Please don't kill the birds

Energy production of all types — wind, ethanol and mountaintop coal mining — is contributing to steep drops in bird populations, a new government report says.

The first-of-its-kind report chronicles a four-decade decline in many of the country's bird populations and provides many reasons for it, from suburban sprawl to the spread of exotic species to global warming.

It shows that birds in Hawaii are more in danger of becoming extinct than anywhere else in the United States. In the last 40 years, populations of birds living on prairies, deserts and at sea have declined between 30 percent and 40 percent.

But in almost every case, energy production has also played a role.

Environmentalists and scientists say the report should signal the Obama administration to act cautiously as it seeks to expand renewable energy productionpublic lands and tries to harness wind energy along the nation's coastlines. and the electricity grid on

"We need to go into these energies with our environmental eyes open," said John Fitzpatrick, the director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which helped draft the report along with nonprofit advocacy groups. "We need to attend to any form of energy development, not just oil and gas."

I predict another ten years of liberal dominance of government will see us go back to burning cow dung and switchgrass to power our society.

It would be smelly but at least we wouldn't be killing the birds.

Seriously now, unless we want to halt industrial society in its tracks, there's just no way to account for bird killing because of energy. There are a lot of people out there who dream of a day when we would, in fact, destory industrialized civilization in the name of "sustainable growth." And I have no doubt that saving the bird populations will soon make its way into their talking points.