Day 2:Wind Turbine Week for Ellen
Posted by admin on 23 Nov 2009 at 06:58 pm | Tagged as: Uncategorized
Today’s revelation: this morning, we drove around in my hostess’ Smart Car, getting even closer to one group of turbines. Because they’re so sleek, it’s hard to grasp their enormous size. Among the half a dozen or so turbines we could easily see at one point, one was right next to the road; we got out so I could photograph her standing next to it, to show scale. That involved a bit of walking around for me, to get far enough away to get the turbine from top to bottom, and to try for a nice angle. As soon as I was out of the car, I noticed a grating sound – a turbine rotating? Something in need of oil? That was irregular, and extremely unpleasant, in my view. Then, I recognized the rhythmic whooshing, not particularly loud to me, but inexorable. Astounding to me – walking back and forth the few hundred metres to get my photos, I found in some spots I could almost not hear any turbine sound at all, when, only a few steps later, it was very evident. If on one occasion, one person’s perceptions vary so very much, what a challenge it is to obtain information that respects individuals so as to meet the needs and wishes of all.
letter to The Lawyer’s Weekly re Diane Saxe’s piece in Nov. 6/09 issue:
It is most disappointing to see the cavalier declaration by Diane Saxe about “very large setbacks” for wind turbines. Whence the “very” and the “large”, especially considering that in places of far denser population far greater setbacks are mandated?
Sometimes a “backyard” concern overlaps genuinely with a real health and nuisance one. Not only that, but attending closely to questions of scale and appropriateness, strongly involving localist say, is the cultural and political prescription to counter the results of depredations that so many “green”-inclined would make haste about. Such haste can jive all too conveniently with impatient financiers, over-large industrialists, and overburdened and uncomprehending government in making a mockery of “precaution”.
It is a false dilemma to set up as the author does between “burning fossil fuels” and installation of hideous gargantuan wind turbines too close to inhabited areas, just as it is false to overstate that “all sources of power cause serious environmental damage”. Even a little bit of imagination, genuine localist focus and validation of real human concerns would yield co-operation required for effective conservation and installation of scaled-down options for power generation.
It is of concern that the relative youth of the science attesting to health dangers from large wind turbines, even at Saxe’s “very large” distances, might be a deterrent for a court to find in a preautionary vein. But the comparably relative youth of the industry in question should be equally in mind as appropriate precaution is assessed. It is even most disappointing that an environmental lawyer would treat “dislike of noise” so trivially, let alone that that is far from the only concern.
There is a place for centralized leadership, but it is in education, backstopping, conflict resolution with real revalidation of the local at its heart. There is no need either to invoke fears about “complete certainty”. Where one sees “doom [...] to immobility”, another sees an opportunity for salutary cultural shift.
Daryl Vernon
Toronto