Renewable energy hysteria and fear mongering

Wolfe Erlichman | Sep 03, 2015

The two letters, (Re: Wind Turbines)  and (Industrial Scale Solar Fields) in the August 20 edition of the Frontenac News are prime examples of hysteria about renewable energy. In the first letter, Mr. Goodspeed has once again repeated his tired refrain about preserving our "pristine" heritage by severely limiting renewable projects. As Jeff Green pointed out recently, this area has not been "pristine" for 200 years. In fact, we live in a mixed use area where million-dollar houses sit beside run-down trailers. Where blue plastic maple syrup lines snake through the woods. Where hay bales covered with white plastic are everywhere. Where there is a morning and afternoon "rush hour" on our major thoroughfares. Where you can hear the drone of motor boats all summer and hear and see them being towed by huge SUVs and monster pickup trucks. Where ATVs are heard all of the time on the back roads. In fact, if Mr. Goodspeed really wanted to preserve what's left of our forests, he would be actively encouraging renewable energy with positive suggestions about how to improve siting, screening, and landscaping. We have to fight global warming or we will lose what remaining forests we have since global warming will bring more threats like the emerald ash borer, the pine beetle, and heat stress. The arrival of ticks due to global warming will make it more difficult to enjoy our forests.

In the second letter, Mike Emmerich repeats the fiction that energy from renewable sources is not needed. In fact, we need renewable energy to provide local resiliency in case we have more disasters such as the ice storm and to eliminate the need to refurbish our nuclear reactors, which will be very expensive. He also repeats another fiction that windmills are damaging to our health..even the Harper government has put out a report saying that this is not true. BEARAT( Bon Echo Area Residents Against Turbines), a group that Mr. Emmerich refers to, continues the anti-wind fear mongering by stating categorically that having windmills in the area will lower property values when studies have shown this is not true. The group also claims that..."the cost of decommissioning will be borne by the landowners" which is also not true.

This irrational NIMBY opposition to renewable energy will not succeed. The world has realized that renewable energy will be part of a larger effort to help us survive on our finite planet. In the past couple of years world-wide, more new electricity has been generated from wind and solar energy than from all other sources combined. We are going through exciting but uncertain times as we transition from centralized to decentralized electricity generation, from energy dependence to energy independence and away from fossil fuels, from expansion to conservation. This results in understandable concern but most of us realize that this is a path we have to take. It will be somewhat easier if we can deal with our concerns in a more rational manner.