FOX News claims that 1) 6 whales have been killed by wind farm development in the last month, and 2) offshore wind farms pose a severe threat to aquatic life.
What do you guys make of this?
FOX News claims that 1) 6 whales have been killed by wind farm development in the last month, and 2) offshore wind farms pose a severe threat to aquatic life.
What do you guys make of this?
NJ.com look into this (https://archive.is/3ysCV). For (1) 6 is not an unprecedented number of whale deaths as there have been a few whale deaths every year in that region for the last 20 years. NOAA is investing sudden increase in whale deaths since 2016, but states that “so far no humpback whale deaths have been attributed to offshore wind activities”.
For (2), from my understanding building offshore wind farm causes some local disturbance to aquatic life due to the construction works. But it’s fairly limited in time and space. Compared to for example ocean deoxygenation resulting from i.a. climate change, construction of offshore wind farms that try to help deal with climate change is a minor threat to aquatic life.