Here's an example of how the best intentions - in this case building environmentallly friendly buildings - can fall ofuol of the "Law of Unintended Consequences".
Environmentally friendly buildings are the enemies of flying birds.
Emory building draped in black to save birds | ajc.com
The building killed 60 birds in the first year," said Wegner, Emory's chief environmental officer. "It was the wall of death."
Wegner, a professor in Emory's Department of Environmental Studies, began documenting the deaths shortly after the building opened in 2002. He found an average of two birds a day were losing their lives during the height of the migration season.
Magnolia warblers, Swainson's thrushes, ovenbirds — no species was safe.
After getting the brush-off from the administration and architects, Wegner stuffed a couple of dead birds into his pockets and whipped them out during a meeting with his boss. Suddenly, he had an audience.
Now Emory drapes parts of the $40 million building with black mesh netting for about three months each fall, and migrating birds bounce off safely.
"It has saved hundreds of lives," he said.
Turns out, environmentally friendly buildings are often bird killers.
Ornithologist Daniel Klem, a professor at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania who has studied the problem for decades, said between 100 million and 1 billion birds die in the United States each year in collisions with glass.
Buildings that earn LEED certifications, the brass ring of environmentally sustainable construction, are often largely glass. Klem said few architects take their feathered friends into account. They are an unintended consequence of light-filled structures.
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