Dramatically cutting carbon pollution – by replacing dirty energy with clean alternatives like offshore wind – is the best path forward if we are to protect coastal and marine wildlife from these dangers of a warming world. But even renewable energy must be designed with nature in mind. PES looks at recent reports that suggest wind and wildlife can work in harmony.
The Atlantic Ocean and its coastal areas are home to thousands of species of fish, sea turtles, birds, whales, and other wildlife that sustain our economy and our imagination. Like all ecosystems across the planet, however, the Atlantic faces challenges as diverse as its wildlife. Pollution, diminishing fish stocks, and habitat loss are markers of society’s mismanagement of this vast but fragile resource, and climate change adds an ominous new dimension: sea level rise endangers wildlife by inundating vital foraging and nesting habitat for birds, fish, and sea turtles, while the warmer, more acidic waters threaten to destabilize already stressed food webs.
Environmentally responsible development of our offshore wind energy resources will require engaging a broad range of key stakeholders to ensure that projects are located, designed, and operated in a manner that protects sensitive habitats, migration corridors, and wildlife populations.
Potential impacts
Europe has been building offshore wind energy projects for over two decades, and has been able to avoid and minimize many of the impacts to local wildlife. A recent synthesis of European research and preliminary U.S. data on offshore wind-wildlife interactions indicates that minimizing harm to our sensitive coastal and marine wildlife is possible.
However, activities associated with the design, construction, and operation of offshore wind energy projects does create conditions – including habitat alteration, electromagnetic fields, noise from surveying the ocean floor and securing foundations (pile driving), increased or altered vessel traffic, and artificial reef effects – that have the potential to temporarily or permanently affect fish and wildlife.
