Discuss: Hell Yeah, We Want Windmills

Despite the ongoing disaster in West Virginia, it seems essential to take a broader approach to the basic issues here at present. Windmills of course aren’t some kind of ‘Endlösnung’.

Take a look at this perspective from Denmark; http://ralph-sylvestersen.blogspot.com/2009/02/meaningless-electricity-production-or.html

So,what is evebody doing to support the activists who are practicing civil disobedience to stop nountaintop removal??“Democracy Now"covered the story yesterday(6/24/09).Amy had a photo of James Hansen,a participant.

Certainly some worthy sentiments, but the coda at the end is more balderdash: “We can imagine,” “We can dream,” we can think nice thoughts, we can pet a squirrel - but the planet’s environment is being run by our human social institutions, our supersystem, and it is slicing and dicing and discarding and carving as we entertain our sweet visions.
Protest and envision all you want, but be ready, like James Hansen, to view the sociology of toxic politics with clear appreciation for our predicament, not with the God glasses of Wendell Berry.

While organizing to oppose a “biomass plant” - i.e. forest incinerator - in my town, those in Cold River,West Virginia inspire me.  They not only oppose mountain range removal but are claiming their vision by fighting for wind power.  We must all radically reduce our carbon footprint and work together for solar and wind power.  Here in western Massachusetts we must also change our state and federal policies that claim “biomass” deserves “renewable” credits and eliminate unsustainable methods of electricity generation.

Here’s my favorite nugget from this piece:

“To imply, for one, that Massey is a “responsible” producer of energy represents a considerable disregard for the facts.”

Amen. And this last week we saw the Massey crowd’s disregard for peaceful protest, too, when a coal family wife crossed a picket line on June 23rd to hit Judy Bonds in the face, which aggravated an old injury and landed Judy in the hospital. Video here:

http://www.wikio.com/video/1323876

Judy is a Goldman Environmental Prize winning activist, and hence a big target in WV, and she’s also the director of a gutsy Orion Grassroots Network member group, Coal River Mountain Watch in Charleston. http://www.crmw.net

Erik
Orion Grassroots Network

From many of the supporters of wind energy in the mountains, there is an initial disregard for the mountains. While we may be building more sustainable energy for the energy-hungry cities, we may be destroying the integrity of the mountains and what makes them so beautiful and wild. Its so tricky to find a happy medium because while we may be promoting sustainability, we are ruining the ridgetops that haven’t been poisoned with the stain of development.

Then again, I would surely prefer wind farms on mountains to mountains blown up for coal mining. I just hope that some people reading this might consider the ramifications of even the “good” sources of energy.

Whenever I am hiking out near Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina, you can see an ugly hotel over on a distant ridge, which ruins your day. I hope that some day we are not reluctantly looking at windmills the same way.

Hats off for a great article. Nuances of the difficulties of changing attitudes and practices in a culture are not glossed over, but the point is made.

Key for me is the part about local people and places paying the price for the casual over-use of energy and resources elsewhere. Also the section about jobs in the coal industry depending on an industry that shows scant disregard for the people that they employ, or the long term health of the community that they are a part of.

Most of us have absolutely no idea of where our electricity comes from. We export responsibility for our use of power to others, and this is especially true of large projects, whether they be coal, nuclear, hydro or, yes, wind.

I have researched the impact of large scale wind projects. It is instructive to note that many investors in wind power are well versed in energy economics, and that education has been earned by, guess how, working in coal, oil, hydro, nuclear.

Large industrial projects are large industrial projects.

However - there always is a however - solar, wind, and certain types of biomass projects all provide benefits with much, much less impact than others.

That does not mean that we should give cart blanche approval for these projects.

Wind power on a large scale requires roads, transmission lines, land. If we do not scrutinize these projects to minimize the impacts we will end up with roads that are highway widths, poorly drained, causing erosion and soil loss, just as poorly planned roads have done since logging was started on the West Coast (just to pick an obvious example) and elsewhere.

Run of the river hydro has great potential to provide power and actually improve the environment by providing off channel habitat in storage ponds and channels, for fish and other species. In rivers that have felt the impact of settlement such habitat has often been drained or filled for farmland, housing and urbanization. But here in BC many such projects are just another excuse for building damns (sic - intended), diverting streams and taking from nature in ways that are still extractive. Much as the biofuels/forest eating power system mentioned above.

Biofuels - yes, some types are great. Growing corn to fuel SUV’s is a losing proposition on many fronts, from boosting prices for food on world markets, to the abysmal energy conversion ratio. Ask this question of those who would take primary forest products and chip them to be burned in a power plant: are we still dumping all our kitchen waste underground? For crying out loud - the industries that will actually help will carefully select their feedstocks, so that a net benefit is given to multiple problems, not just one.

Here again is the crux: we cannot continue to treat the earth and its inhabitants like one huge sink for our “external” debits, whether it be to soak up our pollution, or pay for its products with wasted lungs, human relationships, or river valleys.

And using the language of the environmental movement - “clean, green coal?” - to mask the same old, same old will simply lead us to the same old place.

Cheers.

One more thing:

I have watched the forest industry in BC since I was a lad of 14 in 1973. Many times we have seen confrontations between environmentalists and loggers, millworkers and truck drivers.

In every case, where forests have been preserved, there are at least jobs for those who are willing to back away from the feller-bunchers and trade it for a lightweight tractor, or grab a pair of hiking boots. Where the forest companies “won” and managed to continue with extractive forest practices, mills are shut, towns are shuttered, lives decimated, and forests simply removed.

Sustainable ways of living, especially forestry, are necessarily local, essentially provide more, longer lasting, meaningful work, and provide more money for local communities. Studies are legion. The data is in.

I am afraid that I once had some sympathy for even that solid woman who marched up to Judy Bonds for a good wallup. However misguided, she was fighting for her family and her community.

But no more, no way, no how. She is no longer arguing for “Jobs for our families!” She is now simply saying, “Jobs for MY family, and to hell with yours! And never mind about your face, too!”