Don’t like wind farms? Why, that’s undemocratic
By David Hughes, The Telegraph, blogs.telegraph.co.uk 23 April 2012
By David Hughes, The Telegraph, blogs.telegraph.co.uk 23 April 2012
People like wind turbines and don’t mind paying to subsidise them through higher electricity bills. Surprised? Me too. But that’s the finding of a Mori/Ipsos on-line poll published today. It found that 66 per cent are either “strongly in favour of” or “tended to favour” the technology, against just 8 per cent who are opposed. As for the impact on the landscape, just 6 per cent find them “completely unacceptable” while 20 per cent find them “completely acceptable”, with far more being broadly in favour than broadly against. And 43 per cent thought wind farms are either “very good” or “fairly good” value for money as against 18 per cent who find t “fairly poor” or “very poor”.
There’s just one snag to this gush of support for wind farms. The poll has been commissioned by RenewableUK, the organisation that represents the industry. And there is a political purpose behind the exercise, articulated here by Maria McCaffery, RenewableUK’s chief executive:
It’s clear that the majority of those surveyed are supportive of energy from wind – strongly indicated from our survey results. Wind is an abundant, clean, secure and affordable energy source. It is therefore not only undemocratic to allow the vocal anti-wind minority to derail the UK’s plans for renewable energy, but also damaging to our economy, undermining investment and jobs that will help to rebuild communities across the country and put the UK on a path to future economic prosperity.
There you have it. If you don’t like windfarms, if you believe they are a blot on the landscape, that they are both unreliable and inefficient, that the energy they produce is ridiculously expensive – then keep those reservations to yourself. Otherwise you are part of an undemocratic minority hell-bent on ruining the UK economy. You have been warned.
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/04/24/dont-like-wind-farms-why-thats-undemocratic/