In my more cynical moments I wonder if maybe you've got this completely backwards. What if these people aren't accidentally sullying their campaign for climate change by mixing in a laundry list of other issues; what if they're deliberately using climate change as an opportunity to present a false dichotomy to the public - "either you have to do everything we want or the planet fries"?
"As an aside, how completely and utterly mental was it that on-shore wind was effectively banned in the first place?!" - You're showing your ignorance here James. A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
As an anti-wind activist who has been personally involved in several campaigns to reject onshore wind blight, I can tell you what's happened is not that they've been banned, but rather local councils have had to earmark certain zones as appropriate for wind development, with the approval of the local community. And guess what, local communities have unanimously rejected them. It's the public who have to live with them who have "effectively banned" wind farms. The government is simply not overruling local opinion to push them through regardless anymore, as it did up until 2015.
Once you look into the court cases against wind companies for damaging people's health (eg the Enercon case in Ireland), you realise how much money the government could be sued for. Wind farms kill birds, bats, bees and whales, whilst making people, including myself, physically sick. They don't work when it's not windy enough, they don't work when it's too windy, they're the wrong shape, the wrong size and the wrong colour to be in any way "green" - rather they blight, belittle and block all that is truly green. They take energy and resources from the many and give it to the few, the landowners who make millions from them, even getting paid constraint payments NOT to generate electricity! They decimate our rural landscapes, they damage CO2-absorbing peat bogs, nobody keeps track of the carbon footprint of the installation and maintenance of these Weapons of Moss Destruction. We're just outsourcing their carbon footprint and environmental damage to the places like Baotou where the rare earth metals are mined.
Please look closer into the impacts of wind energy, otherwise I'd say you have a spot-on analysis. Above all, good on you for having a comments section rather than just preaching at us, so we can have a good old dialectic based on your starting thesis. Thank you very much for the vent space :-)
You had me until you mentioned wind farms as part of the solution. There's zero place for unsustainable, unmanageable and inefficient wind power in any attempts to tackle climate change. Nuclear is the only option. Far better to close every single wind turbine down, recycle the parts (if possible) and switch to nuclear. There are simply far too many environmental issues associated with wind energy (eg killing whales) to make it worthy of even a single penny of public money. All wind farm operators should face mandatory 25 year jail sentences should they not decommission and remove all traces of their junk.
You will never get countryside lovers to sign up to anything whatsoever that inovlves wind farms. The moment the climate lobby stand up against these toxic instruments of destruction is the moment they can be taken seriously.
Even Greta gets this now. Good on her! I knew she would, the more exposure she had to those communities ruined by wind blight.
Good read, but you needed setting straight about the horrible realities of wind energy. Happy to provide more info if needed.
Surely needs to be a 'law' of politics that those most motivated to pursue a cause are frequently those least suited to rallying the necessary coalition behind them.
I do wonder if the taxpayers alliance and some of the 55 Tufton Street people are acting in bad faith.
But certainly groups like the countryside alliance or the ramblers or the wildlife trusts or the Campaign for Rural England (who now also favour more social housing in rural areas) are acting in good faith.
In my more cynical moments I wonder if maybe you've got this completely backwards. What if these people aren't accidentally sullying their campaign for climate change by mixing in a laundry list of other issues; what if they're deliberately using climate change as an opportunity to present a false dichotomy to the public - "either you have to do everything we want or the planet fries"?
"As an aside, how completely and utterly mental was it that on-shore wind was effectively banned in the first place?!" - You're showing your ignorance here James. A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
As an anti-wind activist who has been personally involved in several campaigns to reject onshore wind blight, I can tell you what's happened is not that they've been banned, but rather local councils have had to earmark certain zones as appropriate for wind development, with the approval of the local community. And guess what, local communities have unanimously rejected them. It's the public who have to live with them who have "effectively banned" wind farms. The government is simply not overruling local opinion to push them through regardless anymore, as it did up until 2015.
Once you look into the court cases against wind companies for damaging people's health (eg the Enercon case in Ireland), you realise how much money the government could be sued for. Wind farms kill birds, bats, bees and whales, whilst making people, including myself, physically sick. They don't work when it's not windy enough, they don't work when it's too windy, they're the wrong shape, the wrong size and the wrong colour to be in any way "green" - rather they blight, belittle and block all that is truly green. They take energy and resources from the many and give it to the few, the landowners who make millions from them, even getting paid constraint payments NOT to generate electricity! They decimate our rural landscapes, they damage CO2-absorbing peat bogs, nobody keeps track of the carbon footprint of the installation and maintenance of these Weapons of Moss Destruction. We're just outsourcing their carbon footprint and environmental damage to the places like Baotou where the rare earth metals are mined.
Please look closer into the impacts of wind energy, otherwise I'd say you have a spot-on analysis. Above all, good on you for having a comments section rather than just preaching at us, so we can have a good old dialectic based on your starting thesis. Thank you very much for the vent space :-)
You had me until you mentioned wind farms as part of the solution. There's zero place for unsustainable, unmanageable and inefficient wind power in any attempts to tackle climate change. Nuclear is the only option. Far better to close every single wind turbine down, recycle the parts (if possible) and switch to nuclear. There are simply far too many environmental issues associated with wind energy (eg killing whales) to make it worthy of even a single penny of public money. All wind farm operators should face mandatory 25 year jail sentences should they not decommission and remove all traces of their junk.
You will never get countryside lovers to sign up to anything whatsoever that inovlves wind farms. The moment the climate lobby stand up against these toxic instruments of destruction is the moment they can be taken seriously.
Even Greta gets this now. Good on her! I knew she would, the more exposure she had to those communities ruined by wind blight.
Good read, but you needed setting straight about the horrible realities of wind energy. Happy to provide more info if needed.
Surely needs to be a 'law' of politics that those most motivated to pursue a cause are frequently those least suited to rallying the necessary coalition behind them.
Great article! Fully agree with it!
I do wonder if the taxpayers alliance and some of the 55 Tufton Street people are acting in bad faith.
But certainly groups like the countryside alliance or the ramblers or the wildlife trusts or the Campaign for Rural England (who now also favour more social housing in rural areas) are acting in good faith.