Moral warnings behind turbine saga
Northumberland Gazette, www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk 16 February 2012
Northumberland Gazette, www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk 16 February 2012
So the wind-turbine debate inevitably rumbles on and on, and will continue to do so until … who knows?
Let’s put aside all the issues that are associated with turbine development, those of falling property prices, noise and health problems, turning the clock back to an intermittent and unreliable windmill technology (which past generations were only too glad to abandon in favour of water and steam), climate change (objectors to popular thinking are usually vilified in the same breath and with almost the same vehemence as are holocaust deniers), dependence on private companies from foreign countries for our energy supply, generous subsidies out of all proportion to effectiveness etc, etc.
It is actually the morality behind wind turbines that needs to be addressed above all else, because we suspect that this is at the very heart of many people’s objections.
However, this is the issue that is deliberately ignored by all those in power, locally, nationally and globally.
We are supposed to be a caring, considerate and charitable society founded on ethical and moral principles, the principles which are enshrined in the teachings and writings of humanists and of all the major religions of the world. Without these, our society would, without a doubt, collapse.
Yet here we are dealing with selfish and ruthless business people on an epic, even biblical, scale.
How dare thoughtless developers (from Denmark, Norway, Germany etc.) destroy the lives of countless folk so that their own bank balances can expand?
How dare complicit landowners rake in vast amounts of money in the knowledge that their neighbours will have to suffer?
How dare so-called environmentalists encourage the poisoning of lakes in China so that magnets for turbines can be made, or promote the burying of vast amounts of concrete in precious peat-land areas? How dare anyone give the impression that 125-metre turbines are smaller than street lights (Gazette, February 2, p2)? We could go on.
We also question the morality of covering the countryside with endless swathes of wind-power stations (that is what these masses of turbines are, in effect), just because the population there is comparatively small.
Advocates of this policy no doubt will be sitting in their urban homes, always able to switch on their lights, recharge their mobile phones, use their computers and watch TV, as well as having their reliable, ever-present and relatively cheap gas (from Russia, we might add) for cooking and central heating.
These are the people who will be comfortable in the knowledge that they will not have to listen to or be overlooked by turbines every day and will not give a second thought for those whose lives are being, or will be, devastated by the constant whirring and thumping from revolving turbine blades.
Yet it is in these very urban areas where most electricity is required, so everyone should ask themselves – where would power stations most effectively be sited?
However, it would be most invidious, un-Christian and even immoral of us to go down that route.
Richard and Alison Simmance,
Middle Hill Action Group,
Coalsfield House,
Elsdon
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/02/16/moral-warnings-behind-turbine-saga/