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We have witnessed, with mounting concern, the rejection of
several windfarm planning applications in the region over the last few years.
As an environmental group we are frequently accused of being
anti-progress and it is with some surprise that we find ourselves having
to speak up for the progress of an emerging technology.
The sad fact
is that the attempted construction of wind turbines has aroused a deeply
conservative, highly vociferous, minority, often heavily influenced by
those who have recently moved into the countryside to discover their
’rural idyll’, who have, time and again, halted plans for wind turbines.
Climate change is widely agreed to be the biggest single threat facing
humanity at the present time. There must be a reduction in the quantity of
fossil fuels burnt if we are to reduce the severity of its inevitable
consequences. All parties agree that increasing energy efficiency can make
an important contribution to this reduction but, due to the scale of the
reductions required cannot be the only solution if we are to maintain a
reasonable standard of living.
Britain possesses some 40% of Europe’s wind power potential, it?s an
absolute scandal that the UK isn’t making better use of one of its
greatest natural resources to make it’s contribution to this
reduction.
It is completely understandable that the residents of villages close
to proposed wind turbines
are concerned about the possible presence of such a relative
unknown as a wind farm close to their village. They do, however, deserve
better than to be bombarded with hysterical anti-wind power propaganda by
a variety of ill advised ’experts’ peddling a variety of myths.
DE-BUNKING THE MYTHS
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