Case for unsightly wind turbines is just political spin

I REFER to the article by Ben Stafford (Yorkshire Post, March 17) headlined: “It’s time we generated some light in the great turbine debate.”

Unfortunately, it adds little to the argument, accepting as it does the basic assumption of global catastrophe due to a man-made rise in C02 levels.

His next assumption is that wind turbines can contribute in any way to combating that situation.

Respected studies, deprived of publicity these days, indicate that, historically and prehistorically, periods of high CO2 levels do not cause rises in global temperature, they follow them after an interval of about 800 years.

Periods of global warming are not apparently brought about by the production of greenhouse gases by man (or his cattle) but by far more fundamental phenomena about which neither HM Government or Opposition can do anything.

Naturally, from the political point of view, this philosophy is utterly unacceptable. Hence the size of our fuel bills.

I hope perhaps this does in fact generate a little light on the debate?

From: Janet Berry, Barfield, Hambleton.

WELL done to the lyricist Sir Tim Rice. He has fallen out with the Tories over wind farms.

He has a 33,000 estate in Wester Ross in the Scottish Highlands where he has been asked to erect a huge wind farm.

He has turned down vast amounts of money, stating that it is a scam and a con and until the Government has the brains to actually say, “hang on we’ve got it wrong this is a total and environmental error”, then I find it hard to give support to them.

If only more people would react like this and realise that these monstrosities will ruin our beautiful countryside and only benefit the greedy landowners who allow them to be built.

They are not environmentally friendly, in the cold weather they stop turning, in the winds they blow up, they need servicing, they are noisy and they are not cost effective so why are we allowing them to be built. Sir Tim has gone up in my estimation.

From: John Bolton, Gregory Springs Mount, Mirfield.

RECENT debates regarding alternative energy have tended to support wind turbine schemes, particularly off-shore, as the solution.

I am surprised that the most reliable source of tidal-capture has not seemed to emerge as the preferred option or developed on any significant scale.

We are an island with countless smaller islands and coves dotting our coastline.

The existing hydro-electric technology might be applied and wouldn’t be so different, I would think. Should Scotland become a separate state, it wouldn’t be long before they were selling similar generated power, along with their surplus water, to their poor neighbours South of the border.

Given two reliable tides each and every day around our hundreds of miles of coast, it seems to me a no-brainer waiting to be harnessed.