DISSECTING A NIMBY RANT

Nimbies never learn. They're like Daleks. They go round screeching out their nimby nonsense and insisting that absolutely everybody must - and even does - agree with them, regardless of the evidence. As we saw in the Lenchwick Fiasco, they are prepared to tolerate no opinion other than their own, and will go to terrifying lengths to set up their own smokescreen of lies and then make sure that nobody, repeat nobody, else gets a word in. The very notion of free and open debate terrifies them, because it's only by enforcing a monopoly of opinion that they can avoid being exposed as morons, liars and frauds.

They also like trolling the pages of green and pro-renewables websites looking for an excuse to throw a tantrum.

One pro-renewables website posted up a blog page giving supporters advice about writing to the local press. Naturally, this perfectly fair and reasonable piece attracted a nimby Dalek. And so his wildly irrational rant began:

Could you please also include in your letters the devastation that wind turbines cause to unspoilt landscapes and communities?

Now, let's just stop him there, because he's already kicked off with two massive nimby myths. The first is the myth of the "unspoilt" countryside. It's easy enough, if you live in a bubble of your own smugness, to fall for this myth. But a moment's reflection, and the least appreciation of history, will tell you that it's nonsense. Try finding any part of the British landscape that hasn't been altered by human beings - go on, try and find one. Or, put it this way: if the "unspoilt landscape" you're on about has got fields, hedges, livestock, drainage, roads, lanes, pylons, canals, ancient heritage sites and not an awful lot of deciduous woodland on it, then it is NOT unspoilt. It has been changed. By people.

The other myth is that wind turbines devastate communities. Even when those wind turbines don't even exist yet. Or, put it another way: a windfarm that doesn't even exist is blamed for "devastating" a community.

This is impossible, of course, and if your community has been devastated by something that doesn't actually exist, then you and your neighbours have lost your heads.

Windfarms do NOT devastate communities. That is a fact. What devastates communities is nimby idiots who launch angry, noisy and downright dishonest anti-windfarm campaigns. We saw this during the Lenchwick Scandal. The weirdos lie their heads off in order to whip up unnecessary fear and alarm and then come down very, very hard indeed on those who have the capacity for abstract thought. That is what ruins communities. Not a windfarm that doesn't exist yet.

Anyway, Nimby Idiot (who signs himself "Hammer" - it's odd that these passionate protectors of "unspoilt" landscapes and communities love to give themselves violent profile names and pictures: tells you something about what they're really like) - he continues:

Here in Mid Wales, we are threatened with hundreds of extra turbines, which the vast majority of the Monmouthshire population don't want.

Okay, first of all - the ludicrously emotive and unreasonable language. These people are not being "threatened" with hundreds of extra turbines. Partly because the local communities will benefit, financially and in other ways, from the turbines. If you think you're being "threatened" with turbines, then you've got a screw loose.

Secondly, are we sure that the "vast majority" of the local population don't want them? Nimbies are notoriously for grossly misrepresenting the level of opposition, sometimes wheeling in their local MP to lie about public opinion (as VVASP did at the Wychavon District Council Planning Meeting). In fact, time and time again we discover that the majority of local people are not opposed to the turbines. But the Daleks insist that, because they are opposed to them, then everybody else must be as well, and so they distort the figures accordingly. Besides which, if you set out to devastate your own community by spreading a load of alarmist lies about the proposed windfarm, then a few sheep will start bleating in chorus. If they had the facts, rather than nimby lies, to base their opinions on, things might be different.

And so he goes on -

In addition to the turbines, we are threatened [again!] with a spider's web of electricity pylons and a 19-acre sub station that are going to ruin either the Upper Severn or Vyrnwy Valleys.

A "spider's web" of electricity pylons would be something to see! We can't really imagine what such a thing is, but we're fairly confident that - like all the other pylons that have been in existence for almost 100 years - we'll soon learn to live with them.

Since the economy of Mid Wales is underpinned by tourism, you can imagine the impact that wind turbines and hundreds of pylons and high powered lines is going to have on employment here.

Yes, we can imagine that, actually. There will be no impact on employment at all, except that some local jobs will be created. This is yet another nimby myth in action - the myth that windfarms adversely impact on business and tourism. They don't, as anyone who's been to Scotland, Cornwall or even Mid Wales will be able to tell you. But note how facetiously this "Hammer" nincompoop smuggles in the idea that they might. He assumes that we will imagine a local economy devastated by the turbines. And that's all we can do, because that devastation exists, and will continue to exist, entirely in the nimby imagination.

Perhaps, after your supporters have erected all their turbines against the wishes of local people, the last one to leave our beautiful region would be kind enough to turn off the lights!

What a strange sentence. Most windfarm supporters will not be erecting all the turbines - we'll leave that to the developers and their expert contractors - and the whole point is that, by doing so, the lights won't go out! Is this addled dimwit suggesting that we should erect all our turbines in his "beautiful" region and then leave all the people there in darkness? What an idiot!

Of course, the real purpose of this insane sentence is to allude to the Nazi invasion of various parts of Europe in the 1930s. Mr Raving Looney here is hoping that we'll all make the connection: conscientious supporters of renewable energy = Nazis; misinformed and selfish locals = freedom-fighters; arrival of windfarm = World War II. Honestly, you couldn't make it up, could you? Except that this drooling pranny did.

We keep hearing disturbing noises from the Coalition Government that sometimes the opinions of local people have to be over-ruled in the national interests.

Yep. And libraries are being closed, people with disabilities targetted, the NHS is being privatised by stealth and public sector workers sacked. Get real.

The last time we heard a similar statement was when the Tryweryn valley was flooded to provide water for Liverpool. That part of Wales will never forgive the Government of the day for riding roughshod over their wishes. Neither will the people of Montgomeryshire.

Nice to know that the people of Montgomeryshire are still standing firm with the displaced villagers of Tryweryn after all these years. At a guess, though, we'd have to say that "Hammer", whoever he is, doesn't sound like a real local. More likely, he's an Englishman who moved to Wales in search of that "unspoilt landscape" that he apparently believes in. And, consequently, he's profoundly ignorant of Welsh history.

When the Tryweryn river was dammed to create a reservoir in 1965, 67 inhabitants of the village of Capel Celyn were forcibly removed from their homes and their village was drowned. This was indeed to provide water for the City of Liverpool. It's still a sore point today.

But Mr Massive Nitwit - or "Hammer", as he prefers to be known - clearly isn't a real Welshman or he would never have desecrated the memory of the Capel Celyn victims by comparing what happened to them with the imminent appearance of a few more turbines in Mid Wales. Quite frankly, the man is insane to make such an offensive and foolish comparison. Nobody - but nobody - will be displaced from their homes by the proposed turbines. No villages will be wiped off the map, no ancestors dug up from their graves to be buried elsewhere, and families who have lived in the same valley for untold generations will be dragged from their homes by force.

YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE COMPLETELY OUT OF YOUR TINY LITTLE MIND TO IMAGINE THAT THE PROPOSED WINDFARM OR WINDFARMS WOULD BE ANYTHING LIKE WHAT HAPPENED AT CAPEL CELYN!!!!!!!!!

This, though, is the thing with the nimby nutters, and especially those who have moved into somebody else's village. They have no sense of perspective whatsoever. A few wind turbines which will have absolutely no negative impact on business, tourism, the environment, property prices, health or anything else for that matter get compared with the Lights Going Out Across Europe and one of the greatest outrages committed in twentieth century Wales.

So, I'm sorry to tell you this, "Hammer", but you're a maniac.

You are wrong on every level. You have no evidence whatsoever to back up your extremist claims. They are based entirely on prejudice and insinuation. And you have NO RIGHT to drag the people of Capel Celyn into your witless and selfish cause. You are a Grade-A idiot who has almost certainly done more harm to his community than foot and mouth did. In a sane world, you would be removed from society for the good of all.

In Denmark last year, wind power accounted for 24% of all electricity production. You've probably been telling anyone who will listen to your idiotic dribblings that Denmark "gave up" on wind power years ago. But that isn't true, just like everything else you've said about wind power isn't true. So you're not just grossly insensitive and borderline certifiable - you're a Massive Liar as well!

Europe's bill for oil shot up by 100 billion euro over the last financial year. The French government has just released figures which reveal that nuclear power is much, much more expensive than anyone had previously admitted. Domestic energy bills rose dramatically as the global price of wholesale gas went up, and there are indications that the gas-exporting countries like Russia are beginning to shut down the pipelines again.

And you, "Hammer" - you hairy-eared, swivel-eyed, flatulent twit - you are trying to stop Britain from planning its way out this energy crisis because you don't want to see a turbine or a pylon!

Cretin.