Do wind turbines kill all the birds? Or is it the cats instead?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Donald J. Trump often cites a very questionable number. Then he shows a lack of credibility by continuing to repeat it - even after it has been debunked. A number also needs to be put into context. How does it compare with other related numbers?

 

Back on June 2, 2016, there is an article by Vanessa Schipani at FactCheck.org titled Trump’s Hot Air on Wind Energy which said that:

 

“Scientific studies have come up with a wide range of mean estimates concerning bird mortality due to wind farms – from 20,000 to 573,000 bird deaths per year. But no study has estimated that wind farms presently kill 1 million birds a year, as Trump claimed.

 

 …A 2013 Nature study by Loss and others estimated that ‘free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds’ in the U.S. annually. But the researchers added, ‘Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality.’

 In another study published in the journal The Condor in 2014, Loss and colleagues also estimated ‘that between 365 [million] and 988 million birds … are killed annually by building collisions in the U.S., with roughly 56% of mortality at low-rises, 44% at residences, and <1% at high-rises.’”

There is another article by Sophie Lewis at CBS News on October 23, 2020 titled Trump claims wind energy “kills all the birds.” Cats and windows are actually much more to blame. She said:

 

“During Thursday night's final presidential debate between the president and former Vice President Joe Biden, Mr. Trump reiterated his stance against wind energy with a peculiar claim: It ‘kills all the birds.’ 

 ‘I know more about wind than you do,’ Mr. Trump told Biden when moderator Kristen Welker turned to the topic of climate change. ‘It's extremely expensive. Kills all the birds. It's very intermittent. Got a lot of problems.’ "

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

A more recent article by Hannah Ritchie in By the Numbers on January 30, 2024 titled How many birds do wind farms kill? had the statistics that are shown above in a horizontal bar chart with a logarithmic scale. Cats killed 2400 million birds, while wind turbines killed just 1.2 million. So cats killed 2000 times as many as wind turbines! And cats were one of six categories that killed more birds than wind turbines did.

 

There is also an article by Joe Schwarcz at the McGill Office for Science and Society on October 11, 2024 titled The Windmills in Donald Trump’s Mind. And another article by Michael Doyle at E&E News on September 12, 2025 is titled Wind turbines aren’t the biggest threat to birds.

 

An image of wind turbines in Power County, Idaho was cropped from this one at Wikimedia Commons.  

 

 

An article with six solid tips for persuasive speechwriting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found a useful article at The Write Touch on October 18, 2025 titled Persuasive Speechwriting: Six Solid Tips that was originally by Adam Frankel, with comments added by Marsha Zinberg. Those tips are to:

 

1] Write like you talk.

2] Tell a story.

3] Structure matters.

4] Be concise.

5] Be authentic.

6] Don’t just speak – say something.

 

The hexagram was adapted from this one at Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a wonderful 2018 book by the designer Ingrid Fetell Lee titled Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness. A preview is at Google Books. And there is an excerpt from the introduction. The ten chapters, a JOYFUL TOOLKIT and their starting pages are titled and numbered as follows:

 

Energy                       13

Abundance                42

Freedom                    73

Harmony                  103

Play                          134

Surprise                   164

Transcendence       189

Magic                       217

Celebration             245

Renewal                  271

JOYFUL TOOLKIT  299

 

Chapter 6, Surprise begins:

 

“I sat near the head of a boardroom table in a towering office building in Sydney, my heart fluttering inside my chest. The table seemed to stretch a mile from end to end. All along its edges sat the directors of business units, division heads, and people whose titles start with the letter C. Three weeks earlier, full of bravery and blind optimism of a twenty-four-year-old who had just moved to the opposite side of the world by herself, I had talked my way into a trial run as a brand consultant, a job I had never dine before. I had worked nonstop since then on a brand analysis for the client’s new business, expecting that my boss would be the one presenting it. But a few days before the meeting, my boss told me he believed that the people who did the work should speak for it and that, despite my lack of experience, he wanted me to give the presentation. So there I was, pale faced and shaky, awaiting the calamity that I was certain would follow as soon as I opened my mouth.

 

As the last few attended straggled in, I tried closing my eyes and taking deep breaths, but as I did so, memories of my previous misadventures in public speaking rose to the surface, and I began to feel even more panicked. I snapped my eyes open and looked down at my feet. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a burst of color. A pair of rainbow-striped socks peeked out from under a charcoal-gray pant leg. They seemed so incongruous I wanted to laugh out loud. I looked up at the wearer. It was the imposing, no-nonsense head of the digital business. His eyes followed my gaze to the socks. Then he looked back up, smiled and winked. A moment later I heard my boss bring the meeting to order and call on me to begin the presentation.

 

Joy has a way of showing up when we least expect it. As we move through the stream of daily life, tiny moments can capture our attention and turn our thoughts in a joyful direction. These moments can be especially powerful in times of stress or sadness. My encounter with the rainbow socks didn’t magically transform me into a brilliant presenter, but it did something else that was helpful in that moment: it interrupted my anxious inner monologue, turning my attention from the highlights reel of my past failures to the incredible opportunity I had before me to share my work with an eager audience. It pulled me back into the room and widened my perspective. Suddenly, I found myself wondering what else might not be as it seemed. Maybe hiding inside all those power suits were other warm or funny people. Maybe my boss wouldn’t have given me such a big client if he didn’t think I was capable of handling it. Maybe I could do this after all. I can’t say I wasn’t nervous as I stood in front of that room. In fact, I clutched a water glass for the entire two-hour presentation so tightly my boss later said he could see my white knuckles. But despite my jitters, there were moments when I had to admit to myself that I was actually having fun. In the end I did well enough to turn my trial run into a full-time job and gained more opportunities to practice speaking my mind in public.”

 

The JOYFUL TOOLKIT has a JOYFINDING WORKSHEET on page 302 that has the following questions to think about:

 

PLACES

Where do I feel most joyful?

What is joyful about these places?

What aesthetics define these places?

 

PEOPLE

Who are the most joyful people I know?

What is joyful about these people?

What aesthetics do these people embody?

 

THINGS

What are the most joyful objects in my house?

What is joyful about these things?

What aesthetics do these things exhibit?

 

ACTIVITIES

What activities bring me the most joy?

What is joyful about these activities?

What aesthetics are present in these activities?

 

And The JOYFUL TOOLKIT has a parallel Killjoys Worksheet on page 304 which has the following questions to think about (but none for PEOPLE):

 

PLACES

Where do I feel least joyful?

What about these places kills my joy?

 

THINGS

What are the least joyful objects in my house?

What about these things kills my joy?

 

ACTIVITIES

What activities bring me the least joy?

What about these activities kills my joy?

 

There is a 2 page pdf Joyspotter’s Guide at The Aesthetics of Joy.

 

Ingrid has a 14-minute TED talk on June 11, 2018 titled Where Joy Hides and How to Find It | Ingrid Fetell Lee | TED. A second 19-minute TED interview by Chris Duffy on September 3, 2025 is titled How to Be More Joyful (W/ Ingrid Fetell Lee) | How to Be a Better Human | TED.

 

A cropped version of Dirck Hals Joyful Gathering painting came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Fifteen fears of public speaking you should conquer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a useful Facebook post by Kathryn Esther Clement on July 15, 2020 titled 15 fears of public speaking you must conquer before you think of getting on any stage.

 

Those 15 (listed in alphabetical order) are the more detailed fears of:

 

asking or answering questions

being judged

criticism

failure

forgetting your lines

looking nervous

making mistakes

not being good enough

rejection

silence

a small audience

speaking to influential people

starting

success

using a microphone

 

For each fear she has a sentence with discussion, like for being judged to:

 

“Stop worrying about what people think. Focus on the value you’re bringing.”

 

Must is too strong a word in the title though. And, back on December 12, 2009 I blogged about how Almost nobody wants to see your Top 15 list: please use either a Top 10 or a Top 20 list.

 

There is an article by Jason Teteak at Rule The Room Public Speaking on March 9, 2021 titled Top 10 Fears of Public Speaking, which are in alphabetical order the fears of:

 

competition

embarrassment

failure

futility

inadequacy

leadership

people

self

selling

success

 

Those 15 snooker balls came from OpenClipArt. I added the numbers.

 

 

He went from being a government speechwriter to a part-time school bus driver

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Steven Miller at ProRhetoric on July 21, 2026 titled From Government Speechwriter to School Bus Driver. He spent 72 weeks searching for another job, and then changed his definition for success:

 

 “So, I am doing something different. Very different. I will soon be a school bus driver for my local school district.

 I am happy about and relieved by this because I know that God has led and directed me to this place. Both the place of the bus driver role, but, more importantly, to a place of contentment about it.

 Going from a full-time executive speechwriter position to a part-time school bus driver is tough financially; no doubt about that. The good thing is that this role give me the time to pursue and do the work that I am now confident is my true calling in life. To help churches and ministries with their organization and leadership communication questions and challenges. Those organizations cannot afford to have full-time communications staff. My current role allows me to help those leaders and organizations with time and cost that is affordable for them and for me.”

 A school bus image came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Celebrating another milestone of over five million total page views on my Joyful Public Speaking blog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Stats tab on Google Blogger says this blog now has 5,026,125 page views!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the past year there were about 2,200,000 page views, distributed as is shown above. For the past 12 months the daily maximum was 32,775 on June  21, 2026.

 

And over the past month there were 292,000 page views. The daily results were a maximum of 32,926 on July 24th – over sixteen times the minimum of 1986 on July 8th.

 

The image of an hp laptop was adapted from this one at Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

An excellent eighteen-minute 2026 commencement speech by country singer-songwriter Eric Church at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the ProRhetoric web site on May 11, 2026 I saw an article titled Your Life, as Six Strings. It has this quotation from country music singer-songwriter Eric Church:

 

"The difference between a life that sounds like music and a life that sounds like noise ... is whether you're honest enough to hear which string has drifted out of tune, and humble enough to make the adjustment."

 

There is an 18-minute YouTube video from May 14, 2026 titled Eric Church – 2026 Commencement Speech at UNC Chapel Hill (Full Version).

 

First he demonstrates how awful an out-of-tune guitar sounds. Then he discusses all six strings on it: Low E, A, D, G, B, and High E. String one, the low E is your foundation. That low E is your faith. String two, the A, is family. String three, the D, is your partner or best friend. String four, the G, is ambition and resilience. String 5, the B, is community. String six, the high E is the one most easily bent by outside pressure, but ignore that.

 

There is a five-and-a-half-minute lyric YouTube video of his recent song Darkest Hour sung live at the Pinnacle in Nashville on May 24, 2025.

 

The guitar image came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

A Pearls Before Swine comic about how effort is the key to success

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stephan Pastis’s Pearls Before Swine comic strip has a gray donkey called the Great Wise Ass who sits atop a hill and dispenses sage advice. His July 24, 2026 comic has this dialogue:

 

Pig:                         Oh, Great Wise Ass, what is the key

                                to success?

 

Great Wise Ass:   Effort.

 

Pig:                         Nooooooooo…

 

Pig:                         If you had said ‘luck’ I could have kept 

                                sleeping in.

 

On July 16, 2025 I had blogged about How to become smart according to a Pearls Before Swine comic.

 

 

Ice Breaker speeches for Toastmasters International and four big questions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The very first project in the Pathways educational program at Toastmasters International is the Ice Breaker, Item 8101. For it you prepare and present a four-to-six-minute speech about yourself. How can you decide what to talk about?

 

Recently I was watching a DVD of the 1999 science fiction television series Crusade, written by J. Michael Straczynski. Its introduction has the following four big questions, one of which can be used to narrow your speech:

 

Who are you?

What do you want?

Where are you going?

Who do you serve and who do you trust?

 

They also appear at AZ Quotes under the technomage character name, Galen.

 

There is an article by Kate McClure in Toastmaster magazine for August 2023 (on pages 24 and 25) titled 6 Secrets for Surviving Your First Ice Breaker. Back on March 16, 2011 I blogged about The joy of listening to Ice Breaker speeches. In that post I listed six big questions from the earlier TV series Babylon 5.  

 

An image of the icebreaker Shirase II came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

A Sheldon comic about three levels of insurance

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes a comic strip can add to both your knowledge and vocabulary. I had previously heard of reinsurance but not the next level of retrocession, as is shown above.

 

Dave Kellett’s Sheldon comic on July 15, 2026 has the following dialogue:

 

Arthur (the talking duck): You buy insurance.

 

Arthur:     But then the insurance company buys

                  ‘Re-insurance’ on your insurance.

                  As insurance.

 

Arthur:     But then that reinsurer needs 

                   their own insurance!

                  So they buy ‘retrocession,’ which is insurance

                  for reinsurers of insurance.

          

Gramp:    Dear God. It’s insurance all the way down. 

                  [An infinite regress.]

 

Arthur:     And the secret? NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THOSE 

                  POLICIES PAYS OUT WHEN NEEDED.

 

The Wikipedia page on Reinsurance says it is:

 

“…the transfer of liability from the insurance company, which issued the insurance contract, to the reinsurance company. The reinsurance company assumes some of an insurance company's liability in exchange for a payment or a portion of the insurance contract costs.^”

 

Munich Reinsurance, known as Munich Re is one example, and Swiss Re is another. Munich Re used to post an interesting quarterly magazine called Schadenspiegel (about losses and loss prevention) on their web site. Later they restricted it just to their customers. You can find their 2007 Special feature issue – Risk factor of earth as a 58-page pdf.

  

Lloyd’s of London is another somewhat different reinsurer. The Wikipedia page about them says:

 

“Lloyd's of London, generally known simply as Lloyd's, is an insurance and reinsurance market located in London, England. Unlike most of its competitors in the industry, it is not an insurance company; rather, Lloyd's is a corporate body governed by the Lloyd's Act 1871 and subsequent acts of Parliament. It operates as a partially-mutualised marketplace within which multiple financial backers, grouped in syndicates, come together to pool and spread risk. These underwriters or ‘members,’ include both corporations and private individuals, the latter being traditionally known as ‘Names’.”

 

There is an article by Ramon Berenguer at Reinsurance News on August 20, 2025 titled How does retrocession in reinsurance work? He says that:

 

“Retrocession is a reinsurance transaction where a reinsurer transfers risks of an insurance company it has reinsured to another reinsurer. The reinsurance company that takes on another reinsurer’s risk is called the retrocessionaire.” 

 

How did I learn about Munich Reinsurance? Back in 1964 Munich Re published two books (of text and plates [images]) with failure analysis case histories by E. J. Pohl titled The Face of Metallic Fractures. They were subtitled Results of Investigations on Failed Engineering Components Carried Out by the Engineering Insurance Department of the Allianz Versicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft.

 

In 1990 I was working in Columbus, Ohio doing consulting which included lots of failure analysis. I bought the 1988 Fatigue Design Handbook from the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). On pages 297 to 330 there was Chapter 11 on Failure Analysis by David Broek which referred to E. J. Pohl’s book. Munich Re had a U.S. office in downtown Columbus, so I visited them and asked the manager whether I could buy a copy of that book. He said no, it was long out of print. But then he asked around that company, found a spare copy at another office, and mailed it to me as a Christmas present!

 

 

There is a massive 710-page book titled The Complete Johnny Cash: Lyrics from a Lifetime of Songwriting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on April 4, 2011 I blogged about Stories in words and music: country edition. Of course, I mentioned Johnny Cash (February 26, 1932 to September 12, 2003) and his songs Folsom Prison Blues, I Walk the Line, and Tennessee Flat Top Box. Songs are magical – they tell a story in a few minutes with poetic words and music.

 

At my friendly, local public library I found and am leafing through a massive 710-page book from 2025 assembled by Mark Stielper and titled The Complete Johnny Cash: Lyrics from a lifetime of songwriting.

 

Folsom Prison Blues (from 1955) appears on page 26. I Walk the Line (from 1956) appears on pages 40 and 41. Tennessee Flat-Top Box (from 1961) appears on page 120.

 

I Still Miss Someone (from 1957) with Roy Cash Jr. appears on page 52. There is a video from  1990 with Highwaymen – a duet with Willie Nelson. The lyrics lament:

 

“At my door the leaves are falling
A cold wild wind will come
Sweethearts walk by together
And I still miss someone

 

I go out on a party
And look for a little fun
But I find a darkened corner
'Cause I still miss someone

 

No, I never got over those blue eyes
I see them everywhere
I miss those arms that held me
When all the love was there

 

I wonder if she's sorry
For leaving what we'd begun
There's someone for me somewhere
And I still miss someone”

 

Elsewhere there is a curious description for a song Johnny wrote with another person. That song, Tiger Whitehead (from 1973), is listed as being with Nat Winston. An article at Bob Cox’s Yesteryear on February 24, 2014 titled Dr. Nat Winston Fondly Remembered as a Noted Psychiatrist, Musician says that:

“Martha Winston recalled that Nat often talked about the time he received a call from June Carter Cash urging him to treat her husband. Although Johnny would not agree to enter a hospital for rehabilitation, he was perfectly willing for Nat to come to his Hendersonville, Tennessee home for private therapy. Nat did this over a period of one year, visiting Johnny every day after work without accepting compensation. He did it out of friendship and love for Johnny and members of the Carter family. Also, since he was serving as Commissioner of Mental Health, he felt it would be a conflict of interest to continue to treat patients for a fee while he was serving the state.

‘Johnny Cash credited Nat,’ said Susan, ‘both in his biography and publicly on the Larry King Show for his medical treatments that restored his life and career.’

‘On one visit,’ Nat told him of James ‘Tiger’ Whitehead, a colorful Carter County mountaineer, mill operator and bear hunter (reportedly killed 99 bears during his lifetime). On another trip to Nat's cabin, he took Johnny to visit Tiger's grave on Tiger Creek Road between Hampton and Roan Mountain. Johnny was so impressed by the story that he wrote ‘The Ballad of Tiger Whitehead,' which he later recorded on an album. Nat had no idea that Johnny gave him credit as co-writer until one day when he received a royalty check. Listen to Johnny talk about Tiger Whitehead and sing the song.”

 

There also are some clearly mistaken attributions in the book. Gold All Over the Ground (from 1967) on page 192 is listed as with Brad Paisley. But Brad was born later, on October 28, 1972. Chinky Pin Hill (1970s) on page 248 is listed as with Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sara Watkins. Sarah Jarosz was born on May 23, 1991. Aoife O’Donovan was born on November 18, 1982. Sara Watkins was born on June 8, 1981. Those three women formed a band, I’m With Her, in 2014.

 

There is a 2016 posthumous book by Johnny Cash titled Forever Words: The Unknown Poems. And there is a 2018 album by that same name. The thirteenth song is Chinky Pin Hill  by I’m With Her. There is a review of it at RedGuitarMusic on April 23, 2018 titled Johnny Cash – Forever Words (Album Review). The song Gold All Over the Ground by Brad Paisley is the second one on the Forever Words album.

 

And To June, This Morning on page 320 (1970) is listed as with Ruston Kelly who only was born on July 31, 1988, and Kacey Musgraves, who was born on August 21, 1988. The song is the second one on the Forever Words album. There is a video of them from April 6, 2018 titled Ruston Kelley, Kacey Musgraves – To June This Morning (Johnny Cash: Forever Words).

 

The 1977 image of Johnny Cash came from the Library of Congress.

 

 

Saying that you can ‘connect the dots’ just is a silly cliche

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Wikipedia page for the phrase connect the dots says that:

 

“The phrase ‘connect the dots’ can be used as a metaphor to illustrate an ability (or inability) to associate one idea with another—to find the ‘big picture’, or salient feature, in a mass of data; it can mean using extrapolation to solve a mystery from clues, or else come to a conclusion from various facts.”

 

But, as is shown above, there can be more than one way to connect even four or five dots.   

 

A post on July 15, 2026 by David Murray at his Writing Boots blog is titled Communicators, stop saying you ‘connect the dots’; It’s dumb.

 

He says that:

 

“1.  In a dynamic and ever-evolving world, there are no fixed dots to connect. If there were, you  wouldn’t hire a communicator to connect them, you’d hire the sort of slightly weird person who you might bring along to an escape room. But luckily for communicators, dots aren’t a thing.

 

2.  Even if there were dots, it’s laughably arrogant to anoint yourself the only one who can connect them. Imagine telling an intelligent colleague from another discipline, ‘Don’t worry, I’m here to connect the dots. Gotcha covered, Buttercup.’

 

3.  It’s insufferable, listening to communicators telling each other on LinkedIn and at conferences that their value has nothing to do with the actual skills and philosophies and strategic approaches we have developed over years of studying and working on difficult communication problems. Rather, we just magically ‘connect the dots.’ (We must have a lot of free time, in between).”

 

He says we need to find a far richer and more meaningful metaphor.

 

 

How to become smart according to a Pearls Before Swine comic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stephan Pastis’s Pearls Before Swine comic strip has a running gag with a gray donkey called the  Great Wise Ass who sits atop a hill and dispenses sage advice. His July 11, 2026 comic had this dialogue:

 

Pig:                       Oh, Great Wise Ass, how does one 

                              become smart?

 

Great Wise Ass: The key is to read, read, read, read, read.

                              Do you do that?

 

Pig:                       Does watching Instagram videos count?

 

Pig (to Rat):         Turns out it doesn’t count.

 

On July 6, 2024 I blogged about The magic of reading books – stories told by librarians and booksellers. Near the end of that post I had said:

 

“Back in high school I found a life-changing little book by George Polya titled How to Solve It: a system of thinking which can help you solve any problem. It gave me a whole new intellectual toolbox – which I used in my careers in applied research and engineering consulting.”  

 

My image shows the shelf with public speaking books at the downtown Boise Public Library.