LOCATION/TYPE

NEWS HOME

[ exact phrase in "" • results by date ]

[ Google-powered • results by relevance ]


Archive
RSS

Add NWW headlines to your site (click here)

Get weekly updates

WHAT TO DO
when your community is targeted

RSS

RSS feeds and more

Keep Wind Watch online and independent!

Donate via Paypal

Donate via Stripe

Selected Documents

All Documents

Research Links

Alerts

Press Releases

FAQs

Campaign Material

Photos & Graphics

Videos

Allied Groups

Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005.

News Watch Home

Top Tory slams party’s “blind hostility” to wind farms 

Credit:  Western Morning News | March 12, 2015 | www.westernmorningnews.co.uk ~~

A senior Conservative backbencher has condemned his own party’s opposition to onshore wind farms.

Tim Yeo, the outgoing chairman of the committee of MPs that oversees energy policy, has launched a withering attack on “blind unreasoning hostility” to the controversial renewable technology. He said sceptics were part of a “flat earth society”.

Across the region, around 100 large-scale turbines have already been erected at “farms” including Delabole in Cornwall and Fullabrook in Devon, and there are scores more of the smaller single turbines.

If it wins the election, the Conservative Party has promised to axe public subsidies for any newly-planned onshore turbines and give local councils the power to block new schemes.

Geoffrey Cox, Conservative MP for Torridge and West Devon, is among the long-standing campaigners against the “ghastly white gigantic monsters” causing “vandalism” in the countryside.

Last year, the Western Morning News revealed onshore wind turbines in the countryside receive £557 million each year from energy bill payers, and offshore farms off the coast get £699 million.

However, the Conservatives remain committed to the UK’s legally-binding long-term climate change targets.

Energy and Climate Change Committee chairman Mr Yeo, a former environment minister who is standing down as MP for South Suffolk after being deselected by local party members, said the Conservatives would end up spending more money on other more expensive green technology, such as offshore wind farms.

In his valedictory speech, he said: “There are some places in which onshore wind turbines are unacceptable for environmental and aesthetic reasons. But blind unreasoning hostility to onshore wind is mistaken.

“Allowing opponents to rule out onshore wind altogether has only one certain consequence – to raise the cost of achieving the cut in greenhouse gas emissions to which Britain is legally committed.

“In other words higher electricity prices for all consumers. Ministers should let decisions about individual proposals be resolved through the planning system.”

The Tory MP said the next Government must also support deep gas mining, or “fracking”, and oppose the “fuzzy-headed ideological fringes” that oppose the technology.

He said: “It must face down the misguided campaigners who oppose any form of fracking and all onshore wind.”

He labelled those who oppose every application for onshore wind farms, even when local communities do not object, as “climate change sceptics”.

He added: “These latter day members of the flat earth society have buried their heads in the sand over climate change, resolutely refusing to accept the science.”

Source:  Western Morning News | March 12, 2015 | www.westernmorningnews.co.uk

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Funding
   Donate via Paypal
(via Paypal)
Donate via Stripe
(via Stripe)

Share:

e-mail X FB LI TG TG Share


News Watch Home

Get the Facts
CONTACT DONATE PRIVACY ABOUT SEARCH
© National Wind Watch, Inc.
Use of copyrighted material adheres to Fair Use.
"Wind Watch" is a registered trademark.

 Follow:

Wind Watch on X Wind Watch on Facebook

Wind Watch on Linked In Wind Watch on Mastodon