Fall Foliage and Bashing Republicans with Heavy Objects

We've been hiking the backwoods watching the signs of autumn gradually overtake the land with a colorful carpet of fallen leaves. Morgan the puppy (I know she is 100 pounds, but she is always a puppy) is thrilled to be prancing around in the cool, mountain weather.

The colorful leaves were contrasted against the dark green of hemlock, spruce and fir trees. The blue sky framed the spires of bright colors.

I recently picked up a Friends of the Blackwater Canyon newsletter and was interested to read the following

250 bats killed at Backbone Wind Facility! Friends of Blackwater is very concerned about the record number of bats killed at the Backbone site just over the ridge from Blackwater Canyon. This large mortality points to the need for strict regulations on the sitting of these industrial wind facilities. The friends of the Allegheny Front was granted a 15-day extension on comments to the West Virginia Public Service Commision which is writing sitting criteria regulations for wind facilities. Thank you to those who commented. We will keep you updated on this issue.

This is a potentially disturbing development. While I feel that this is an issue, how many animals are killed by a strip-mine? Perhaps we need a new metric for measuring impact to the environment. It could be something like biomass killed per killowatt hour generated. You could rate the type of animal killed with a multiplier. for example if the animal was on the endangered list, they may count as 3 times the number of deaths. If a person is killed, perhaps you could use a multiplier of 10 (or perhaps .005 for those of us who are cynical and hate people). Clearly generation of electricity will kill animals and damage the environment. How much is too much. I like bats and it sucks that they are killed by the windmills. Couldn't the windmills accidently kill worthless animals....... like...say... Republicans?