[NV Greens] Fwd: [usgp-dx] Wind farms are necessary, but won't stem global warming (George Monbiot, Guardian)

Wed Apr 27 01:04:18 PDT 2005

>An ugly face of ecology
>
>We need to be honest. Wind farms are a necessary
>evil, but they will not overcome the crisis of
>climate change
>
>George Monbiot
>Tuesday April 26, 2005
>The Guardian (UK)
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1470240,00.html
>
>
>The people fighting the new wind farm in Cumbria
>have cheated and exaggerated. They appear to
>possess little understanding of the dangers of
>global warming. They are supported by an
>unsavoury coalition of nuclear-power lobbyists
>and climate-change deniers. But it would still be
>wrong to dismiss them.
>
>The Whinash project on the edge of the Lake
>District national park will, if it goes ahead, be
>Europe's biggest onshore wind farm, producing,
>according to the developers, enough electricity
>for 47,000 homes. Without schemes like this,
>there is no chance of meeting the government's
>target of a 20% cut in carbon emissions by 2010.
>Onshore wind turbines are currently the cheapest
>means of producing new power without fossil
>fuels, but at the moment they account for just
>0.32% of our electricity. Faced with the global
>emergency of climate change, it would be
>criminally irresponsible not to build more. The
>public inquiry that will decide if the Whinash
>farm should go ahead, and help to determine the
>future of energy policy, began last week.
>
>Last year the Advertising Standards Authority
>ruled that the No Whinash Wind Farm campaign had
>exaggerated the size and number of the turbines,
>and the impact they would have on tourism and
>house prices. Among those supporting the
>exaggerators are the organisation Country
>Guardians and the former environmentalist David
>Bellamy. Country Guardians was co-founded by Sir
>Bernard Ingham, Margaret Thatcher's press
>secretary and a consultant to the nuclear
>industry. Bellamy is the country's foremost
>climate-change denier. (He was at it again last
>week, claiming in a letter to New Scientist that
>the World Glacier Monitoring Service says 89% of
>the world's glaciers are growing. Its most recent
>report shows that 82 of the 88 surveyed in 2003
>are shrinking.)
>
>But we should try not to judge a cause by its
>supporters. There are several things that make me
>uncomfortable about wind energy and the way in
>which it is being promoted.
>
>Wind farms, while necessary, are a classic
>example of what environmentalists call an
>"end-of-the-pipe solution". Instead of tackling
>the problem - our massive demand for energy - at
>source, they provide less damaging means of
>accommodating it. Or part of it. The Whinash
>project, by replacing energy generation from
>power stations burning fossil fuel, will reduce
>carbon dioxide emission by 178,000 tonnes a year.
>This is impressive, until you discover that a
>single jumbo jet, flying from London to Miami and
>back every day, releases the climate-change
>equivalent of 520,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a
>year. One daily connection between Britain and
>Florida costs three giant wind farms.
>
>Alternative technology permits us to imagine that
>we can build our way out of trouble. By
>responding to one form of overdevelopment with
>another, we can, we believe, continue to expand
>our total energy demands without destroying the
>planetary systems required to sustain human life.
>This might, for a while, be true. But it would
>soon require the use of the entire land surface
>of the UK.
>
>Consider, for example, the claims for hydrogen
>fuel cells. Their proponents believe that this
>country's vehicles could all one day be run on
>hydrogen produced by electricity from wind power.
>I am not sure if they have any idea what this
>involves. I haven't been able to find figures for
>the UK, but a rough estimate for the US suggests
>that the same transformation would require a
>doubling of the capacity of the national grid. If
>the ratio were the same here, that would mean a
>600-fold increase in wind generation, just to
>keep our wheels turning. If we were to seek to
>compensate for the emissions produced elsewhere,
>there is no end to it. The government envisages a
>rise in British aircraft passengers from 180
>million to 476 million over the next 25 years.
>That means a contribution to global warming that
>is equivalent to the carbon savings of 1,094
>Whinash farms.
>
>In other words, there is no sustainable way of
>meeting current projections for energy demand.
>The only strategy in any way compatible with
>environmentalism is one led by a vast reduction
>in total use. Greenpeace and Friends of the
>Earth, who support the new wind farm, make this
>point repeatedly, but it falls on deaf ears. What
>is acceptable to the market, and therefore to the
>government, is an enhanced set of opportunities
>for capital, in the form of new kinds of energy
>generation. What is not acceptable is a reduced
>set of opportunities for capital, in the form of
>massively curtailed total energy production. It
>is not their fault, but however clearly the green
>groups articulate their priorities, what the
>government hears is "more wind farms", rather
>than "fewer flights".
>
>I would like to see the green NGOs publish a
>statement about where this kind of development
>should stop. At what point will they say that too
>many wind farms are being built, and ask the
>government to call a halt? At what point does the
>switch to the decentralised, micro-generation
>projects they envisage take place?
>
>I would also feel happier if environmentalists
>dropped the pretence that wind farms are
>beautiful. They are merely less ugly and less
>destructive than most alternatives. They are a
>lot less ugly than climate change, which
>threatens to wreck the habitats anti-wind farm
>campaigners are so keen to preserve. We have to
>build them, but it would be more honest to
>recognise that they are a necessary evil.
>
>But these are not the only ways in which
>environmentalists' support for wind farms makes
>me squirm. The joint statement about the Whinash
>project published by Greenpeace and Friends of
>the Earth complains that "opponents of the
>scheme, which would be sited beside the M6
>motorway, have claimed that the wind turbines
>will spoil the views, failing to acknowledge that
>the presence of a motorway has degraded the
>landscape". It quotes Friends of the Earth's
>energy campaigner Jill Perry, who says: "I'm
>amazed that people are claiming that the area
>should be designated a national park. What kind
>of national park has a motorway running through
>it?" Well the New Forest and South Downs national
>parks, for a start. Their creation was supported
>by Friends of the Earth.
>
>Elsewhere, these groups oppose the "infill"
>around new roads. Elsewhere, they argue that
>landscapes and ecosystems should be viewed
>holistically: that they do not stop, in other
>words, at an arbitrary line on the map, like the
>boundary of a national park. I understand that
>green campaigners are placed in an uncomfortable
>position when arguing for development rather than
>against it. But I do not understand why they have
>to sound like Wal-Mart as soon as the boot is on
>the other foot.
>
>I believe the Whinash wind farm should be built.
>But I also believe that those who defend it
>should be a good deal more sensitive towards
>local objectors. Why? Because in any other
>circumstances they would find themselves fighting
>on the same side.
>
>http://www.monbiot.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand