Where is the environmental benefit?

So ask Native American groups angry at the White House’s continued push for more wind turbines which despoil natural beauty and kill millions of bats and birds.

“Wind farms must be located where the wind blows fairly constantly, and such locations are prime travel routes for migratory birds, including protected species such as bald eagles and golden eagles. Exacerbating the problem, wind farms act as both bait and executioner—rodents taking shelter at the base of turbines multiply with the protection from raptors, and their greater numbers then attract more raptors to the turbines.”

Meanwhile the turbines are a political shuck, providing only small amounts of intermittent electricity, generally at times when a utility doesn’t need it. Ah, but they fill the pockets of lobbyists, politicians, and wind turbine companies with subsidies, i.e. tax money. That’s the “environmental benefit” the White House really is interested in.

“Wind cannot satisfy the demand requirements of a utility unless it is backed up with fossil fuel plants and/or energy storage projects. This results in duplication of resources and additional costs, with little, if any, carbon mitigation. Further, the steep increases and declines in power delivery of wind put the reliability of the grid in question.”

All in the name of another, bigger shuck: stopping so-called man-made global warming, the warming which hasn’t been occurring for 17 years now. Except in federal press releases. Health insurance isn’t the only thing they lie about.

It’s lose-lose, all around, unless you’re one of Wormtongue’s cronies with your paw in the trough.