Battle of the Activists: Dead Whales on the East Coast Likely Due to Wind Turbine Farms

(The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.)

On Tuesday RedState brought you the story, “Why Are Wind Turbines Around the World Toppling Over? And Why Aren’t the Rest Spinning?” The answer to question number one is that design and production flaws occurred in the race to get green money bucks from the government, the answer to the second is that many are not spinning because they either need maintenance, or the wind is blowing too hard, or there’s not enough wind. (Or they’re just not all they’re cracked up to be.)

There’s another windmill story out there that I didn’t cover, however—I didn’t want to be long-winded—namely, whales are dying in unusual numbers on the beaches of New York and New Jersey, apparently from sound devastation caused by construction of offshore turbine farms. It’s pitting the climate crowd against the environmentalists, and while you might assume they’re the same people, sometimes their interests diverge.

Since December 2022, at least 9 dead whales have washed up in the northeast states:

In a little more than a month, seven dead whales, most of them Humpbacks, have washed up on New Jersey and New York beaches. That is a record. Underwater survey blasting, in prep for wind farms, may be a contributor. pic.twitter.com/4vdrm6SZZo

— TeamThead™ (@TeamThead) January 30, 2023

The issue has caused enough concern that 12 New Jersey mayors wrote a letter to state and local officials this week and demanded an immediate moratorium on the projects:

The mayors requested that offshore wind development is paused until a “thorough investigation” is conducted by federal and state agencies and proves that wind turbine infrastructure is not responsible for the excess whale deaths along the East Coast, according to the letter obtained by Fox News Digital….

“While we are not opposed to clean energy, we are concerned about the impacts these (offshore wind) projects may already be having on our environment,” the 12 mayors wrote in the letter Monday. “We urge you to take action now to prevent future deaths.”

Sad scenes like this have become all too common lately:

There are seven offshore wind projects in federal waters off the coast of New Jersey and New York currently under construction, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).

The whale deaths are causing some strange alliances, as environmental activists are becoming increasingly vocal in their concern while the climate groupies are not happy that anyone would dare get in the way of their Holy Grail, clean energy. Forget the whales, is their basic message, according to Politico:

Wind supporters from the New Jersey chapters of the Sierra Club and League of Conservation Voters say talk of a connection with whales is baseless and no reason to stop the development of clean energy. They say an already-warming ocean is a known threat to whales and clean power from wind energy could help stop climate change. [Emphasis mine.]

Yeah, whales are more concerned about a slightly warming ocean than they are about devastating noise pollution that’s seemingly killing them right now, not at some point in the future.

Did you ever think Fox News host Tucker Carlson would be on the same page with the 40-year-old non-profit Clean Ocean Action? And yet here they are:

Clean Ocean Action is now a strange bedfellow with conservative media figure Tucker Carlson, six Republican lawmakers in the New Jersey Legislature who represent coastal districts and Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), who co-chairs the congressional offshore wind caucus and is its only Republican member.

Carlson is running a series of segments called “The Biden Whale Extinction.” In mid-January, he called wind energy “the DDT of our time” and a guest on the show said, without offering specific evidence, that wind developers’ survey ships were “carpet bombing the ocean floor with intense sound” that would confuse whales.

Watch:

#TuckerCarlson: After yet another #whale washed up dead on the #eastcoast, #NassauCountyExecutive #BruceBlakeman highlights the need to investigate whether the deaths are tied to a planned #windfarm. #Tucker pic.twitter.com/3pwugiEcfu

— Sn00pster 🎙️ (@sn00pdad) February 1, 2023

As I’ve written before, I’m not anti-clean energy; in fact, I’m all for it—when it actually becomes efficient and cost-effective. I’m not convinced that covering millions of acres of our land and our seafloor with unsightly windmills is the answer, considering they’re extremely high-maintenance, dependent on the weather, and are probably killing whales. In the meantime, while these technologies are being developed, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot by strangling our energy production and nuking projects like the Keystone pipeline.

But if more dead whales start washing up on our shores, expect this Battle of the Activists to become an all-out brawl. I’ve got my sofa and popcorn at the ready.

One thing is for sure—if all these whales started showing up on beaches in Texas because of oil production plants, those facilities would have been shut down yesterday.

Related:–>