To the Expositor:
The windmills are perceived by some to be easy money: God turns on the wind and the loonies fall out at the bottom. Judging by the two at Spring Bay, these contraptions don’t always turn. Take note that the other six turbines slated for that area have never materialized. Why?
Of major consideration has to be the unsightly “welcome” of those towers as one drives down the spectacular marble and granite highway to Manitoulin wind farms. Then there is the cost of cleaning up the debris left when these monstrosities have served their dubious purpose, or worse letting Mother Nature, over eons, try to cover up a rusting mess. All that and the huge cost of dragging these expensive windmills up those majestic bluffs and the debt this will incur, cannot be offset by the relatively little power they will generate.
There is plenty to read on the subject: of the failure of renewable electricity in Europe because of power fluctuations caused by an unstable output, all at an exorbitant cost to consumers and in the end: no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Were you and I to decide to put up our own little windmills in our own backyards, I bet the whoosh of the blades, the mere sight, the very idea of this would send the neighbours over the moon. Council would enact a bylaw—no petition necessary!
We must learn to conserve, respect and share the limited resources of this planet, shelve our insatiable appetite for “stuff,” and stop using “growth” as the yardstick by which to measure success. Those who purport to love their children have their work cut out for them. Easier not to have them and spare them the brave new world we are generating for them.
Thirty-six million Canadians occupying a huge landmass can’t save the planet. While we embrace these band-aid solutions to stop global warming, the outsourcing of Western manufacturing sectors, for cheaper goods for us, continues to pollute the atmosphere “elsewhere,” at an ever-increasing rate. (The growth of manufacturing this generates there and the concomitant growth of borrowing here is applauded by governments as a sign of a healthy economy.) We should wonder and worry what wafts over us all when the wind blows from the west. Some of us remember that the fall-out from nuclear testing in the Pacific put the isotope Strontium 90 into the milk of Ontarians. The air is shared by all.
While writing letters may be like passing wind against thunder, it does make one feel momentarily empowered.
If we could only harness the energy in our brains before artificial intelligence robs us of the power to decide and freedom to choose.
Helga Reilly Mindemoya
