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For quite a while now, the BP oil spill has put barrel upon barrel of oil in the Mexican Gulf. Alex Tabarrok puts the effects — or at least the effects on bird life — into perspective.

Number of birds killed by the BP oil spill: at least 2,188 and counting.

Number of birds killed by wind farms: 10,000-40,000 annually.

Number of birds killed by cars: 80 million annually.

Number of birds killed by cats: Hundreds of millions to 1 billion annually.

Don’t worry there is some good news.

Number of birds killed by fisheries: tens to hundreds of thousands annually (fortunately for the birds, some of these fisheries are now shut down).

Mind you, I’m certainly not claiming the event is insignificant. It isn’t. And I think it’s obvious that BP should pay for the damages they’ve caused (or their insurance company should, if they were insured against this type of thing). And, of course, there are other, presumably worse, environmental effects than dead birds.

Even so, it’s good to put things in perspective.

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