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Renewable Energy Reported to Threaten Biodiversity

Jack Hays

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Well well well. Looks like we're in for some "Green on Green" combat.


Renewable energy production will exacerbate mining threats to biodiversity

This was just published in Nature Communications.…
Continue reading →

This was just published in Nature Communications.
That’s gonna leave a mark.
Here is the Abstract, (emphasis mine):
Renewable energy production is necessary to halt climate change and reverse associated biodiversity losses. However, generating the required technologies and infrastructure will drive an increase in the production of many metals, creating new mining threats for biodiversity. Here, we map mining areas and assess their spatial coincidence with biodiversity conservation sites and priorities.
Mining potentially influences 50 million km2 of Earth’s land surface, with 8% coinciding with Protected Areas, 7% with Key Biodiversity Areas, and 16% with Remaining Wilderness. Most mining areas (82%) target materials needed for renewable energy production, and areas that overlap with Protected Areas and Remaining Wilderness contain a greater density of mines (our indicator of threat severity) compared to the overlapping mining areas that target other materials.
Mining threats to biodiversity will increase as more mines target materials for renewable energy production and, without strategic planning, these new threats to biodiversity may surpass those averted by climate change mitigation.
This is not convenient. . . .
Full paper here.

 
Well well well. Looks like we're in for some "Green on Green" combat.

[FONT=&][/FONT]
Renewable energy production will exacerbate mining threats to biodiversity

[FONT=&]This was just published in Nature Communications.…
Continue reading →

[/FONT]
[FONT=&]This was just published in Nature Communications.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]That’s gonna leave a mark.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Here is the Abstract, (emphasis mine):[/FONT]
Renewable energy production is necessary to halt climate change and reverse associated biodiversity losses. However, generating the required technologies and infrastructure will drive an increase in the production of many metals, creating new mining threats for biodiversity. Here, we map mining areas and assess their spatial coincidence with biodiversity conservation sites and priorities.
Mining potentially influences 50 million km2 of Earth’s land surface, with 8% coinciding with Protected Areas, 7% with Key Biodiversity Areas, and 16% with Remaining Wilderness. Most mining areas (82%) target materials needed for renewable energy production, and areas that overlap with Protected Areas and Remaining Wilderness contain a greater density of mines (our indicator of threat severity) compared to the overlapping mining areas that target other materials.
Mining threats to biodiversity will increase as more mines target materials for renewable energy production and, without strategic planning, these new threats to biodiversity may surpass those averted by climate change mitigation.
[FONT=&]This is not convenient. . . .
[/FONT]
Full paper here.
[FONT=&]
[/FONT]



The first two sentences of your excerpt are flat-out statement of the necessity of renewable energy production to halt climate change despite the threat to biodiversity. The last sentence is nothing more than a statement of the realm of possibility of what may happen in the worst event to biodiversity that is better explained by the last summation of the article, not given in your excerpt: “However, the ultimate impacts to biodiversity will depend on the mix of technologies used, their mineral needs and methods used to mine them, and the effectiveness of efforts to manage their environmental impacts.” Such is a standard statement of how well we manage matters being the determinant in how well is the outcome of our efforts, whatever is the subject of concern, in this case the benefit of renewable energy halting negative climate change vs the threat of environmental impact on biodiversity.

Are you against renewable energy production? Do you believe it will bring more damage to the environment, given such possibility as explained in your article, than the benefit of halting climate change? It's your OP. Do you even have a position in this matter?
 
Well well well. Looks like we're in for some "Green on Green" combat.

[FONT=&][/FONT]
Renewable energy production will exacerbate mining threats to biodiversity

[FONT=&]This was just published in Nature Communications.…
Continue reading →

[/FONT]
[FONT=&]This was just published in Nature Communications.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]That’s gonna leave a mark.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Here is the Abstract, (emphasis mine):[/FONT]
Renewable energy production is necessary to halt climate change and reverse associated biodiversity losses. However, generating the required technologies and infrastructure will drive an increase in the production of many metals, creating new mining threats for biodiversity. Here, we map mining areas and assess their spatial coincidence with biodiversity conservation sites and priorities.
Mining potentially influences 50 million km2 of Earth’s land surface, with 8% coinciding with Protected Areas, 7% with Key Biodiversity Areas, and 16% with Remaining Wilderness. Most mining areas (82%) target materials needed for renewable energy production, and areas that overlap with Protected Areas and Remaining Wilderness contain a greater density of mines (our indicator of threat severity) compared to the overlapping mining areas that target other materials.
Mining threats to biodiversity will increase as more mines target materials for renewable energy production and, without strategic planning, these new threats to biodiversity may surpass those averted by climate change mitigation.
[FONT=&]This is not convenient. . . .
[/FONT]
Full paper here.
[FONT=&]
[/FONT]

Sure is a lot less declarative language in the body than the title.

Talks mostly about potential impacts from mining as opposed the the "renewable energy is killing the planet worse than fossil fuels.

Don't come at me with standard responses.

My major issue with our use of fossil fuels is the likelihood that our current path strands us at the bottom of the gravity well...so we eventually die because we live in a giant petri dish and when the agar is gone, we're gone.
 
The first two sentences of your excerpt are flat-out statement of the necessity of renewable energy production to halt climate change despite the threat to biodiversity. The last sentence is nothing more than a statement of the realm of possibility of what may happen in the worst event to biodiversity that is better explained by the last summation of the article, not given in your excerpt: “However, the ultimate impacts to biodiversity will depend on the mix of technologies used, their mineral needs and methods used to mine them, and the effectiveness of efforts to manage their environmental impacts.” Such is a standard statement of how well we manage matters being the determinant in how well is the outcome of our efforts, whatever is the subject of concern, in this case the benefit of renewable energy halting negative climate change vs the threat of environmental impact on biodiversity.

Are you against renewable energy production? Do you believe it will bring more damage to the environment, given such possibility as explained in your article, than the benefit of halting climate change? It's your OP. Do you even have a position in this matter?

I don't believe there is a climate change threat to biodiversity. I believe mining for renewable energy, on the other hand, is a threat. Nature is paying the price for human virtue signaling.
 
Well well well. Looks like we're in for some "Green on Green" combat.

[FONT=&][/FONT]
Renewable energy production will exacerbate mining threats to biodiversity

[FONT=&]This was just published in Nature Communications.…
Continue reading →

[/FONT]
[FONT=&]This was just published in Nature Communications.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]That’s gonna leave a mark.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Here is the Abstract, (emphasis mine):[/FONT]
Renewable energy production is necessary to halt climate change and reverse associated biodiversity losses. However, generating the required technologies and infrastructure will drive an increase in the production of many metals, creating new mining threats for biodiversity. Here, we map mining areas and assess their spatial coincidence with biodiversity conservation sites and priorities.
Mining potentially influences 50 million km2 of Earth’s land surface, with 8% coinciding with Protected Areas, 7% with Key Biodiversity Areas, and 16% with Remaining Wilderness. Most mining areas (82%) target materials needed for renewable energy production, and areas that overlap with Protected Areas and Remaining Wilderness contain a greater density of mines (our indicator of threat severity) compared to the overlapping mining areas that target other materials.
Mining threats to biodiversity will increase as more mines target materials for renewable energy production and, without strategic planning, these new threats to biodiversity may surpass those averted by climate change mitigation.
[FONT=&]This is not convenient. . . .
[/FONT]
Full paper here.
[FONT=&]
[/FONT]

Considering how damaging extraction of fossil fuels is to the environment this seems like a problem that isn't really anything but a reason for folks who like status quo to maintain status quo.

Unfortunately either way, it won't matter much. We will be forced into alternative energy sources one way or another. The transition is going to be painful (even moreso because we've had to battle scientific illiterates over basic science for so long our "options" have reduced and the timeline is so potentially short right now that the market is going to be a nightmare to enable these changes).

We've spent the last 100+ years actively subsidizing fossil fuels whether directly or indirectly by not paying for the real cost of using them that any change now will be painful economically.

Back in the 1980's S. Fred Singer was forced onto the Nierenberg Panel investigating acid rain. He was a purely political appointee because he had a history of being a "hired gun" scientist to help generate doubt for doubt's sake. Basically none of the other scientists would work with him and he penned his own appendix included with the final report. If memory serves he did a clever "economic" analysis of whether it was useful or not to deal with acid rain. His analysis started with the environment having a value = $0, thereby making ANY activity to deal with acid rain a net loss of money. QED.

This is they kind of thing we are up against. Disingenuous use of economic impact statements to keep us from doing the heavy lifting that will only get heavier the longer we waste time debating settled science.
 
I don't believe there is a climate change threat to biodiversity. I believe mining for renewable energy, on the other hand, is a threat. Nature is paying the price for human virtue signaling.

Do you think that coal mining and oil extraction are not environmentally/ecologically damaging? And considering that a lot of the materials needed to be mined for renewables are already being mined for other applications are you equally hoping that those mining operations stop? (Get ready to give up almost all of your electronics!)
 
Considering how damaging extraction of fossil fuels is to the environment this seems like a problem that isn't really anything but a reason for folks who like status quo to maintain status quo.

Unfortunately either way, it won't matter much. We will be forced into alternative energy sources one way or another. The transition is going to be painful (even moreso because we've had to battle scientific illiterates over basic science for so long our "options" have reduced and the timeline is so potentially short right now that the market is going to be a nightmare to enable these changes).

We've spent the last 100+ years actively subsidizing fossil fuels whether directly or indirectly by not paying for the real cost of using them that any change now will be painful economically.

Back in the 1980's S. Fred Singer was forced onto the Nierenberg Panel investigating acid rain. He was a purely political appointee because he had a history of being a "hired gun" scientist to help generate doubt for doubt's sake. Basically none of the other scientists would work with him and he penned his own appendix included with the final report. If memory serves he did a clever "economic" analysis of whether it was useful or not to deal with acid rain. His analysis started with the environment having a value = $0, thereby making ANY activity to deal with acid rain a net loss of money. QED.

This is they kind of thing we are up against. Disingenuous use of economic impact statements to keep us from doing the heavy lifting that will only get heavier the longer we waste time debating settled science.

Your slander of Singer invalidates this post.
 
Do you think that coal mining and oil extraction are not environmentally/ecologically damaging? And considering that a lot of the materials needed to be mined for renewables are already being mined for other applications are you equally hoping that those mining operations stop? (Get ready to give up almost all of your electronics!)

Fossil fuel extraction, properly managed, does not damage the environment. Renewables mining for electronics is an order of magnitude less than renewables mining for base load power generation.
 
I don't believe there is a climate change threat to biodiversity. I believe mining for renewable energy, on the other hand, is a threat. Nature is paying the price for human virtue signaling.

And yet you linked an article that disagrees with you. Funny how you just cherry pick even partial goddamned sentences out of any source you post and then get to completely disregard everything else.
 

[h=2]Species Extinction Rate Plummets Whopping 96% During Warming, Elevated CO2[/h]By P Gosselin on 8. July 2016
By Kenneth Richard Last month, National Geographic and other news organizations ran the disheartening headline “First Mammal Species Goes Extinct Due to Climate Change“1. The small rat, whose only habitat was “a single island off Australia,” hasn’t been spotted since 2009. Bramble cay melomy Melomys rubicola. In 2016 declared extinct on Bramble cay. Photo: State […]
 
And yet you linked an article that disagrees with you. Funny how you just cherry pick even partial goddamned sentences out of any source you post and then get to completely disregard everything else.

Don't mistake politically required boilerplate for the substance of the article.
 
Don't mistake politically required boilerplate for the substance of the article.

Yes, this is exactly what I'm talking about. You get to decide what it really means, ignoring what it actually says. Just invent your own context, it's much easier!

Pathetic. The article YOU POSTED says biodiversity loss from climate change is worse.
 
Well well well. Looks like we're in for some "Green on Green" combat.

[FONT=&][/FONT]
Renewable energy production will exacerbate mining threats to biodiversity

[FONT=&]This was just published in Nature Communications.…
Continue reading →

[/FONT]
[FONT=&]This was just published in Nature Communications.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]That’s gonna leave a mark.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Here is the Abstract, (emphasis mine):[/FONT]
Renewable energy production is necessary to halt climate change and reverse associated biodiversity losses. However, generating the required technologies and infrastructure will drive an increase in the production of many metals, creating new mining threats for biodiversity. Here, we map mining areas and assess their spatial coincidence with biodiversity conservation sites and priorities.
Mining potentially influences 50 million km2 of Earth’s land surface, with 8% coinciding with Protected Areas, 7% with Key Biodiversity Areas, and 16% with Remaining Wilderness. Most mining areas (82%) target materials needed for renewable energy production, and areas that overlap with Protected Areas and Remaining Wilderness contain a greater density of mines (our indicator of threat severity) compared to the overlapping mining areas that target other materials.
Mining threats to biodiversity will increase as more mines target materials for renewable energy production and, without strategic planning, these new threats to biodiversity may surpass those averted by climate change mitigation.
[FONT=&]This is not convenient. . . .
[/FONT]
Full paper here.
[FONT=&]
[/FONT]

Been saying this since I joined here. Welcome to the club.
 
Yes, this is exactly what I'm talking about. You get to decide what it really means, ignoring what it actually says. Just invent your own context, it's much easier!

Pathetic. The article YOU POSTED says biodiversity loss from climate change is worse.

I believe you are missing the point.

". . . Mining threats to biodiversity will increase as more mines target materials for renewable energy production and, without strategic planning, these new threats to biodiversity may surpass those averted by climate change mitigation."
 
I believe you are missing the point.

". . . Mining threats to biodiversity will increase as more mines target materials for renewable energy production and, without strategic planning, these new threats to biodiversity may surpass those averted by climate change mitigation."

Read the three words prior to what you bolded.
 
I didn't write the paper.

So what? You posted it. You claimed to agree with it, but turns out you only actually agree with part of one sentence.

Either you accept the paper's findings or you don't. They are making a comparison and that can only be valid if both things are accurately measured.
 
So what? You posted it. You claimed to agree with it, but turns out you only actually agree with part of one sentence.

Either you accept the paper's findings or you don't. They are making a comparison and that can only be valid if both things are accurately measured.

Oh, I accept it. Not a problem. I'm not bothered by an opening throwaway line.
 
Last edited:
Oh, I accept it. Not a problem. I'm not bothered by an opening throwaway line.

You've done this same schtick a hundred times. Rather convenient for you, isn't it? You get to just ignore whatever you like in any paper.

I'm going to do the same. Every single paper you've ever linked that you think supports a skeptic's argument? All throwaway lines. Every bit that doesn't support AGW is just boilerplate.
 
You've done this same schtick a hundred times. Rather convenient for you, isn't it? You get to just ignore whatever you like in any paper.

I'm going to do the same. Every single paper you've ever linked that you think supports a skeptic's argument? All throwaway lines. Every bit that doesn't support AGW is just boilerplate.

As you wish.

In this particular case, the line I have identified as "throwaway" is unrelated to any of the research in the paper.
 
As you wish.

In this particular case, the line I have identified as "throwaway" is unrelated to any of the research in the paper.

It can't be unrelated because they're making a comparison. But hey, it's an understandable mistake for you to make when you aren't even reading entire sentences.
 
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