Wife Gail and I just drove 360 miles today to attend the funeral of an old and dear friend. (Why did we drive, instead of fly? Well, some trips just aren’t easy to do on the airlines. Funerals aren’t announced weeks ahead of time, for one thing, and besides, when two are traveling, car travel really can be cheaper than airline travel. The big difference is that car travel is nowhere near as safe as airline travel, and I do worry about that on each car trip.).
Early in the trip, we heard on National Public Radio a story about a professional who makes a living keeping birds off airports in Alaska.
NPR interviewed the fellow on the airport in Sitka, AK. Among other things, he walks the airport runways looking for worms, small dead animals, edible trash and anything else that a bird might consider edible. He talked about the great variety of birds in the area, including eagles, which can be scared off but not—under any circumstances—killed as they are “an endangered species.”
I found myself wondering if a few eagles were really more important than an airliner full of people.
This came right after I scanned an article about the great “Green Monster,” which apparently was about living the “green” life at all costs, in business and pleasure.
KInda makes me wonder if maybe we are going a bit overboard with this green movement. We can’t have a pipeline across our nation. We can’t use atomic power, although other countries—the French, for example— use it quite well. We have, I hear, more available coal than other countries. Rather than attack any use of coal at all, why don’t we look for ways to make coal usage green?
Before the avalanche of hate mail starts, let me point out that I’m no expert on this subject, but I do wonder.
Do you reckon it’s possible that we are the endangered species? <[email protected]>
