In Italy, sprawling prop-style wind turbine ‘farms' are sprouting up in ever-increasing numbers and, as they do, the death toll soars for thousands upon thousands of birds of prey. ..."Wind farm building continues unchecked and within a few years we will witness the almost total disappearance from the Apennine mountains and from Sicily of the Golden Eagle, the Bonelli`s Eagle, the Griffon Vulture, the Red Kite and many others," farmers' organization Coldiretti and national environmental organizations said in a recent report in Life In Italy.com.

That pretty much leaves energy conservation as the only option everyone can agree on, and the challenge won't be resolved simply by building more energy-efficient devices and turning off the lights in rooms we're not using. Either the "green" movement needs to lighten up on alternatives to fossil fuel or get used to the idea that we're going to be burning a lot of coal and natural gas for the long haul.

Earlier this month, the National Academy of Science put forward some compelling evidence that industrial wind power has some serious flaws. Also, recent U.S. Congress hearings brought forth several expert testimonies that warn of a potential environmental disaster (birds, bats, etc.) due to poor siting of turbines and lack of accountability. There are gaping holes in the protection of wildlife, birds and bats in particular, from poorly sited, constructed and monitored wind turbines in both the U.S. and Canada.

A Feb. 2 letter by windpower industry lobbyist Frank Maisano ignored two major problems that industrial windplants face in Pennsylvania: # Huge numbers of industrial-scale wind turbines will be needed to provide even a small fraction of the electricity we use (4,000 utility-scale turbines covering 500 miles of ridgeline to provide 10 percent of the commonwealth’s electricity). # Because Pennsylvania’s winds are relatively modest, industrial windfarms are being built mostly on forested ridgetops to capture the most powerful winds. In the Keystone State, these ridgetops are our last strongholds of unfragmented forests and the unique species there. Readers should be aware that Frank Maisano also was the spokesman for the Global Climate Coalition, a now-defunct umbrella group for companies opposed to the Kyoto treaty, and who dismissed the Kyoto Protocol as largely symbolic in nature.

SO HERE WE HAVE A SALVO FIRED in a little noted "green" civil war -- a conflict between groups whom one imagined were allies: environmentalists and the lovers of "renewable" sources of energy.