15 July 2004

wind farms and the industrialisation of the countryside

Noel Edmonds has lent his weight to a new ostensibly anti wind power campaigning umbrella group. There are a few disturbing issues around this and one potentially encouraging one... In fact for later readers go to this link for the exact reference

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Andii.

Been enjoying your blog.

I was going to post "I can see that wind could be a problem for an umbrella group" - but thought better of it.

Dave (www.wibsite.com)
(Sorry - I can't seem to make Blogger log in as me!)

Andii said...

I think that you should have made that comment -wind, umbrella group -just my sense of humour; makes my sons groan, though.

Chris Monroe said...

Wind power -- it's a troublesome switch-off: No air polution, but plenty of "sight" polution. Air farms are very popular here in California. On a recent drive out to Palm Springs, I have to admit that the sight almost made me sick. Another thing: since power-generating windmills are such a huge "money-making" investment (at least out here), how should we feel about the commercialization and commodification of our ecological responsibilities?

Andii said...

I recognise that the sight can be overpowering [!] though I have to say that it's probably no worse than the non-renewable alternatives with losts of plants, roads and smoke along with cables and pylons marching across the landscape. If we can organise to decentralise power generationthan that would be better yet. And there are starting to be viable ways to do that and to design for lower power consumption. Ultimately I think that commodification could be an ally -see the book 'Natural Capitalism' by Lovins and others for real-life examples of how these things could work and work in such a way as people can make a living at it.

Although it is possible to make such things market congruent I suspect that given the timetable of world need, we have to be looking to non-market initiatives to get things kick started and accelerating. My 'TheGreening' blog collects bit and bobs that relta to this.

"Spend and tax" not "tax and spend"

 I got a response from my MP which got me kind of mad. You'll see why as I reproduce it here. Apologies for the strange changes in types...