As Bill Maher was erroneous in saying that Brazil doesn't use oil anymore, George Will piped in as a concern troll with the nonsense that the new offshore wind farm in Massachusetts will cause countless killings of birds. (
http://www.capewind.org/)
Bird turds to that!
Utility transmission and distribution lines, the backbone of our electrical power system, are responsible for 130 to 174 million bird deaths a year in the U.S.
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Collisions with automobiles and trucks result in the deaths of between 60 and 80 million birds annually in the U.S.
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Tall building and residential house windows also claim their share of birds. Some of the five million tall buildings in U.S. cities have been documented as being a chronic mortality problem for migrating birds.
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Lighted communication towers turn out to be one of the more serious problems for birds, especially for migratory species that fly at night.
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Cats, both feral and housecats, also take their toll on birds. A Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) report states that, "recent research suggests that rural free-ranging domestic cats in Wisconsin may be killing between 8 and 217 million birds each year.
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There are other studies on the impacts of jet engines, smoke stacks, bridges, and any number of other human structures and activities that threaten birds on a daily basis. Together, human infrastructure and industrial activities are responsible for one to four million bird deaths per day!
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In fact, a very different situation exists not far away at the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farms near Palm Springs. A 1986 study found that 69 million birds flew though the San Gorgonio Pass during the Spring and Fall migrations. During both migrating seasons, only 38 dead birds were found during that typical year, representing only 0.00006% of the migrating population.
http://www.awea.org/faq/sagrillo/swbirds.html