Telegraph

End column
By Peter Simple
(Filed: 13/02/2004)

An Evil Dream

A plague of wind turbines is steadily advancing, threatening to infest all
Britain with hideous structures. Not long ago I wrote of the wind industry's
plan to profane the upper Eden Valley in Westmorland.

Now a reader in Northern Ireland writes of a scheme to build the biggest
wind farm in Western Europe on the coast between the Inishowen peninsula in
Donegal and Portstewart in Northern Ireland, only 11 miles from the Giants
Causeway, from which its giant turbines - no less than 85 of them are
planned - would be clearly seen.

That there is widespread and vigorous opposition to this goes without
saying. If I lived in those parts myself, I might be tempted to contact the
IRA, who must have plenty of explosives lying idle at present and might be
willing to use them, for once, in a good cause. But that would be seriously
illegal, wouldn't it?

The wind industry is an important part of the Government's "renewable
energy" programme, supported by environmentalists and other well-meaning
people who have not thought carefully enough about schemes which if achieved
will, in effect, industrialise the most beautiful landscapes in our country.


The Wind Energy Council, which is a front for the companies that run this
highly profitable industry, takes full advantage of the popular appeal of a
form of power generation which, unlike older forms, seems clean and
innocent.

It is not difficult to exploit this appeal, which is why the frequent
opinion polls the industry carries out can often be made to yield results in
favour of wind power, even among people who live near the turbines and
suffer all the nuisances they inflict, of 70 or 80 per cent, while those
opposed are made to seem selfish and reactionary aesthetes more concerned
with their cherished landscapes than with human welfare.

So the wind industry proceeds virtually unchecked to obliterate what remains
of beauty and seemliness in our country and assimilate everything in its
way, whether historical and legendary sites or mere pleasant country places,
into the industrial complex.

Soon, if its depredations are not halted, there will be, wherever we look,
nothing left but the strictly utilitarian. Wherever we look, we shall be
made to realise that for those who rule our country and direct its policies
nothing counts but "growth" and "the economy". What's this but madness? What
can those who are fated to live like this do but go mad? When shall we wake
from this evil dream?