Driving through rural Kenosha County I am noticing a new “crop” growing in the county. That “crop” is fields and fields of solar panels. Living in Florida it was not a scene that I expected to see in Wisconsin. Babcock Ranch in Florida is one of the most successful solar powered communities in the Country so I realize what a success that solar power can be but it was just something that I didn’t expect to see in Kenosha Wisconsin. With the air quality problems that southeastern Wisconsin has I like the idea they are trying alternative sources of energy.

Alternative sources of energy are one of the bigger campaign issues today. Of course you have the Republicans with their “drill baby drill” attitude and you have the Democrats looking like “tree huggers”. I have kind of a hybrid attitude. We have to keep on drilling for the short term but we have to work harder so we are not being held hostage by the oil cartels. I really think of the oil companies as cartels that are very similar to the drug cartels that corrupt our government and elected officials. Big oil money just floods into Washington DC buying as much influence as it can. This last week we saw just how money affects political thinking and policy. Donald Trump has opposed electric cars but he now says that he has to support them because of all the money that Elon Musk has given him. That is how political influence works in its lowest form and the people don’t benefit from it. In fact, that is a great example of how the swamp in Washington works because it shows how our politicians can be bought.

In many of the speeches and public appearances Republicans will talk about all those birds that are being killed by windmills that generate electricity. They are correct about that.  Trump loves to ramble on about bird cemeteries. The problem with his argument is that of all the things that are killing birds wind turbines are not close to the top of the list. Our bird population has taken a huge hit because of our influence on their environment. Habitat loss, predication by outdoor cats, collisions with windows, climate change, pesticide poisoning are just a few of the things man has done to damage their environment. I have read since 1970 there has been nearly a 30 percent decline in the total bird population. If a person is such a bird lover that they make the killing of birds a campaign issue than you need to look at the whole issue and not just the issue that the coal and oil companies want you to talk about because they are giving you money.

In 2005 it was proposed by then Governor Jim Doyle of Wisconsin that licensed hunters should be able to shoot feral cats. I live in Florida where every year they have a well advertized python hunt. The pythons are an invasive species that has an adverse effect on the Everglades. Nobody protests those hunts because of the harm the big snakes do to the natural wildlife in the Everglades. When Doyle wants to allow hunters to be able to shoot feral cats you would have thought he was suggesting mass murder. The animal rights advocates were up in arms. How could a person even suggest that we kill those beautiful cats? Do you know that cats are one of the biggest, by numbers, invasive species in the world? The people in Wisconsin and much of the country were up in arms about the shooting of cats and Wisconsin became a laughing stock of much of the country. Now we have a politician talking about wind turbines killing birds but ignoring the biggest threats to our bird population and we are the laughing stock of the world.

To talk about things that are killing our birds the number one thing you need to talk about is climate change. In a study that evaluated the vulnerability of 604 North American bird species to climate change 64 percent were vulnerable in some way. To protect the birds from climate change the article said we needed a multifaceted approach to the reduction of greenhouse gases. You hear absolutely nothing about climate change or greenhouse gases and the effect on the bird population. In fact you don’t hear much of anything from the mainstream media about the problem. When Trump talks about wind turbines killing birds it would be a perfect time for our mainstream media to fact check the real problems we have that threatens not just birds but all of our wildlife and ask questions of what are his policies on the environment and invasive species.

Too often the subject of climate change is a taboo subject especially on places like Fox News but they will of course show Trump talking about all of those beautiful birds being killed by wind turbines. They won’t mention the birds being killed by oil spills. I have read that 500,000 birds are killed yearly worldwide from oil spills. It is estimated that wind turbines kill up to 650,000 birds yearly. Cats kill between 1.4 billion to 4 billion birds per year worldwide. Climate change is capable of causing mass extinctions of entire species of birds. I am not saying that we shouldn’t be concerned about the birds that are killed by wind turbines but we need to look at the whole problem and not just the part that the fossils fuel companies want us to so they can maintain their huge profits.

I am not some tree hugger but the problem is as plain as the nose on our face. We need to get away from fossils fuels. Wind turbines may not be the answer but for more reasons than the birds. How cost effective are they compared to other forms of renewable energy. What is their life cycle and how are we going to dispose of them after their life cycle. When they are no longer serviceable are they going to be left there to rust and decay like what has happened to our rust belt? Those are my questions that we should be asking. We still need to continue to have the conversation of how we are going to get rid of fossil fuels because in the end they will kill us all.