VOICES OF THE FUTURE

You might well have read this already (it was published in last week's Evesham Journal), but here it is again:

Unfortunately we are writing to inform you of our disagreement with the people who are against wind turbines. Horrendously, people complain bitterly about these wonderful structures, however, if they don’t want wind turbines what other energy source are they going to use?
Fusion nor fission would work, for it hasn’t properly been invented yet and would run out very quickly if it had been. Maybe someone could invent geothermal energy more or could fund solar panels. Perhaps you could invent your own energy producer. Or maybe you do want the human race to be wiped out like the petty prey of a cheetah. If you don’t then let the wind turbines get put up.
Strangely, some people say that wind turbines look silly and ruin the countryside therefore they don’t want them around. Despite these off-putting comments most right minded people think they look modern, technical even. It would ruin the countryside without them anyway as if we don’t global warming will overcome us and possibly destroy the world. We think that its not what the machine looks like (in this case wind turbines) it is what is doing that really matters. For instance if the machine is possibly saving the world then the outside shouldn’t be considered at all.
As we have many years ahead of us (for excitement and enjoyment) we don’t want to spoil it. Furthermore, we want to live healthy lives, not lives spent seeking out another planet to destroy with our toxic gases and foul fumes. Friends of the earth say ‘stop the earth being used up like there is no tomorrow’. As tomorrows people we feel wind turbines are an essential item.
In conclusion, we feel that we should allow wind turbines, they are good for the environment and for our futures.
Ellie Clark (aged 10 3/4) Fiona Jones (aged 11 1/2)

Ellie and Fiona are the very people we need to hear from. Theirs is the generation which will have to pick up the pieces of whatever is left of society and the planet when the current generation has finished with them. It will be the unenviable task of people like young Ellie and Fiona to clear up the mess we made and to live with the consequences of our selfishness and greed.

It'll be interesting to see whether any of the VVASP fools takes up cudgels in the Journal to tell these young people where they're wrong.

After all, how do you tell young people that their concerns and desires are irrelevant, that their future is no concern of ours, and that people in the Lenches would rather see our home environment choked, blitzed and denuded than run the risk of being able to see the solution close to their comfortable homes.

Of course, what Ellie and Fiona don't realise is that this dispute is purely over whether we should be siting wind turbines in the most suitable places or whether we should cave in to the short-term interests of a few middle-class nimbies. Ellie and Fiona might, all being well, have sixty, seventy or eighty years ahead of them, but their rights are minimal, compared with, say, those of someone who retired to the Lenches and doesn't want anything getting in the way of their view.

If any of the VVASP ring-leaders had a conscience or a scrap of scruple in them, they would read Ellie and Fiona's letter and bury their heads in shame. They would realise that there is more at stake than what they might be able to see from a corner of their garden. They would realise that their pompous little protest is, in fact, a betrayal of EVERYBODY - themselves, their neighbours, their children, the rest of the UK and life on this planet, now and in the years to come.

The sad thing is that VVASP doesn't care who it betrays or who it lies to. What matters is what they might have to catch sight of, every now and then, in the years which remain to them. The needs of the next generation ... well, what have they got to do with anything? It's all about the alternative reality in which members of VVASP live, not the real world which Ellie and Fiona and millions like them will have to deal with when the hated pariahs of VVASP are dead and gone.