LTE: Wind Letters: Wind energy is the better option

Santa Barbara News-Press
October 20, 2013

A recent News-Press letter suggested "…wind turbines kill birds, but you've got to have a deeper and broader analysis about this kind of thing. … Comparing wind energy and fossil fuel energy…you'll see wind energy is a much, much better idea." Wildlife such as eagles, whales and gophers might disagree, but having a deeper and broader analysis is exactly what is needed.

I believe the average American consumes five times the resources and creates five times the pollution compared to the average world citizen. The United States government imports more than 1 million legal immigrants every year. That means an increase of over 5 million units of consumption and pollution every year. Each legal immigrant continues to consume and pollute for the rest of his/her life in America at this five-fold rate. When immigrants get married and have children in America, the problem becomes the calculus of exponential growth.

Instead of disagreeing about which sort of energy to create, why don't we agree to stop legal immigration? Zero consumption, zero pollution, and zero loss of wildlife or habitat for each legal immigrant we do not import. The whales would jump for joy.

David Grill, Lompoc
CAPS Member