Turns out that windmills are not the only form of “green energy” that slaughters birds. As if being whacked to death by large steel blades weren’t bad enough, how about being fried by an intense solar death ray?

After years of development — and years of obstruction by environmentalist groups — a giant solar power facility in California’s Mojave Desert is finally operational. (I’ve blogged about this project a few times. See here, here and here.)

But, as the Wall Street Journal reports, the project is being scrutinized for its impact on birds. Apparently, they get scorched flying near generating towers where the heat from solar radiation concentrated by acres of mirrors can reach 1000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Odd isn’t it, how attempts to “go green” always seem to bump up against unexpected environmental problems?

Actually, this is no accident. The Journal quotes a federal wildlife bureaucrat, who says: “When you have new technologies, you don’t know what the impacts are going to be.” But you do know there have to be impacts of some kind. If you’re actually doing something that produces anything of value to mankind (even if it’s expensive, inefficient energy), you’re going to have some kind of impact on nature.

And that’s the whole problem, from the environmentalist point of view: If it’s not birds, it’s the desert tortoise; if it’s not the tortoise, it’s the acres of land “developed” to create the power plant; if it’s not the acres of land, it’s the gallons of water used to drive the steam turbines and clean the mirrors; if not that, then it’s some other evil “impact.”

Environmentalism is not a movement that seeks to find solutions to the challenges of human existence, it’s a
no-win philosophy that opposes human production, human values, human life.