Wanting to have cake and eat it too

Environmentalists piss me off. Not that I don't care about the environment, but there's a balance that must be met. Just how imporant is the life of that owl, bird, mouse, etc. in relation to the potential welfare of human beings? That to me is the question.

I find this particularly poignant when communities bend over backwards to accommodate environmental policies and then get smacked by more whacko-isms.

As is the case here, from California, of course:

Unexpected Downside of Wind Power
Thousands of aging turbines stud the brown rolling hills of the Altamont Pass on I-580 east of San Francisco Bay, a testament to one of the nation's oldest and best-known experiments in green energy.

Next month, hundreds of those blades will spin to a stop, in what appears to be a wind-energy first: Facing legal threats from environmentalists, the operators of the Altamont wind farm have agreed to shut down half of their windmills for two months starting Nov. 1; in January, they will be restarted and the other half will be shut down for two months.

Though the Altamont Pass is known for its strong winds, it also lies on an important bird-migration route, and its grass-covered hills provide food for several types of raptors. "It's the worst possible place to put a wind farm," said Jeff Miller, a wildlife advocate at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. "It's responsible for an astronomical level of bird kills."

How important are these birds to the eco system? I mean really. For that matter, how much power does this windfarm generate? I bet if they just put down a doggone nuclear power plant no damn birds would be killed.

The dispute at Altamont Pass marks the highest-profile confrontation yet in an unlikely clash between wind-power proponents and environmental activists opposed to noncritical wind-farm development.

A 2004 report by the California Energy Commission found that 880 to 1,300 raptors are killed at Altamont every year, such as red-tailed hawks and the federally protected golden eagle.

Altamont isn't the only scene of a showdown. Environmental groups have already blocked a proposed wind-power facility in the Mojave Desert, and opponents of another project, in Nantucket Sound, have cited wildlife concerns in their lobbying efforts. A recent government report found that sites in other regions could pose a threat to bats.

According to the American Wind Energy Association, wind farms in 34 states were generating 6,740 megawatts as of January, enough juice to power 1.6 million homes. Another 2,500 megawatts of wind power is expected to come on line this year. Though nobody is saying that wildlife issues will curtail wind development, some environmentalists say that much more care should go into picking locations for wind farms.

Miller stressed that the Center for Biological Diversity is not opposed to wind farms, but said they must be built in areas where they will have minimal impact on wildlife. "We definitely support wind power, but it needs to be sited in appropriate areas."

So, we have cries of "Give us clean power, give us clean power." But at the same time they're screaming "NOT IN MY BACK YARD!" Truly, if people want to advance and stop being dependent on fossil fuels, they are going to have to make some kind of sacrifice. I agree that a lot of study should be made before you invest the time, money and effort into building these things. You do want to minimize the impact to the environment. That just makes sense. But if you follow these folk's skewed logic, nothing will ever be built because they are going to find a problem with everything. They claim to just want what's best for the world. They are really luddites who are scared of technology and want us (in the worst case) to revert to the old Hunter/Gatherer/Agriculture-based society.