological problems of industrial wind power, onshore and offshore, including:

Wind vs. Ecology in Australia (Nick Cater reports) (October 18, 2024)

Industrial Wind vs. Deep Ecology: Surface Impacts (January 16, 2024)

Industrial Wind Plants: Bad Economics, Bad Ecology (Jon Boone: October 24, 2009)

Vineyard Wind: Catastrophic Failure (‘sharp fiberglass shards’ close Nantucket beaches) (July 18, 2024)

Offshore Wind: Ecologists Tip-Toe into the Negatives (August 23, 2022)

Wind Turbines and Birds: Latest from the American Bird Conservancy (June 14, 2021)

Add to the literature an article recently published in Nature Reviews Biodiversity, “Impacts of Onshore Wind Energy Production on Biodiversity” (September 8, 2025). Todd E. Katzner et al. wrote:

ABSTRACT

Wind is increasingly used as a renewable source of energy worldwide. However, harvesting wind energy can have negative consequences for biodiversity. In this Review, we summarize the growth of onshore wind power, its impacts on species and ecosystems, and how those impacts are assessed and mitigated.

Across the construction, operation and decommissioning stages, wind facilities are associated with wildlife fatality and behavioural change as well as alteration, loss and fragmentation of terrestrial and aerial habitat. These negative consequences can be mitigated by avoiding construction of wind turbines at sensitive sites, detecting and deterring wildlife, curtailing turbines to reduce fatalities, and replacing lost habitats.

Uncertainty about wildlife populations and their demographic parameters, the rate and extent of build-out of onshore wind energy, and best practices for mitigation, as well as variability in regulatory requirements by country or region, all contribute to the difficulty of predicting the consequences of this technology for biodiversity. Scenario-based modelling that incorporates population- and community-level consequences to biodiversity from varying degrees of wind energy development — including the cumulative effects of multiple facilities — is key to addressing this uncertainty.

Key Points

  • Wind energy is a growing source of electrical power, but it can have negative effects on biodiversity.
  • Asia has the most wind energy, followed by Europe and then the USA; the rest of the world supports <10% of installed capacity of wind energy.
  • Biodiversity impacts from wind energy can occur at all stages of a wind facility’s life cycle — including planning, construction, operation and decommissioning.
  • Although fatalities are perhaps the best-known impact from wind turbines, turbines can also alter the behaviour of wildlife and cause loss, alteration and fragmentation of habitat.
  • Mitigation of these impacts can include strategically placing turbines to avoid negative interactions (avoidance), encouraging wildlife to steer clear of turbines (deterrence) and replacing animals or habitats lost to turbines (compensation).
  • Despite many uncertainties regarding wind energy’s impacts, the available evidence can inform scenario-based modelling to assess both the consequences of this energy source for biodiversity and how its implementation compares to potential impacts from climate change.

Introduction Excerpts

Given the risks to wildlife and that the regulatory implications of wildlife fatalities can impede or restrict efforts to construct and operate wind power facilities, attention has turned to identifying ways to mitigate harmful effects.

Actions such as informed macro- and micro-scale siting of wind power facilities, curtailment (suspending turbine operations when activity is highest for vulnerable species), detection and deterrence of volant (flying) wildlife, and compensatory mitigation measures (offsetting negative effects via restoration or protection in other areas) aim to reconcile biodiversity conservation and energy production. However, these tools have been applied inconsistently.

A growing body of research illustrates that the effects of utility-scale wind energy production can be far reaching and some times have large and unexpected consequences for biodiversity. Furthermore, achieving renewable energy targets will require converting large areas of land to support wind power facilities, and new wind facilities are often located in remote and high-biodiversity areas.

In the face of an ongoing biodiversity crisis, understanding the impacts across the extensive land areas required for wind turbines demands a nuanced consideration of multiple factors that extend beyond ecology and draw from diverse fields, including economics, climate science and sociology.

For example, bat fatalities at wind turbines are rarely put into the context of economic losses caused by losing important ecosystem service providers. Impacts of wind energy on biodiversity are also rarely assessed in the context of net outcomes or scenario-based comparisons. Likewise, regulatory and political considerations often determine impacts of renewables on biodiversity, and a host of factors, including transboundary considerations, climate change denial, changing perceptions of the value of biodiversity and its protection, and economic considerations (that vary in developed and developing countries), all can influence perceptions of how wind turbines affect biodiversity.

Summary Excerpts
… Proponents of wind power often state that wind energy’s impacts on biodiversity will be less than the impacts of climate change. Although plausible, this assumption is untested.

One way to evaluate this assumption is through scenario-based modelling. Specifically, present conditions can be compared with counterfactuals (conditions different to those presently occurring) describing a range of levels of build-out resulting in different reductions of climate change and different consequences to biodiversity.

There are substantial uncertainties in such modelling and questions about its feasibility at the scale of individual wind facilities. However, highly informative efforts with similar levels of uncertainty have been implemented in the fields of climate change attribution, energy system modelling, cost–benefit analyses of different energy types, cost effectiveness for mitigation of avian fatalities, emergency conservation decisions, and even assessments of impacts to wildlife from renewable energy and from climate change. Such net impact assessments can be used to target mitigation efforts — whether at the species or ecosystem level — and to the necessary degree, thereby enhancing biodiversity conservation.

Taking this approach would allow continued growth of wind energy but also provide an additional context for protecting vulnerable ecosystems and species.

Postscript: Exchange with Eleanor Whittle

I had a Nature-Climate debate last week with Eleanor Whittle, a self-described advisor “on climate and nature-related risk, strategy, and decisions.” Her business byline is: “Nature is the blind spot in your climate strategy.” Fair enough. But when did not mention industrial wind and solar in a post, I commented: “Then don’t invest in industrial wind and solar, right?”

She asked: “… curious to understand how you drew that conclusion from what we said?” I responded with more detail:

The landscape/living space is violated much more with wind and solar (and biomass) than from the stock energies.

“The greenest fuels are the ones that contain the most energy per pound of material than must be mined, trucked, pumped, piped, and burnt. [In contrast], extracting comparable amounts of energy from the surface would entail truly monstrous environmental disruption…. The greenest possible strategy is to mine and to bury, to fly and to tunnel, to search high and low, where the life mostly isn’t, and so to leave the edge, the space in the middle, living and green.”

– Peter Huber, Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists (New York: Basic Books, 1999), pp. 105, 108.

She responded:

That quote is from 1999 and the reality and technology has changed drastically since then. Energy density has improved massively for renewables and e.g. wind is among the cheapest sources of energy there is. That quote is also scientifically inaccurate because those activities it mentions don’t only happen where “life mostly isn’t” – for example oil and gas extraction heavily target areas such as the Gulf of Mexico and the Niger Delta which are both extremely important regions for biodiversity. The quote also completely ignores the climate cost of those activities, which in turn exacerbates the degradation of nature and landscapes.

So no, we are absolutely not saying you shouldn’t invest in wind and solar. But of course investments need to be looked at through both a climate and nature lens to avoid unintended damage to natural habitats.

Bradley: “You misread the quotation. Much oil and gas infrastructure is below ground–wind and solar are above ground. And the average capacity factors of wind and solar are around 20 percent to 40 percent. Same with its transmission (adding to sprawl and blight). There are reasons why more than 1,100 wind, solar, and battery projects have been delayed or abandoned in the US alone. The quotation stands.

Whittle: “I didn’t misread the quote. It is more than 25 years old and is scientifically inaccurate and a misrepresentation of the reality. You argue that nothing happens on the surface – what about mining? And you mention transmission – how do you think oil and gas gets moved from A to B?” Going ad hominem, she continues:

I think it’s important to note that your organisation (Institute of Energy Research) gets funding from fossil fuel companies like Exxon, which is presumably a reason you don’t support renewables. The reason that renewables projects in the US have been delayed is because of divisive politics not because they are inherently unsustainable.”

Bradley: “Underground drilling and pipelines protect the surface area. Directional drilling can go for miles and capture multiple formations from one location. Same for offshore. Mining operations can be remediated. Industrial wind and solar are stuck on the surface for their entirety. This was true in the 1990s and is true today. The 1999 observation stands today.

The grassroots ‘divisive politics’ is because of the blight and sprawl of industrial wind and solar. ‘A machine in every pristine’ is the opposite of environmentalism, after all.

Wrong on the ‘guilt from association’. IER is a principled classical liberal organization that is fuel-and-technology neutral. Consumers decide with government neutral. We are pro consumer, taxpayer, freedom. And pro-environment vs. government-enabled wind and solar.”

Whittle: “The environmental and economic impact of energy systems isn’t determined by whether infrastructure is “above” or “below” ground. Oil and gas systems rely on extensive surface infrastructure — pipelines, roads, processing facilities — and carry well-documented environmental and climate risks. And many mining operations cannot be adequately remediated.

Reducing this to a visibility argument is a drastic oversimplification and ignores the full system impacts.

And if your organisation is funded by fossil fuel companies, it’s difficult to credibly claim to be “fuel and technology neutral” while consistently arguing against wind and solar, using outdated, qualitative information.”

Bradley: “Above ground is worse than below ground. Pipelines are below ground. This is a black mark against wind and solar, resources that are also very fragile to the elements.

This is an important variable. No, IER has thousands of donors that do not favor fossil-fuel subsidies any more than other explicit energy subsidies. IER is a principled, classical liberal organization. And no, the case against wind and solar is sound on economic and ecological grounds. The grassroot opposition to industrial wind and solar speaks for itself.

Ms. Whittle then stated rather lamely: “Let’s leave it there. If you want to spread misinformation on behalf of fossil fuel interests then you need more compelling arguments than ‘above ground is worse than below ground’.”.

Bradley: “First, I am not neither spreading misinformation nor arguing “on behalf of fossil fuel interests”. I am a classical liberal if you will understand what that is. And I take economics and ecology seriously.

Second, above ground vs, below ground is a very important distinction for your post on Nature and biodiversity. It is not the only point (I never said that–that is your escape argument to not defend wind and solar in this regard).

There is an extensive peer-reviewed literature on the ecological problems of industrial wind and solar. Are you familiar with it??

Final Comment

I am amazed that the “green” intelligentsia and lobby do not stop to consider what coating the living space with highly inefficient energy machines are doing to the environment. But the guilty are blinded by “climate change” and are too emotionally and professionally involved to break away. Can that change in the years ahead?

‘Eco-Friendly’ Energy Slaughtering Wildlife

Numerous studies by biologists and ornithologists are unequivocal in expressing rising concern about the slaughter of birds and other creatures by so-called eco-friendly technologies. Many of the researchers, while not opposed to the concept of alternative sources of energy, are dropping the pretense that wind and solar energy are benign.

From The CO2 Coalition

By Vijay Jayaraj

Numerous studies by biologists and ornithologists are unequivocal in expressing rising concern about the slaughter of birds and other creatures by so-called eco-friendly technologies. Many of the researchers, while not opposed to the concept of alternative sources of energy, are dropping the pretense that wind and solar energy are benign.

The fundamental flaw of these technologies is their low energy density. To generate the same amount of reliable electricity as a natural gas-fired generator or a nuclear power plant, thousands of acres of additional land are required by wind and solar. This is a matter of physics. Yet, in a rush to meet arbitrary “net zero” targets, the environment supposedly being protected is destroyed.

Wind and solar facilities devastate wildlife, destroy habitats, fragment ecosystems and leave ecological wreckage that extends far beyond what the green lobby cares to acknowledge. The narrative of politicians and well-heeled environmental NGOs – that wind and solar are the saviors of the natural world – is a lie. The data prove that these projects are not just displacing wildlife but are killing it on an industrial scale.

A shocking assessment reveals the extent of this encroachment. Wind and solar farms overlap with 2,310 threatened amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles globally. This accounts for 36% of the world’s threatened species. The “green” utopia is being built on the graves of the vulnerable.

A study analyzing the footprints of “renewable” energy projects found that 2,206 operational facilities had degraded 886 protected areas, 749 “key biodiversity areas” and 40 distinct wilderness areas. The researchers project a 30% expansion of this footprint as natural refuges are further industrialized.

Another study did an examination of 84 peer-reviewed studies of onshore wind installations, documenting 160 cases of species displacement affecting birds, bats and various mammalian species.

For the golden eagle, a symbol of wild majesty, the impact is death. In the western United States, documented mortalities more than doubled between 2013 and 2024, from 110 to 270.

An assessment of 42 African raptor species documented an 88% decline over a 20-40 year period. The study identified wind farms as a major factor. In China, the rush for wind power has resulted in a nearly 10% decline in overall bird populations following the construction of wind farms. In Changdao County, located on a critical migration route for 330 bird species, local communities reported reduced bird populations and increased pest activity. In a stunning admission of failure, 80 wind turbines were demolished to save the ecosystem.

Recent research shows that in humid regions, large-scale solar plants cause near-total vegetation collapse. The panels block the sun, altering the microclimate and leading to soil instability. Without the roots to hold the earth, foundation of the ecosystem is lost.

In desert ecosystems, localized alterations caused by solar arrays disrupt the growth cycles of plants and the lives of microorganisms that keep the desert healthy. In China, photovoltaic development has caused fragmentation and habitat loss across more than 2,100 square miles of agricultural, sandy and grassy areas.

Solar development on intact landscapes reduces species richness. Perimeter fencing creates impassable barriers, trapping animals and preventing the genetic flow necessary for healthy populations.

In the United States, solar energy alone is estimated to cause between 37,800 and 138,600 bird deaths annually. Why? Because from the air, vast fields of solar panels look like water.

A study from Poland confirms this “lake effect,” showing that photovoltaic farms attract waterfowl due to water-like reflections. These birds descend, expecting a cool lake, and instead crash into scorching glass. The study identified 70 bird species at risk across six sites, with high-collision risk concentrated within 650 feet of the installations.

A Mojave Desert tortoise, an ancient survivor of harsh conditions, is losing to the solar boom. From 2004 to 2014, the species experienced a 39% loss in population. Industrial-scale solar has destroyed approximately 100,000 acres of their habitat. We are evicting a species that has lived in the Mojave for millions of years to make room for panels that will be obsolete in 20.

We must stop the reckless expansion of low-density energy projects in valuable ecosystems. The “green” transition is running red with the blood of the creatures we are supposed to protect.

Originally published in The Blaze on March 27,  2026.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India. He served as a research associate with the Changing Oceans Research Unit at University of British Columbia, Canada.

A billion dollars worth of green groups join State suit to kill Trump’s no wind EO

Ten so-called environmental groups, including the biggest, have joined the lawsuit filed by a bunch of green States asking the Court to nullify the President’s Day-one executive order putting a hold on federal approvals of wind power projects. These big green groups love wind power.

From CFACT

By David Wojick

Ten so-called environmental groups, including the biggest, have joined the lawsuit filed by a bunch of green States asking the Court to nullify the President’s Day-one executive order putting a hold on federal approvals of wind power projects. These big green groups love wind power.

For those not familiar with the State lawsuit I wrote about it here.

It has long been known that some of the biggest green groups have abandoned environmentalism in favor of net zero industrialization. This time they were nice enough to list themselves, as follows:

NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council)

Citizens Campaign for the Environment

Conservation Law Foundation

Environmental Advocates NY (represented by Earthjustice)

Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)

Environmental Protection Information Center

National Wildlife Federation (NWF)

New York League of Conservation Voters

Sierra Club

Southern Environmental Law Center

Collectively these groups likely make over a billion dollars a year. Here are the rounded annual revenues of the big four: EDF – $320 million, NRDC – $250 million, NWF – $120 million, Sierra Club – $120 million.

Ironically, this action is supported by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF); see their press release here (which includes email addresses for each group).

NWF is the only group that is specifically about wildlife. The one certain harm from wind power is the annual killing of millions of birds and bats. Bird death estimates range as high as 1.7 million a year, with bat deaths up to 2.8 million. That is 4.5 million critters a year killed by wind power.

We presently have about 160,000 MW of wind power, which means over 50,000 turbines and 150,000 chopping blades with tip speeds of 200 mph or so. NWF thinks this is just fine and apparently supports the 230,000 more MW that have applied to be connected to the grid.

They even have a separate portal promoting offshore wind where the National Wildlife Federation says this: “Your voice is needed to advance American offshore wind power and begin a clean energy chapter that will reduce pollution, protect wildlife, and create jobs all along the coast.”

Protect wildlife? Offshore wind kills whales and other marine mammals, likely in large numbers.

The moral bankruptcy of big money environmentalism gets no clearer than this advocacy of big wind. I wonder if NWF’s lavish donors understand the ever growing scale of wind power’s wildlife carnage?

Getting back to the lawsuit, here is a typical big green take from the NWF press release:

““Wind power is a clean, reliable resource, with projects undergoing a well-established, science-based permitting process including robust environmental review and public input to ensure projects avoid, minimize, and mitigate impacts to wildlife and ecosystems. This legal challenge demonstrates a strong consensus that wind energy is an essential part of American energy independence, capable of delivering major environmental and public health benefits by reducing carbon emissions and improving air and water quality. The administration’s attacks on wind disregard both the legal framework and the scientific evidence behind these projects, threatening a clean, affordable, and reliable energy future,” said Jim Murphy, senior director of legal advocacy at the National Wildlife Federation.

Wind power is not clean, not affordable, and certainly not reliable. It is, however, deadly to millions of birds, bats, and marine mammals. No more of these deadly turbines should be allowed to be built.

Fears Over Massive Expansion in Electric Cables Due to Renewables as Great Indian Bustard Heads for Electrocution Extinction

There are growing fears that one of India’s iconic large birds, the great Indian bustard, is about to go extinct due to the growth of electric transmission lines in its home area of the Thar desert. Prioritising wind and solar power has led to a growth of transmission lines with the effect that the numbers of birds could have dropped to 150.

By CHRIS MORRISON

From The Daily Sceptic

There are growing fears that one of India’s iconic large birds, the great Indian bustard, is about to go extinct due to the growth of electric transmission lines in its home area of the Thar desert. Prioritising wind and solar power has led to a growth of transmission lines with the effect that the numbers of birds could have dropped to 150.

This is just the latest evidence that industrialising large areas of wildlife habitat is causing worrying losses to the population of large raptors and birds, bats and whales. Last October, the Daily Sceptic reported that wind farms in Tasmania have reduced the population of the endangered local wedge-tailed eagle to around 1,000 individuals. Large numbers of whales have beached along the U.S. east coast in recent years as offshore wind farm industrialisation has disrupted the migration, mating and feeding habits of some of the most endangered whale species in the world.

In 2021, a paper produced by the Wildlife Institute of India warned that the great Indian bustard was at “imminent risk of extinction due to power line mortality”. Mortality was said to be “positively related” to the number of wires. Many other large birds were said to be at risk, and the researchers found that around 50 birds die annually per kilometre of power lines in the Thar desert due to collision and electrocution.

According to the Wildlife Institute of India, over 100,000 birds of diverse species are killed each year as a result of electrocution from transmission lines connecting wind and solar to the grid. In 2022, two Spanish ecologists confirmed that electrocution on power pylons was a major cause of bird mortality worldwide, including for some severely endangered species. They noted that power lines were “not bio-diversity-friendly”. Prerna Singh Bindra, a wildlife conservationist and former member of the National Board for Wildlife, comments:

In recent years, the death blow to the great Indian bustard has come from unexpected quarters – the expanse of wind farms and power transmission lines that criss-cross its last remaining habitats… The question that needs to be asked is, how green is renewable energy when it leads to the extinction of a critically endangered species?

Of course that last question is the one question that will not be asked. Indeed on past evidence it will be studiously avoided and helpful messengers in the mainstream media will be easily persuaded that deaths are due to other factors such as ‘climate change’.

Bird and bat protection societies around the world are invariably in favour of green ‘sustainable’ wind and solar power, and they turn an almost blind eye to the mass slaughter by making mealy-mouthed safety suggestions. But of course the fact is that large raptors such as eagles and bustards rely on wind currents, as do gigantic wind turbines, and the two meet far too often. Worldwide, bustards are at particular risk from power cables due to the birds’ heavy weight, large wing span and limited manoeuvring ability.

The New York Times recently reported that electrocution isn’t the main thing killing birds along power lines. It was relaying the findings of a paper that said bullet fragments had been found in a number of dead birds lying under lines in four western states. Four hundred whales have been washed up on the eastern U.S. coastline since 2016, including nearly two dozen in the three months to February 2023.There is “no evidence” to support claims that industrial noise has impeded the whales ability to navigate and communicate, notes the New Scientist. The bulk of the strandings may have been caused by “changing ocean currents related to climate change”. Deafening rock-concert-grade sonar noise bouncing around hundreds of miles of ocean, constant pile-driving, massive ocean building works and heavy shipping movements have, of course, nothing to do with it – move along please, nothing to see here.

Nothing it seems must get in the way of the green industrial revolution. In California, the Democrat state Government recently relaxed controls on wildlife protections to allow permits to kill previously fully protected species for renewable energy and infrastructure projects.

Nothing is sacred and protected from the slaughter – even America’s national bird, the bald eagle. A typical green reaction came from the Audubon California Policy Director Mark Lynas who said we need renewable energy resources, and he did not want to see the eagle deaths “being used to push against clean energy”.

In addition to the large bird kill, wind turbines are estimated to chomp millions of bats around the world every year. Any concern for the depredation of wildlife, whether on or offshore has tended to focus on these huge blots on the land- and seascapes. But according to the International Energy Authority, achieving Net Zero means building 80 million kilometres of new and refurbished power lines within 17 years, equivalent to wrapping the Earth 2,000 times with new electricity grid capacity.

All these high voltage cables will be needed to benefit from the intermittent power produced by vast numbers of new wind turbines. To achieve Net Zero, the countryside will need to be blanketed with turbines and ubiquitous cables strung to bring the power to distant urban areas. Of course, as it becomes clearer by the day, Net Zero will not be achieved since the breezes and sunbeams are unreliable, so full stand-by gas turbines will have to be maintained.

It is possible that some other cheap and reliable back-up fuel will be discovered or invented in the next few years – and pigs might fly, although that would not be advisable across much of the future countryside.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.

Horrendous Number of Eagle Deaths From Wind Farms

From The Daily Sceptic

BY CHRIS MORRISON

Further devastating evidence of the toll that onshore wind turbines take on local eagle populations has emerged in Tasmania. The local Wedge-tailed eagle is thought to be down to just 1,000 individuals, but over the last 12 years at least 270 birds have been killed or injured in the vicinity of wind farms. According to a recent paper in Australian Field Ornithology, a further 49 vulnerable White-bellied sea eagles have also been killed in this period.

The scale of depredation is shocking but it could be much worse than reported. According to author Gregory Pullen, information about eagle deaths is not readily available, “nor readily made available”. His calculations arise from a number of primary sources including annual reports. He suggests that unrecorded casualties are higher since most are recorded anecdotally and are not the result of systematic survey. The Tasmanian sub-species of the Wedge-tailed eagle is listed as endangered under both federal and state threatened species legislation.

Large birds of prey such as eagles are at particular risk from giant wind turbine blades revolving at speed since they rely on air currents for sustained flight. The Daily Sceptic has covered this developing story, noting that few activists, bird conservation groups and writers seem able to rouse themselves to complain when the natural flight path of raptors stands in the way of green progress. The Australian climate journalist Jo Nova has stood out from the unquestioning crowd, noting that in Tasmania the greens are destroying nature – again. “It’s not about the environment is it,” she said. She went on to add that there are plans to build up to 10 wind turbine parks across Tasmania – “and if one tower misses, the next will get them”.

It’s not really about the environment over in California either, where America’s national bird, the bald eagle, and many other raptors face mass slaughter in the local wind farm avian graveyards. This follows the state Democrat-controlled legislature’s recent decision to relax controls on wildlife protections to allow permits to kill previously fully protected species for renewable energy and infrastructure projects. However, evidence continues to emerge that the slaughter has been going on for years. Last year, NextEra, one of America’s largest utility companies, was fined $8 million after 150 eagles were killed at its wind farms across eight states. According to the Golden Gate Audubon Society, a wind farm complex in Altamont has been killing 75-100 golden eagles every year since the 1980s.

The animal slaughter does not stop at large birds of course. A number of scientific studies have point to the destruction of millions of bats and smaller birds every year by turbine blades capable of travelling at the tip at speeds approaching 150mph.

Alas, it is not as if the deaths of these wildlife green martyrs are helping to produce much worthwhile economic activity. In the U.K., the small number of jobs being produced by green technologies is starting to be noticed. Gary Smith, the leader of Britain’s largest trade union, recently said that communities along the North Sea can see wind farms, “but they can’t point to the jobs”. Possibly exaggerating to make his point, he added that much of the green work seems to be either London-based lobbying or clearing away the animal casualties of wind farm blades. “It’s usually a man in a rowing boat, sweeping up the dead birds,” he observed.

Green activists are increasingly being caught between a rock and a hard place on these impact issues. It is becoming obvious that many of the green technology solutions proposed to replace fossil fuels come with heavy environmental costs. Whether it be open cobalt mining with child labour, or digging up vast quantities of the Earth’s crust to help construct second-rate solutions such as windmills, the terrible impact is all too obvious. At the moment the typical stance seems to be that voiced by Audubon California Policy Director Mark Lynas, who said we need renewable energy resources, and he did not want to see the eagle deaths “being used to push against clean energy”.

Another area where ecology fights are breaking out is on the east coast of America, where whales are beaching on the shores of New Jersey and New York in alarming numbers. In the first half of this year over 40 whales have died in this way. Large areas of the local ocean are being turned into industrial wind parks, with particular concern arising over 24-hour sonar soundings. The veteran environment campaigner Michael Shellenberger has said the massive offshore works are wreaking environmental damage in previously pristine waters. “It’s the biggest environmental scandal in the world,” he charges.

The waters off the U.S. east coast are important feeding and breeding grounds for large mammals such as whales and dolphins, including the rare North Atlantic right whale. Shellenberger has recently produced a documentary called Thrown to the Wind which presents evidence of whales hit by ships, and high decibel sonar that is said to separate mothers from their calves, sending them into harm’s way. The film shows environmentalists checking the sonar which is said to measure 150 dBs at sea – equivalent to about 90 dBs on land. The noise is a relentless drum beat that is said to pound across the ocean throughout the day and night. On land, the sonar noise would be equivalent to a hairdryer. For humans, prolonged noise much above 70 dBs may start to damage hearing.

The film makes the point that serious pile-driving to secure the giant turbines to the sea floor has yet to start in earnest. Once built there is a danger that the huge back wash created by the giant blades will disturb and kill off plankton, destroying the food supply for the whales.

It must be noted that many interested parties dispute the claims currently being made about wildlife in the new oceanic industrial parks springing up with generous subsidies from the Biden Administration. Both sides can marshal their arguments and evidence. But at the moment, the deck is rigged in favour of the green lobby. Fracking for oil and gas was banned in the U.K. with Friends of the Earth presenting evidence of local earthquakes similar in force to someone falling off a chair. It is more than likely that multiple eagle deaths would be enough to stop the operation of any oil and gas installation. Seemingly, it will take more than a mere rowing boat full of protected but very dead birds to stop the new Green Barons.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.

Antidote for CO2 Hysteria

Therefore, attempts to reduce CO2 concentrations are bad for plants, animals and humankind.

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

Preeminent physicist Freeman Dyson (1923-2020) put the CO2 obsession in sharp focus in his foreward to CARBON DIOXIDE  The good news by Indur M. Goklany (2015). Excerpts in italics. with my bolds.

To any unprejudiced person reading this account, the facts should be obvious: that the non-climatic effects of carbon dioxide as a sustainer of wildlife and crop plants are enormously beneficial, that the possibly harmful climatic effects of carbon dioxide have been greatly exaggerated, and that the benefits clearly outweigh the possible damage.

The people who are supposed to be experts and who claim to understand the science are precisely the people who are blind to the evidence. Those of my scientific colleagues who believe the prevailing dogma about carbon dioxide will not find Goklany’s evidence convincing. . .That is to me the central mystery of climate science. It is not a scientific mystery but a human mystery. How does it happen that a whole generation of scientific experts is blind to obvious facts?

Synopsis:  More CO2 Good, Less CO2 Bad

Gregory Wrightstone explains at CO2 Coalition More Carbon Dioxide Is Good, Less Is Bad.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

People should be celebrating, not demonizing, modern increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). We cannot overstate the importance of the gas. Without it, life doesn’t exist.

First, a bit of history: During each of the last four glacial advances, CO2’s concentration fell below 190 parts per million (ppm), less than 50 percent of our current concentration of 420 ppm. When glaciers began receding about 14,000 years ago – a blink in geological time – CO2 levels fell to 182 ppm, a concentration thought to be the lowest in Earth’s history.

Line of Death

Why is this alarming? Because below 150 ppm, most terrestrial plant life dies. Without plants, there are no animals.

In other words, the Earth came within 30 ppm in CO2’s atmospheric concentration of witnessing the extinction of most land-based plants and all higher terrestrial life-forms – nearly a true climate apocalypse. Before industrialization began adding CO2 to the atmosphere, there was no telling whether the critical 150-ppm threshold wouldn’t be reached during the next glacial period.

Contrary to the mantra that today’s CO2 concentration is unprecedentedly high, our current geologic period, the Quaternary, has seen the lowest average levels of carbon dioxide since the end of the Pre-Cambrian Period more than 600 million years ago. The average CO2 concentration throughout Earth’s history was more than 2,600 ppm, nearly seven times current levels.

Beneficial CO2 Increases

CO2 increased from 280 ppm in 1750 to 420 ppm today, most of it after World War II as industrial activity accelerated. The higher concentration has been beneficial because of the gas’s role as a plant food in increasing photosynthesis.

Its benefits include:

— Faster plant growth with less water and larger crop yields.

— Expansion of forests and grasslands.

— Less erosion of topsoil because of more plant growth.

— Increases in plants’ natural insect repellents.

A summary of 270 laboratory studies covering 83 food crops showed that increasing CO2 concentrations by 300 ppm boosts plant growth by an average of 46 percent. Conversely, many studies show adverse effects of low-CO2 environments.

For instance, one indicated that, compared to today, plant growth was eight percent less in the period before the Industrial Revolution, with a low concentration of 280 ppm CO2.

Therefore, attempts to reduce CO2 concentrations are bad for plants, animals and humankind.

Data reported in a recent paper by Dr. Indur Goklany, and published by the CO2 Coalition, indicates that up to 50 percent of Earth’s vegetated areas became greener between 1982-2011.

Researchers attribute 70 percent of the greening to CO2 fertilization from of fossil fuel emissions. (Another nine percent is attributed to fertilizers derived from fossil fuels.)

Dr. Goklany also reported that the beneficial fertilization effect of CO2 – along with the use of hydrocarbon-dependent machinery, pesticides and fertilizers – have saved at least 20 percent of land area from being converted to agricultural purposes – an area 25 percent larger than North America.

The amazing increase in agricultural productivity, partly the result of more CO2, has allowed the planet to feed eight billion people, compared to the fewer than 800,000 inhabitants living a short 300 years ago.

More CO2 in the air means more moisture in the soil. The major cause of water loss in plants is attributable to transpiration, in which the stomata, or pores, on the undersides of the leaves open to absorb CO2 and expel oxygen and water vapor.

With more CO2, the stomata are open for shorter periods, the leaves lose less water, and more moisture remains in the soil. The associated increase in soil moisture has been linked to global decreases in wildfires, droughts and heat waves.

Exaggeration of CO2’s Warming Effect

Alarm over global warming stems from exaggerations of CO2’s potential to retain heat that otherwise would radiate to outer space. As with water vapor, methane and nitrous oxide, CO2 retains heat in the atmosphere by how it reacts to infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

However, the gas has saturated to a large extent within the infrared range, leaving relatively little potential for increased warming.

Both sides of the climate debate agree that the warming effect of each molecule of CO2 decreases significantly (logarithmically) as the concentration increases.

This is one reason why there was no runaway greenhouse warming when CO2 concentrations approached 20 times that of today. This inconvenient fact, despite its importance, is rarely mentioned because it undermines the theory of a future climate catastrophe.

A doubling of CO2 from today’s level of 420 ppm – an increase estimated to take 200 years to attain – would have an inconsequential effect on global temperature.

Pennsylvania’s solar-powered fossil fuels

CO2 being liberated today from Pennsylvania coal was removed from the atmosphere by the photosynthesis of trees that fed on sunlight and carbon dioxide and then died to have their remains accumulate in the vast coal swamps of the Carboniferous Period.

Pennsylvania Marcellus and Utica shale hydrocarbons being exploited today were also the likely hydrocarbon source of shallower reservoirs producing since the late 1800s.

The source of those hydrocarbons was algae remains that gathered on the bottom of the Ordovician and Devonian seas.

Like the coal deposits, the algae used solar-powered photosynthesis and CO2 (the algal blooms were likely fueled by regular dust storms) to remove vast amounts of CO2 from the air and lock it up as carbon-rich organic matter.

The provenance of these hydrocarbons spawns two novel ideas. First, there is a strong case that these are solar-powered fuels.

Second, the sequestering of carbon during the creation of the hydrocarbons lowered atmospheric concentrations of CO2 to sub-optimum levels for plants. Therefore, the combustion of today’s coal and gas is liberating valuable CO2 molecules that are turbocharging plant growth.

The plain fact of the matter is that the modest warming of less than one degree Celsius since 1900, combined with increasing CO2, is allowing ecosystems to thrive and humanity to prosper.

Additional information on CO2’s benefits and related topics are available at CO2Coalition.org, which includes a number of publications and resources of interest.