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So i just saw a political comic while in South Jersey that had something along these lines, I too didn't quite get it either, but putting it together it seems that once again "they" are "framing it" that it's the green initiatives that are the real danger to the environment. Oil companies and their voluntary boot licking shills have no bottom in terms of deceit and irony.

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Build the wind farms.

Rate of whale deaths have been increasing for over a decade. It’s correlated with…drumroll…higher whale populations!

Anti-wind NIMBY’s: Take a hike.

Is this what all the "Save the Whales" signs are about on LBI?

Like the people I know who suddenly cared about climate change when fox misreported a study and tried to claim wind turbines cause global warming.

Yes they’re rich a-holes who don’t want to build windmills because a) Phil Murphy is governor, b) drill baby drill!, and c) they’re stupid.

Edit: the luddites are getting to to this comment pretty late. Maybe they’ll appreciate clean energy by 2060.

also they don't want to spoil their million dollar ocean views with a couple windmills in the ocean lol

That’s such a bullshit argument because they won’t be visible 80% of the time AND there are already ducking garbage barges and oil tankers off the coast.

sorry to be the ignoramus here, but what are the facts surrounding the uptick in dead whales along the Jersey shore?

Maritime vessels have been using sonar for something like 80 years

Exactly. A friend of my wife's has never recycled a single thing but she's on this whale thing like nobody's business.

There's been an uptick well before the sonar mapping. NOAA says it's most likely due to vessel strikes.

https://www.app.com/story/news/local/land-environment/2023/01/19/nj-whale-deaths-likely-caused-by-vessel-strikes-fishing-gear-feds/69819319007/

Nah fuck the wind build tidal generators instead they're less maintenance intensive and more efficient

As far as I'm aware, we don't know exactly yet.

I'm part of nonprofit environmental organization.

We wrote to Clean Ocean Action telling them that there is no truth to any of their claims and its a bunch of pseudoscience political nonsense. Our President even talked to one of their organizers about their false claims directly. It did not go well.

In the last 5-10 years COA went from a helpful organization to a political one. Don't believe anything they say...they simply do what they want now to promote their own agenda, facts be damned.

I know a guy who runs a Facebook group where he reposts right wing BS, pretending it's actual analysis. I'm almost positive he gets paid by some PAC to do it, because he's posted from some Koch Foundation event where he got an award for being the best astroturfer, or something.

Anyway, he suddenly cares about the whales, too. It's hilarious how transparent it really is.

Am I the only one who thinks wind turbines are aesthetically pleasing and relaxing to watch?

I remember when a guy sued Harvey Cedars because they built up the dunes, which he claimed ruined the view from his beachfront house.

Initially he won, but then the town won on appeal, where the judge said that if the dunes hadn't been raised, his house probably would have been washed away by Sandy.

You're not, I think they're cool.

I've been saying for a while now that it's plausible (I use the Mythbusters scale here that goes busted-plausible-confirmed), but there's something else besides the sonar that's killing them. Some woman who's an artist based in South Jersey keeps posting this article and while it makes sense, there's a lot more that doesn't right now. If the sonar is scaring the whales, then what's killing them? Not the sonar itself, that's for sure. Either they're running into something or it's something else.

I think they’re great, don’t spoil the view at all. Right now it’s tankers out there. So symbolic that, ahem, some people would prefer the tankers.

I've been in favor of this for years. The only thing that can think of is that fixing them is gonna be a mother if then break.

> Phil Murphy is governor

I've also started seeing people posting an old tweet from 2018 that said that he signed a bill that was going to prevent any new drilling off the Jersey coast. Ummm... folk, this is in relation to the natural gas drilling that Christie was in favor of, not windmills.

Especially since the sonar that's supposedly scaring them has been used for decades by many larger boats

The key would be to figure out if the whales were hit and it caused their death, or they were sick/dead at the surface before being hit. I would HOPE they have someone trying to determine these things.

First it was the view! They ran some dumb grassroots campaign about pushing the windmills 35 miles out. These dumb people are going to lose their home from rising oceans and worry about the fucking view. A majority of the island are redumblicans anyways, can’t say i’m suprised.

So the rate of strandings began to increase prior to the sonar mapping. There has been an increase of whales in recent years due to an increase of their prey. It's really that simple apparently

Sonar affects whale hearing which they use for navigation. Powerful sonar (there are differences in the frequency and volume) has been proven to kill whales. All man-made ocean sounds affect whale behavior, but I agree that more evidence is needed to prove the current activities are related to whale deaths.

I do believe the most vocal parties in NJ are doing it for selfish, provincial reasons and not any genuine care for the earth or wildlife.

For those that are curious these two links might be a good start for context

https://www.distilled.earth/p/the-man-trying-to-kill-americas-offshore

https://fair.org/home/oil-lobby-prompts-right-wing-media-to-save-whales-from-wind-power/

So is every one of them using a fish finder on their cabin cruiser

Pretty much. I've almost asked her if she's a marine biologist a few times, but I don't wanna start shit with people on a photo sharing app. But then again, she's just a shitty artist who has done some armchair research.

I can relate to that. You just need to choose your battles sometimes.

I am baffled as to how people are arguing wind turnbines over the ocean are going to kill whales.

Oh totally. This article come up during one of my searches and I kinda knew this already (I forget how, but I read something similar a while ago), but there's other things that are probably involved in this. Example: if the sonar is scaring the whales, what are they running into?

The bill to spur wind farm development was written by Sweeney (D) and Kean (R) in 2010. Murphy just signed the thing they wrote and finally got passed.

I don't know why you think these lies will work in NJ, but I assure you, we are not some country bumpkins with the memory of a goldfish

https://www.njspotlightnews.org/2010/06/10-0623-2005/

Listen I'm all for a good circle jerk, assuming everyone is either stupid or a paid oil lobbyist.

But I don't think people can really understand what this will look like since it's the largest deployment in the country. It's not going to be like the ships you currently see before they drop off the horizon

BOEM made a visual simulation, unsure which shore but simulations for southern NJ beaches are much more pronounced https://youtu.be/HpENfLkVPt8

Still a hell of a lot easier than a turbine

Wow, you can barely even see them

¿Por que no los dos?

Don’t everyone get their knickers in a bunch, all I’m saying is there is a big difference from a recreational fish finder to ocean floor (and whats below it) mapping sonar.

Yep. I brought this book years ago called The Works, which talks about infrastructure of cites, mostly New York in this case, and one idea suggested this. The only issue that would be the same is running the cable to the land.

That almost sounds like this is a sign of a good thing.

I love how being anti- everything not oil turns Republicans into fake environmentalists

People should be more pissed off that it’s being built by foreign companies

Funny story. The increased beachings of migrating oceanic creatures will continue as Earth's magnetic pole continues to to move off spin axis (the axis of the planet as it spins). At present the magnetic pole and the axis of the planet diverge by almost 24° - not good considering the magnetic makeup of Earth (a LOT of iron).

Of course we all have our fingers crossed that the past 40 years of apparently instability and movement will right itself back to within ≈10° of axial spin, but so far it doesn't seem to be doing what we'd like it to. Not to say this indicates a pole reversal which would be drastic even with GPS systems in place for navigation ^*1, but because science is working with incomplete data planetology... well, bad, missing and misinterpreted data... and have NO idea of how this phenomena occurs. Reversal seems to occur cyclically.

So no Frank - it's not Q-ball related fantasy/idiocy... it's something even more sinister than their idiotic rantings - it's the natural order of things making sure no one species gets too damn comfortable living on this rock.

Funny story. Do you remember when GPS became THE thing - get as many satellites into orbit for navigation purposes as quickly as possible? That all precipitated upon discovery of magnetic 'movement' in the Earth's pole magnet.

I read that they dump hundreds of barrels of diesel into the water to make them start to spin and that to put them into the ground they gotta use TNT to blow up the ground and then use dangerous chemicals to make the bases

I read it in my "I fucking love Oil" Facebook group

Of course the "climate activists" that hate wind power are backed by oil.

Because turbines are actually kind of terrible. Maintenance intensive, takes a lot to produce, can't recycle the blades when they wear out so they just get buried, expensive.... All around not worth the squeeze. But they look good and green so people do it anyway

Not ready to scale yet as far as I've seen. But all for it in theory.

These are the same people who went to Dallas awaiting the return of JFK Jr. who has been dead for 30 years.

We're not dealing with intelligence here.

It's supplemental at best, much like turbines. But if we're going to beat around the nuclear bush we can at least go for the more efficient

I made a post about this the other day because it’s a rabbit hole I went down the other week haha. Even got banned from one of the “Protect Our Coast NJ” Facebook pages when I pointed out the donate link literally linked to a big oil think tank…

Yeah like I said they're more pronounced from South Jersey observation points due to the deployment being mostly focused there.

Most people are worried the conditions providing visibility on page 10 will be the norm instead of the exception. https://www.boem.gov/sites/default/files/documents//VIA-South-Attachment-E-Photosimulations-Part-5-BHB01.pdf

Yep. Wolves in wolf clothing.

I was talking to someone at the Surf City Hotel who was talking loudly about this. In the same sentence he went from the windmills are going to block the wind coming from the ocean and it will make the beach hotter, and it will also somehow make it more powerful so that it blows the dunes back over the island.

They’re using sonar to survey the sea floor in preparation for building wind turbines there. People are claiming that the sonar activity is what’s causing the “recent” increase in whale beaching.

…except the trend of increased beaching goes back at least 10 years, well before any wind farm related activity. And the organizations making the most noise about “those poor whales” are very clearly funded by the oil industry, who would obviously prefer that we keep burning their product instead of making electricity from wind.

Whales use sound to navigate so the extra loud sonar blinds and scares them. They swim to get away and end up on the beach or maybe have lingering physical damage causing distress and eventually death. I don’t know if this is the case with the sonar mapping here, but I’m hoping the marine biologists are looking into it.

I am not a marine biologist, but I think of it this way: Imagine you are walking outside, minding your own fucking business, and are suddenly accosted by a sound so loud it bursts your ear drums and blinds you. You would run to get away from the sound, but being unable to use your ears or eyes to navigate your escape, you could run into traffic or off a cliff, or some other dangerous situation.

Rich-driven advocacy is the WORST.

Did a cross country road trip... saw turbine farms. Got excited every time.

Is that a joke?

I was always under the impression that the horizon line seen from the shore was actually only 3 miles or so of sight… aren't these proposed way further off than that and hence wouldn’t be visible at all… can someone please correct me or confirm this?

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For a good time get on Nextdoor and listen to some of your neighbors regurgitate propaganda they see on tv.

I’d be curious if COA gets money from places other than individual donations

Even worse are the boats that literally are hired to drive a billboard across your view. Nothing ruins a beautiful shoreline view quite like a big insurance advertisement banner on the horizon.

B A S E D

thank you for your service

Cindy has always been about preserving the beaches for the property values f homeowners and success of businesses on the beach. She's never been interested in the environment itself.

She's an accidental environmentalist.

An organization I was working with in the 90s partnered with COA on some initiatives. We were very wary of her and the greenwashing she was providing to anti-environmentalists.

Sorry, the dead whales are from me needing the oil to fill my lamps. My bad.

No, it was an observation. Watch the video, the wind turbines are so far off in the distance that you can barely see them from the beach

a few reasons I've read recently:

-Warming water Temps push their migration routes and feeding zones to different locations, often right into shipping lanes. This increases vessel strikes. The NY metro area is one of the busiest shipping areas on the East Coast.

• avian flu. It's known to be killing seals and dolphins; it's likely to have made its way into whales.

• eating of and entanglement in plastics including lost fishing ropes, drift nets, and micro plastics.

If having to squint and focus your vision on something ruins your trip, then by all means, leave LBI for the rest of us.

They are actual tourist attractions in other countries. We did a tour to see them off some cliffs in the Philippines.

So what's the real theory for the mortality event?

These are the same people who will argue for hours, in writing, over the answer for an " order of operations" algebra problem on facebook...

Indeed, Clinate Change (and other human activities) are to blame.

I live in Ocean county. I can’t wait to watch our local magas to transform from “I don’t give a fuck about the whales/environment” to full-blown climate crusaders once Tucker runs another story or two and the boomers pass around the Facebook memes. Sonar is the new 5G.

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So still barely visible?

You mean the windmills that will be barely visible?

Click the second photo they just posted and look at the photo on the second page. They aren’t barely visible when you don’t use the panoramic option as a photo to throw everyone off. Everyone making this about disproving whale deaths, there are so many other things these things do to damage the ecosystem with very very little benefit to making “clean energy”. It’s such a farse

Lol nice that sounds like an achievement to me, nicely done 👍

That would really ruin your trip? Lol jfc

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Recycling alternatives are actively being developed, for what it's worth:

"The good news is that some efforts at developing alternatives are underway. Two large utilities in the US, PacificCorp and MidAmerican Energy, for example, have recently announced plans to partner with the Tennessee company Carbon Rivers to recycle some of the utilities spent turbine blades instead of landfilling them. The technology used by Carbon Rivers is being supported through grant funding by the US Department of Energy and will be used to break down and reuse fiberglass from used turbine blades."

Source: https://blog.ucsusa.org/james-gignac/wind-turbine-blades-recycling/

Aren't they going to be 10 miles off shore? Are they even that visible from the beach?

When those articles first came out I was like, “wait…the whales are offing themselves over just the thought of renewable energy…?🤨” It’s honestly stunning how stupid and misinformed people are.

I hope they make the right decision but.. Whatever that may be, I read a comment on the video with a good point, “will they have to put lights on these, what will it look like at night?” It’s crazy how much energy we need there’s so many fucking people, we demand so much as the human race.

I wish we could learn more about the impact we have on the planet, I hope everyone having children understand the impact they have, how that one human will consume and use so much in its life and more than likely also make a human who makes grandchildren who make people and so on and so on.. I’m starting to feel life is undervalued and people aren’t realizing how lucky they are to be on our earth, so many people consuming, Is this sustainable?

Explain Christie on beach day how did he get washed up.

One I don't like Phil but I agree with the wind turbines it's good

I do and love their sound good for sleeping.

Would you prefer seeing oil rigs?

The feeling of "I can do whatever the fuck I want and get away with it scott free, with zero consequences and still have a better quality of life than most of you plebs when this is all over" killed him.

When carbon emissions continue to cause the earth to warm and LBI is submerged by increasing water levels you won't have that issue!

wait sonar has actually been shown to be dangerous to whales...

But most have these have been during the winter when there’s not many vessels out there besides cargo ships?

Anyone opposing any means of carbon reduction is delusion so good for you.

Thing is we don't know what is causing this and it should be intvestigated. But do these idiots care about the whales? Are we to believe all these conservatives sudden became ecowarriors?? What a load of BS. Like rail safety or healthcare its just a convenient bludgeon to smash their opponents with.

> They would 100% spoil my trip to LBI

Awww, poor little snowflake.

Executives at Fox News must be impressed that their audience not only believe everything they tell them, but they want to believe partisan and cynical bullshit. They could probably turn them against bathing if they wanted. Their audience doesn't think their shit stinks so it's actually possible.

They love bad faith arguments. That's why they delighted in saying, "my body my choice" during their anti-mask temper tantrums.

Does your friends wife have anything going on in her life?

Artists are passionate people but few are analytical.

Quick question, what do you think is killing whales? Massive cargo ships or Jeff's 20 foot fishing boat that's smaller than most the things washing up on our shores and he's cleverly named "Huge Test Tackles"?

Before everybody joined Facebook I used to think it was anti-social to post rants that might alienate people. I especially thought it was anti-social to antagonize my social network. Then everybody else joined Facebook and what I actually learned is people hate skeptics. And it's actually not socially acceptable to fact check people or doubt their posts. If only they realized that nobody really cares about each other on social media.

My aunt and I talked about this yesterday, and someone sitting nearby brought up that point. I was a bit surprised, not knowing one way or the other, but I had a moment of appreciation that, if it were sonar, it would end once the sonar recordings were finished. Oh well.

Like how they’ve been seeing more great white sharks off the New England/Mid-Atlantic coast because gasp there are more seals and thus more sharks

Accurate. I used to put it off to their ignorance but their continued efforts to stubbornly remain ignorant tells me this is stupidity.

And we can't fix stupid.

Should we build wind turbines? Absolutely. Is the increase in whale deaths attributable to the sonar mapping? Absolutely. It’s amazing what someone will believe if they want to.

Who’s an idiot. What would you like us to do about it? If you feel so entitled to go do something please feel free. 😒🙄

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It’s true but they don’t own the oceanz. So sucks to suck.

>Is the increase in whale deaths attributable to the sonar mapping? Absolutely.

It's a little early to say absolutely.

This is 100% true about this woman.

The off shore turbines will create amazing reef life and bring pelagic gamefish closer onshore.

Whales have been hating it for 80 years, too. I’m not saying this mapping is the cause for this specific event, but it’s definitely true that sonar scares the shit out of whales, and they can beach themselves because of it. It’s at least plausible. Not a good reason to stop all wind farms forever (climate change is still the bigger danger), but if it is causing this, maybe we need to explore different methods of mapping, if possible

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_mammals_and_sonar

Just sounds like millionaire beach house owners last desperate attempt to try and not have to look out their beachfront windows at windmills in the distance. The people who live a mile inland don’t give a shit about your ruined Airbnbs, but they do give a shit about lower energy bills.

Military sonar, not ground mapping sonar. Vastly more powerful and literally causes fatal internal bleeding in whales.

To be clear, the fish finder radar under a boat is not what we're talking about. We're talking about the extremely powerful "pings" used to find submarines. This is even painful or fatal for humans if they are near a sub when a ping goes out.

It is though. It’s accepted as fact by marine biologists, politicians, etc. They’ll conclude their study once the turbines are up and running.

They literally just don't want to see them. It's so dumb.

Right but many of these vessel strikes could be after the whale is already dead. The carcasses are always too decomposed to check their ears for damage.

I’m not saying it’s sonar/wind related but it’s worth looking into the root cause because whale deaths haven’t been this frequent in my lifetime.

The same rich assholes who threw a fit when we switched to reusable bags and paper straws. They don't give a shit about the environment.

They are so concerned about what they might build offshore, but continue to cement over a glorified sandbar. When Sandy 2.0 hits, LBI will wash away.

Pretty barely visible. What other environmental impact? Is lots of clean energy allowing us to reduce reliance on carbon emissions really 'very very little benefit'?

>Right but many of these vessel strikes could be after the whale is already dead

​

read. the. fucking. link. holy shit.

Thank you for the update on Clean Ocean Action. I used to support them a long time ago when hospital waste was washing up on the shores. But I haven't looked into them in a long time. I suppose any organization can change in 40 years.

you're thinking of military sonar. This is not that

​

>But not all sound generated by human activity and high-resolution geophysical surveys can be heard by large whales like humpbacks, who hear in lower frequencies than other species, Staaterman said.

In addition, no whale strandings have ever been documented from offshore wind development noise, said Benjamin Laws, deputy chief for the permits and conservation division at NOAA's Fisheries Office of Protected Resources.

https://www.app.com/story/news/local/land-environment/2023/01/19/nj-whale-deaths-likely-caused-by-vessel-strikes-fishing-gear-feds/69819319007/

thank you, I had heard of this in there context of navy sonar but didn't know there was a difference

Same folks that mock Greenpeace and Greta Thunberg.

They do but it can be difficult, because most of the time by the time a dead whale ends up on shore decay has already started.

https://time.com/6254785/whale-deaths-offshore-wind-power/

They think they're clever by pointing out a hypocrisy, but nobody they'll telling that too has any trouble differentiating between somethings that's airborne contagious and something that isn't.

The people who were complaining about wind turbines to be actually believed the BS. They floundered when I pressed them to explain how an wind driven electrician generator was supposed make more heat then a coal/NG driven electrician generator.

Well, they don’t want to mess up their nice ocean view.

They said/say the same thing about birds and windfarms on land. Yeah, the occassional bird gets hit by a blade and dies, it's sad. Not compare that to the millions of birds who die from contaminated air and water pollution? How much wildlife dies when a pipeline bursts or tanker spills? It's a joke that these people hide behind birds when they say they don't like wind farms.

(Also, they've started painting wind blades to make them easier for birds to see. Dropping the rate of bird deaths by an estimated 90%)

Well, it’s something. I’m not sold on the wind farms. It is not the first of its kind and this has not happened.

My money: Russian nuclear subs with shitty sonar tech that fucks up these amazing creatures.

Even if that was a valid rationale, how are some windmills messing up their view worse than say 50 years of off shore smog or a constant parade of oil tankers?

> Not compare that to the millions of birds who die from contaminated air and water pollution

and windows!

It’s all the NIMBY people that support the fake news. They live on LBI and decimated the wildlife on it in order to live on a beach then want to turn around and say that wind turbines 30 miles out are gonna stop people from visiting and gonna kill the whales. Absolute trashy people.

Yup they decimated the islands wildlife population to live there and are worried about the whales.

"If you want to visit the beach, after I fail to secure a state budget, all you have to do is be governor!"

And they won’t bother learning the facts so they probably think they’ll build them like 100 ft out from the shoreline. Or they know the truth but will still make those claims to fire up the idiots.

Our parents and grandparents are all rage addicts now.

If you run across one with synchronized aircraft lights at night it's incredible. Just surrounded by hundreds of little red dots all flashing together in the middle of nowhere.

Windmills are some of the worst forms of sustainable renewable power. I’m against this for that reason alone, but there’s also real environmental costs with windmills that shouldn’t be ignored.

I also don’t know how windmills ruin the view of anything

The worst part is that turbines 15 miles offshore will hardly even be visible https://www.delaware-surf-fishing.com/this-is-what-the-wind-farms-will-look-like-from-the-delaware-beaches/

The lease areas in NJ are closer to 15 ft offshore

Actually it has been more blunt force trauma on the last four or five that have washed ashore..

Big container ship plows through a pod hits a few, they catch the tide in.

I don’t get how sonar would kill a whale. Are they saying that it’s disruptive to their ability to tell where they’re going and they beach themselves? Or are they claiming it’s directly killing them and then they wash up?

It’s funny to listen to conservatives regurgitate whatever disinformation is said about wind turbines .. it’s generally from politicians who occupy seats of government they claim not to trust. But they will repeat it anyway

God damned Danes, coming over here taking our jobs! Next thing you know they'll be invading with their longships, taking over territory, and establishing the five boroughs

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As someone who enjoys the aesthetics of SolarPunk, windmills in the sea sounds so fucking cool to me

Well if you don't want us to ignore them you should tell us what they are!

Christie on the beach would have made this post perfect.

Shhhh, they don't care about science. They just want something to back their political beliefs

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They’re so far out, the passing boats cause more of an eye sore. It wont harm they’re value.

I’ve seen renders they’re so far out it would be specks on the horizon.

naval sonar maybe. not anything for wind farms. I'm sure they are trying to conflate the 2 in some outstanding oil business bullshit.

That's terribly sad.

Bird flu. It's already jumped to seals. That's my wild ass guess at least.

Doesn’t the UK have a lot of offshore wind turbines? How did the sea floor mapping effect marine life there? I don’t remember there being an issue. Also, from what I understand the method used for this sea floor mapping is the same as for oil and natural gas, only less powerful. So why not protest sonar sea floor mapping in general if that’s what these people believe is harming the marine life?

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US wind is significantly driven by tax equity (which the IRA will really throw into overdrive). These foreign companies have to meet various requirements, e.g., local content percentages, to take advantage thereof. In this respect, the US has actually done really well to secure the lion's share of the economic gain from these projects. The EU has criticized the IRA, for instance, as overly protectionist when it comes to wind energy.

Given how volatile the US market is (even though there are big projects and volumes), it just hasn't been conducive to a market with thriving American OEMs. GE renewables is sink-or-swim based on the US market...

lol

Idk, is water wet?

Their info is available online. I just looked and it appears Cindy and MaryBeth are the 2 main employees. They do quite well if I’m reading those compensation figures correctly

Maybe it isn't the future ocean wind farms, but the current ocean oil farms