Tag Archives: pumas

Brazil’s big cats latest victims of wind turbines

From  CFACT

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

To the well-documented slaughter of birds and bats by wind turbines and the growing threat to marine life posed by the proliferation of offshore wind power, we can add the jaguars and pumas of northeastern Brazil being wantonly sacrificed in the name of “clean,” “climate friendly” renewable energy.

The hot, semi-arid, wind-swept Caatinga is a far cry from the steamy, dense jungles of Brazil’s Amazon region to the south. Pumas and Jaguars have adapted to the Caatinga’s harsh environment and thrived there as apex predators since time immemorial. But they are now facing extinction thanks to Chinese and European wind-power developers who are making the region uninhabitable for the big cats. The spinning, 150-foot-long blades atop the outsiders’ wind turbines are scaring the pumas and jaguars away from the area’s scarce sources of water, forcing them to abandon their lairs and roam vast distances across dusty plains in search of life-sustaining rivers and streams.

“The weaker perish along the way. Others venture closer to villages, where locals have started laying traps to protect their small herds of goats and sheep, often their only form of survival in this impoverished region,” The Wall Street Journal reported (Sept. 18).

Environmental Costs

Brazil is expected to become the world’s fourth-largest wind-power producer by 2027, behind China, the U.S., and Germany, according to the Brazilian Wind Power Association. But the country’s embrace of renewable energy is coming with a steep environmental cost. The wind turbines being installed on compacted sand dunes along the country’s northern coast pose a threat to underground reservoirs. Conservationists, many of whom welcomed wind-energy development, are now having second thoughts. And indigenous groups are holding nationwide protests against the installation of wind turbines on lands they claim as their own.

People convicted of killing jaguars, pumas, and other wild animals in Brazil can land in jail for up to 18 months, but enforcement of the law is lax. Wind developers are indirectly killing lots of big cats by driving them out of their habitat, but there have been no prosecutions to date. As for the villagers setting traps for jaguars and pumas trying to escape the wind turbines, they quickly bury or burn the dead animals, and wildlife rangers are none the wiser. Meanwhile, the number of pumas and jaguars in the Caatinga continues to drop.

“While the big cats are still plentiful in the Amazon and in Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands, those in the Caatinga are unique, having adapted to cope with the intense heat,” the Journal notes. “The disappearance of the felines would throw the region’s ecosystem out of whack, leading to a proliferation of animals that serve as prey, such as the wild boar, deer, and armadillos, said Felipe Melo, a researcher at the Federal University of Pernambuco who has studied the impact of the wind-power industry on the Caatinga.”

Eyes Wide Shut

The notion that installing industrial-scale wind-power facilities along Brazil’s northeastern coast – or any place else, for that matter – will have any effect on the world’s climate is absurd. But the monstrosities, along with their solar-array equivalents, are having a profound and harmful effect on wildlife. All of this is far removed from the posh c suites of wind-power developers in Europe and China who, unlike the big cats and villagers in the Caatinga, have the luxury of closing their eyes to the havoc they are wreaking.

Author


Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

Bonner R. Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with CFACT, where he focuses on natural resources, energy, property rights, and geopolitical developments.

Articles by Dr. Cohen have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Investor’s Busines Daily, The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Hill, The Epoch Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Miami Herald, and dozens of other newspapers around the country.

He has been interviewed on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, NBC News, NPR, BBC, BBC Worldwide Television, N24 (German-language news network), and scores of radio stations in the U.S. and Canada.

He has testified before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, and the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee. Dr. Cohen has addressed conferences in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Bangladesh.

He has a B.A. from the University of Georgia and a Ph. D. – summa cum laude – from the University of Munich.

Not just birds and whales: Windmills threatening extinction for jaguars and pumas in Brazil

From American Thinker

By Thomas Lifson

The climate hoax is taking a horrendous toll on not just the cost of electricity and reliability of the grid, but also the survival of many species of animals, from birds to whales to the magnificent big cats of Brazil.  The Wall Street Journal reports:

JUAZEIRO, Brazil — Weighing more than 100 pounds, big cats have long reigned over this hot and semi-arid region of Brazil, developing tougher paws for the scorched earth and reaching speeds of 50 miles an hour to bring down wild boar and deer.

But nothing could have prepared them for the 150-foot blades now slicing up the deep blue sky above them.

Jaguars and pumas are facing extinction in the Caatinga, Brazil’s northeastern shrublands, as Europe and China pour investment into wind farms, puncturing the land with vast turbines that are scaring the animals away from the region’s scant water sources.

Particularly sensitive to changes to their habitat, the jaguars and pumas abandon their lairs as soon as construction work on the wind farms begins, said Claudia Bueno de Campos, a biologist who helped found the group Friends of the Jaguars and has tracked the region’s vanishing feline population. They then roam vast distances across the dusty plains in search of new streams and rivers.

The weakest perish along the way. Others venture closer to villages, where locals have started laying traps to protect their small herds of goats and sheep, often their only form of survival in this impoverished region.

The poor all over the world already are victims of the rising price of energy, and of fertilizers made from oil and gas, increasingly scarce and costly as drilling and production are shut down by governments persuaded to buy in to the climate panic.  Now their ability to keep herds of animals — an ancient source of livelihood appearing prominently in Bible — is under threat as well.

Windmills may be the most destructive of the “alternative” (meaning uneconomical) sources of energy.  Because they wear out quickly and have a short useful life, they rarely pay back the energy and carbon emissions used in their construction.  They leave an awful pile of useless, ugly junk that costs a lot to demolish.  Recycling carbon fiber blades is a particular challenge.  Junkyards are filling up with them.

The carbon cult is inflicting awful damage on the Mother Gaia it pretends to protect.  Even on its own terms, it is fraud.