Wind raises a lot of questions
Union Leader | January 14, 2016 | www.unionleader.com
Industrial Wind Developers want us to believe that global salvation, carbon reduction and the build-out of wind farms are all the same thing. By their marketing standards, we must do everything we can to stop climate change.
Has anyone thought that building wind farms on our mountaintops is actually counterproductive in our defenses against the impacts of climate change? Because our energy policy on wind farms will accelerate climate change with the destruction of each mountain ridge in New Hampshire, not to mention the destruction of wildlife habitats.
High-elevation forests are especially important to New Hampshire and many of you 4,000-foot club members understand that. Hikers pride themselves on their New Hampshire accomplishments. You either are one or know one, and most of you agree that wind farms are being developed at the cost of an intact ecosystem. Is that worth a mountain in New Hampshire?
How many wind turbines are destined for New Hampshire? How many mountain tops will be sacrificed? What cumulative impacts will they have? Should wind farms be placed in one regional community or spread out throughout the state? Why isn’t their wind data available to the public? Why are developers not responsible for decommissioning them? It’s sad that your questions fall on deaf ears, isn’t it?
As developers continue to degrade our defenses against climate change in their pursuit of profits, our responsibility should be to smarten up and stop them. Industrial wind development will actually worsen the impacts of climate change in New Hampshire.
Reduction, not destruction, is the answer.
RAY CUNNINGHAM
Bridgewater
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2016/01/14/wind-raises-a-lot-of-questions/