Regarding Mr. Goldring’s statement that "worldwide, tens of millions of birds are killed by windmills": both wind power supporters and opponents agree that avian deaths from windmill collisions number in the thousands per year. Robert Bradley notes in "Why Renewable Energy Is Not Cheap and Not Green" that "worldwide, thousands of birds" are killed.

The biggest single threat to birds all over the world is habitat destruction. Canada’s boreal forest is home to 60 per cent of all the landbirds in the country (representing 1-3 BILLION nesting birds!) Industrial activity including conventional oil and gas, pipelines, forestry, and strip mining coal and oil sands destroy vast tracts of bird habitat throughout the northern range of these species dooming millions of birds to death. Forty species of boreal birds are in decline, some at alarming rates.

Regarding the implication that fossil fuels are not subsidized: in 1995, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) criticized Canada saying that, "direct subsidies and fiscal incentives to the energy industry continue to undermine efforts to improve energy efficiency." Yet, from 1996 to 2002, federal tax expenditure associated with oil and gas production totaled over $5.5 billion. Subsidies to fossil fuels distort the energy market and need to be abolished so that renewable energy is relatively more competitive.

Regarding Mr. Goldring’s statement that solar panel manufacturing is a "pollution-intensive" process: photovolatic solar panels are made of specialized formations of glass, steel, aluminum, and plastics; their manufacture is comparable to that involved in making household windows, water heaters, or mirrors. A typical solar module will "payback" the energy it consumed during manufacture in less than two years and then proceed to off-set over 1.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year for the remainder of its 25 year operating life, in addition to all other air pollutants associated with coal combustion such as particulate matter, heavy metals, and oxides of nitrogen and sulfur.

Regarding Mr. Goldring’s suggestion that pristine wilderness will be destroyed to make solar power plants: in contrast to fossil fuel developments, solar panels are intended to be installed at point of use, minimizing line loss and utilizing existing disturbances such as the roofs of houses and buildings. Oil and gas facilities, oil sands development, coal mines and power plants are sited where the resources lie and combined with the infrastructure to move electricity or fossil fuels to market, they destroy large areas of pristine wilderness.

Finally, to detail the myriad of ways in which fossil fuel development harms the environment would require too much space, but in overview they cause toxic air pollutants, climate change, smog, wildlife habitat fragmentation and destruction (including effects on endangered species), water pollution, excessive water consumption, and terrestrial disturbances. There is no question that fossil fuels developments harm the environment; the debate is whether this harm is acceptable and should continue to be tolerated.