Back windfarms, fight climate change
IN the author and artist David Bellamy’s letter (Western Mail November 8), he complains about the approval of a seven-turbine windfarm in Llandegley, Powys.
While I accept the argument many people find them not beautiful (I often go to the summit of the Garth mountain on the north edge of Cardiff and see windfarms stretching into the distance on the green hills of the south Wales valleys) however, there is a greater argument that they are a “necessary evil” to combat global warming.
Scientists say the climate is a very delicate thing and even very small changes can cause immense damage, for example, if water remains at only 22 centigrade for a week fish will begin to die, which would eventually devastate the whole food chain and critically impact on the environment. And that’s a very minor change.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently put out what could be called a “climate emergency” report stating we have just 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe and urgent changes are needed to cut risk of extreme heat, drought, floods and poverty.
If we want to keep using electricity, clearly windfarms are one of the tools we have to use in the battle against this impending calamity.
Tidal lagoons are another tool but unfortunately Westminster has blocked those so we now need more windfarms instead.
Also, windfarms are not industrialisation.
Things such as working in seams of coal too narrow to stand up in, day in, day out, constantly being under threat from mine collapses, breathing in toxic dust.
That’s industrialisation, not silent pillars of steel on a mountain top, which, I’d argue, have a certain grace to them.
While the Conservatives are against windfarms and have effectively banned onshore windfarms in England, they support fracking and have just allowed this dangerous industry to commence in Lancashire, already causing earthquakes.
The Conservatives have allowed this despite, as reported by Channel 4 News, the Netherlands banning the industry after it damaged 80,000 Dutch homes causing eight billion euros’ worth of damage. And, unlike in England, the Welsh Government has put a ban in place protecting us from fracking (a WalesOnline report says half of Wales is suitable for fracking).
So it’s not always greener on the other side of the hill, and the beautiful Powys landscape is under threat like never before, and not from windfarms, but from the climate emergency.
We now all have an obligation to step up and do all we can. Chris Lewis Cathays, Cardiff