Is simply nuts

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They wouldn’t cop it on the beach in Sandy Bay. Why should we cop it here? Stanley resident Sam Humphries

Humphries warned.

During two days in Stanley staying with Dusty in dogfriendly accommodation at the very smart Ship Inn (I worried it was too good for an old journo) I met no one who was against renewables or who disbelieved our grandchildren were facing a climate crisis.

As Sam Humphries told me, “We are not against wind power, we just don’t need to hear it or see it.

“They wouldn’t cop it on the beach in Sandy Bay. Why should we cop it here.”

That same night at the Angels’ Share I met Sam’s mate Jeff Power a commercial artist and a cartoonist for the local paper, The Circular Head Chronicle.

Jeff had been amused by the ambiguity of a town so obsessed with heritage planning suddenly having to accommodate a wind farm. In one simple sketch he said everything that it took me a page to say.

Clearly, a wind farm three to four kilometres from a heritage tourist village doesn’t look or sound like good planning.

In Britain, where they have embraced wind power, there are 1100 turbines producing 25 per cent of the nation’s electricity.

But in stormy Scotland, where half of Britain’s wind turbines are situated, the locals aren’t happy.

Diplomatically the British government is now building new wind farms offshore.

Years ago, in a Welsh valley lined with wind turbines, a disgruntled farmer told me, “They wouldn’t have those bloody horrible things down in England. Anything nasty it’s always the same, ‘Let’s wish it on the Taffies or the Jocks’.”

Sam Humphries from Stanley’s Angels’ Share was quite right.

They wouldn’t build them down in Hobart

But Stanley, five hours drive away, is just about near enough.