[maine-iac7]

Yes, I'm starting to see all that now, and I don't like killing all those birds either

*What with all the research avenues available to us all now, via the net, it behooves us to do our research and not continue taking as whole cloth the Pablum we are spoon fed.

Excerpt from site

http://www.awea.org/faq/sagrillo/swbirds.html

"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. A report recently prepared for the Bonneville Power Administration in the Northwest U.S. states that "raptor mortality has been absent to very low at all newer generation wind plants studied in the U.S."

The whole article is worth the reading - but for those that don't wish to be confused with the facts, if you are going to condemn wind farms for death of birds, then we will need to get rid of power lines, tall buildings and residential windows, cars and trucks, jet engines, smoke stack, lighted communication towers - Oh! sorry, I forgot. No political hay there

[Aliska]

I've got quite a few light bulbs, but I keep them turned off except when I need them, all except for the kitchen and lr table lamp which has one of those new curlie que bulbs. Those new houses must have a lot of lightbulbs though. I do have 2 chandeliers which take several 40 watters apiece. I keep those turned off as much as possible.

if you are going to condemn wind farms for death of birds

No, it's no worse than anything else they fly into. We probably lose more to getting sucked through jet engines. Birds aren't totally stupid and try to fly around stuff, but sometimes they seem to get confused by glass windows, etc. They've got a stuffed eagle at a local museum who met its end getting fried on a hot wire. It didn't seem to damage much of the bird though as I doubt they would have wasted time with massive reconstruction.

I was just mentioning it as I do like birds. I didn't know what the overall toll was. Probably lose more flying into skyscrapers. I wouldn't condemn anything on account of it; I mean those old farm windmills probably were almost as bad you'd think when we had more of those scattered around the country. We've got some of those left around here, probably working ones, too, pumping water, storing power in smaller generators. I never did know exactly how they worked to my dismay.

I used to read Mother Earth News because I wanted to get new ideas on how people were being innovative by living off the grid in some places. It's not for the faint of heart, takes a lot of effort and work. Some people who live in remote areas have no choice though.