When plans were announced this week for a new high-speed rail link between London and Glasgow, BBC News repeatedly showed snips of a promotional video.
Over and over again, viewers saw a computer-generated image of the sleek new train gliding through an imaginary landscape. And over and over again, we saw wind turbines gracefully turning beside the virtual high-tech railway line.
A glimpse of the future, there, if ever there was one.
The time will come when windfarms (or 'Industrial Wind Power Plants', as the loony brigade of VVASP like to think of them) will be a familiar feature of the landscape. They will be one of our principal sources of electricity. Cleaner, safer, prettier and more efficient than coal, gas, oil or nuclear power stations, they will provide communities up and down the country with cheap energy from an abundant and endlessly renewable source.
They are the future.
Sadly, though, there are some extremists in our midst - the sort who prefer to call these modern miracles 'Industrial Wind Power Plants', rather than 'wind farms', which is what everyone else calls them.
These extremists have decided that they don't want a windfarm near them. They don't have a particularly good reason for this, other than the rather selfish and muddle-headed conviction that they bought a view when they moved to the country.
But they have made it their mission to lie about these things. They are determined to mislead anybody and everybody about them.
They have not - repeat, NOT - uncovered some dark conspiracy. They do NOT have damaging facts about wind energy which the government has tried to suppress. They're not even really anti-windfarms.
But in order to protect their narrow-minded worldview, they'll try to sell you all sorts of absolute hogwash about them.
So - we know what the future looks like. It's got windfarms.
And we know that a small number of busybodies, nimbies, hoodlums and nitwits are trying to stop the future happening.
They'd rather the planet was burned to a crisp by the foolishness of man because they can't think straight.
They'd rather our children went without the basics.
They'd rather trick you into believing a load of nonsense about wind energy than let you make an intelligent, informed decision.
They are Vale Villages Against Scottish Power, and all those nimby groups like them. Busily lying their heads off about windfarms in order to protect ... what?
Well, here's the good news. An organisation called 'Sustainable Energy Alliance' has been in touch. Why not check out their website:
www.se-alliance.org.uk
These people have seen all the nimby nonsense being spouted by the fools of VVASP before. And they know it's all lies.
The nimby nutters will not have everything their own way. Not as long as there are caring, concerned individuals who are prepared to stand up to the bullies and liars.
We can work towards a better, greener, cleaner future - or we can bury our heads in the sand. We can create a future for everyone or fight to satisfy an ignorant few. We can accept desirable solutions to the problems we all face, or we can lie about them.
Remember - we will be judged on the decisions we make by future generations. Try telling them that we wouldn't accept a windfarm in the Lenches because a few selfish, intolerant nutcases lied to us about them. I don't think they'd be very impressed. Do you?
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