Sustainable landscape should be our first consideration
January 2, 2013 | wsj.com
Phil Gramm is right to a point: Subsidies for wind power should end. However, there remains the greater point about those subsidies—how they in fact contribute to the loss of America the Beautiful, including the best of our public lands. Where I live in the Pacific Northwest, it is downright heartbreaking to see what has happened to the Columbia River Gorge in the name of wind power. Certainly, Lewis and Clark would no longer recognize the place.
Before environmentalists learned to become apologists for wind and solar power, they were the first to worry about the beauty of America’s landscape. Such epic destruction is unacceptable for any form of energy. In the matter of proper, sustainable growth, the landscape should be our first consideration. Until wind and solar can assure us of that, they resolve little of the still larger problem of living within our means.
Alfred Runte, Ph.D.
Seattle
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/01/02/sustainable-landscape-should-be-our-first-consideration/