Donald Trump is famous for his destructive bulldozing of landscapes as he is for his antipathy toward wind turbines. He’s at it again.
Monday afternoon, Donald Trump tweeted: “Ugly wind turbines have destroyed the entrance to Palm Springs, CA. These monstrocities are ruining landscapes all over the globe — expensive and bad electric.”
On the phone, Mr. Trump told us some of the things that bother him most about the turbines that freckle the gateway to Palm Springs.
“The turbines are made in China for the most part and certainly outside the United States, but mostly in China. They are a bird killing machines, they kill birds,” Donald Trump said.
We went straight to the source, to the wind farm in Palm Springs, and spoke to a wind turbine tour director who has been in the energy business for 45 years.
“The number one cause of bird kills is window glass off our houses, the number two cause of bird kills are domesticated house cats,” Best of the Best tour guide Ken Huskey said. “Way down on that list, you’re going to find wind turbines. In fact, the government says out of every 100, 000 birds that are killed by a manmade cause, 3 out of 100,000 are killed by wind turbines.”
As far as most of the turbines being made in China, according to Huskey, “The first generation turbines we have here are made in Denmark, those right behind us are the new ones, 1.5 megawatt units made in the United Sates.”
Engineers realized the mountain pass’ potential to provide energy a very long time ago. The desert’s very first wind turbine was back in the 1920s. Currently, about four and a half percent of the energy we receive here in southern California comes from wind turbines.
It may seem hard to ever disagree with “The Donald”, but people we talked to definitely sang a different tune.
“They look different. That’s what the valley is, it’s different. We’re not like anywhere else,” Palm Springs resident Steven Simpson said.
“It’s almost like a tourist attraction, because you don’t see them everywhere, and to see how big they really are,” Terry Bolo, from west Hollywood, said.
One thing everyone we talked with agreed on, Donald Trump included, Palm Springs is an amazing city. Mr. Trump just says he hopes it stays that way.
Perhaps The Donald would prefer this more pleasing landscape:
http://emilyandrob.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/yab-home-bakersfield-oil-fields.jpg
Or more maybe this :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Coal_mine_Wyoming.jpg
or this:
http://uknowispeaksense.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/donald-trump-and-wind-turbines/
Great minds think alike you know 😉
I think you ‘Trumped’ us Peter.
that’s it.
you’re fired.
I don’t know what its like in the US but here in Australia, Donald Trump is seen as a bit of wanker, at least amongst my circle. The silly hair, the arrogant attitude, whatever it is, if he says its bad, we would tend to take it as a ringing endorsement.
I believe that you Australian’s are underestimating Trump.
He is not a bit of a wanker…he is an astronomical wanker of major proportions (you cannot be redundant in describing just how wankerous he is)!!!
And yeah,we Americans get that pretty easily 🙂 …(except the Tea Party of course).
Funny, when I read Trump’s comments, my immediate thought was “Do people care what he says? I’d fire that stupid wanker!”
Donald Trump is the planet’s most pretentious self-inflating a$$hole. If verbal flatulence were an energy source, tapping into The Donald could end our foreign energy dependence.
Perhaps if the Donald was so concerned about birds he could stop destroying their natural habitate to build golf courses and hotels.
I don’t know what turbines he saw, but if he is referring to those in the Banning Pass, they’ve been there since the 1970s, I believe, and perhaps earlier. If Trump hasn’t been through the region since then, it’s kind of hard to take his opinion seriously — who can remember the Banning Pass without them, anyway?