Abe Lincoln is credited with saying that “you can make some of the people happy all of the time and all of the people happy some of the time; but you can’t make all of the people happy all of the time.”

It is obvious, however, that Mr. Lincoln never met some of the people who call themselves “environmentalists” and seem to never be happy for even part of the time.

Whether or not you believe that the burning of fossil fuels is leading us headlong down the path toward irreversible global warming that could eventually end life on earth, it should still be pretty obvious that we need to develop alternate fuel sources if we expect to be able to generate electricity very far into the future. That is a fact most environmentalists, and even most coal and oil company officials — who see resources rapidly depleting — seem to agree on.

For at least two decades, environmentalists have been pushing the concept of developing clean alternative energy sources, clamoring for greater employment of solar and wind power to generate electricity. They have chided and chastised private industry, government and virtually anyone else who would listen, in an effort to hammer home their solar- and wind-energy mantra. And what they have been saying makes a lot of potential sense, particularly here in South Texas where we get lots of sunshine and generally are blessed with lots of wind.

In fact, if there are any areas of the United States that probably have a fighting chance of sustaining a reasonable production of solar- and wind-driven energy, South Texas is one of them.

So, you might logically assume that South Texas environmentalists would be jumping for joy over news that someone actually wants to invest millions of dollars to build two wind farms in Kenedy County capable of generating 388 megawatts of cleanly produced electricity — enough to power about 90,000 homes.

Sorry, bad assumption on your part — maybe because it involved using the words “logically” and “environmentalists” in the same sentence.

An organization calling itself the Coastal Habitat Alliance has formed to oppose construction of wind farms, scheduled to be in operation by late next year. Among the 11 groups that have joined forces to oppose the wind energy sites are Lower Laguna Madre Foundation, the Frontera Audubon Society, the American Bird Conservancy and the King Ranch. Together, they contend that construction of the wind farms, with their multi-story tall windmill turbines, will have some sort of adverse impact on the area’s bird population — apparently concerned that there will be stacks and stacks of dead birds mounding up around the foundations of the windmills.

However, if the statistics compiled by the National Wind Coordinating Committee — which, granted, represents companies and organizations that promote the construction of wind farms — are correct, the average bird death rate is two per turbine, per year, which is probably less than the death rate among birds who run into plate-glass windows and probably far less than the numbers of birds that will die every year from the impact of global warming caused by the continued burning of fossil fuels.

Environmentalists need to get their act together or they will never be taken seriously and will continue be derided as “enviro-nazis” by the likes of commentators like Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh.

If wind farms are to succeed in providing any substantial measure of electric energy, they must be built in places where there are fairly constant and substantial winds, and that isn’t always in someone else’s back yard.

We are well past the time when we can afford to speak in favor of finding alternate sources of energy, and then oppose the construction of facilities that can provide it, taking both positions supposedly in the interest of environmental concerns.