INSIDE THE NIMBY MINDSET

Sometimes, there's just so much news about wind power that we here at Wind of Change get a bit overwhelmed.  Like this past week.  So many studies and surveys published.  We simply don't know where to start.

So perhaps it's better to take a global or holistic view of the insane, intransigent, argumentative, illogical, unreasonable, deeply divisive and dishonest nimby movement that is currently doing its utmost to wreck Britain's energy future and the planet as a whole.

You could say that there are two types of people in this world.  One kind tends to keep an open mind, to seek out and weigh up the evidence, to make decisions based on careful consideration of the evidence and the overall need, and continually to monitor the basis of their decisions.

The other makes up its mind instantly on the basis of kneejerk prejudice, short-sighted self-interest and total ignorance of the facts.  It then seeks out any "evidence" it can find which appears to support those prejudices and ruthlessly discounts, ignores or misrepresents any evidence which contradicts its blinkered stance.

(Don't let the nimbies fool you.  If you've really examined the evidence, you won't go around telling stupid stories about windfarms that have already been shown to be untrue.  Any nimby who claims to have been open-minded until they did some research into wind energy is lying, to themselves and to you.  So tell them that.)

Into the first category fall those adults amongst us who are not particularly fond of wind turbines as such, but recognise that they are a valid and vital part of our urgent drive towards a low-carbon economy and a sustainable future.  They are open minded enough to realise that it's not all about them.  And yes, in an ideal world, maybe, there would be no need for wind turbines (or nuclear power stations, or coal-fired power stations, or gas pipelines, and so on, and so forth).  But we need renewables, and maybe everybody has to make a sacrifice of sorts to help the UK in its economic and environmental progress.  And here's the good news: these people tend to find out that having a windfarm nearby is actually a Jolly Good Thing.

The latter bunch are the monstrous misfits of the nimby fringe.  They have never given a thought to wind energy until somebody mentioned the possibility of a windfarm or turbine somewhere in the vicinity.  At which point, the shutters came down.  These buffoons straightaway started looking for excuses to oppose a perfectly reasonable and indeed desirable development.  They knew that just saying "I don't want it near me!" wasn't really going to cut it, so they went hell for leather in their desperate hunt for excuses.  That's when they put together websites and placards and pamphlets which merely repeated the idiotic lies of other nimby groups.  The stories they tell are shocking, startling ... and plain wrong.

The worst kind of nimby fraud is the one who tries to use science in an attempt to dismiss the efficacy of wind power.  We saw it here in the Lenches and we're seeing it again now in the Borders, where the so-called Lauderdale Preservation Group has devoted an enormous amount of energy to trying to prove that wind turbines don't really do anything, only to blow it all by stating that the ones already operational in the Borders are doing a terrific job so they don't need any more.  A real scientist would not fall into that sort of trap - presenting gibberish evidence which claims to prove one thing and then proving the very opposite as part of your next made-up argument against wind turbines.  But, sadly, even people with a scientific background are capable of being betrayed by their own ideological prejudices and selfish pomposity into making idiots of themselves.

The bigger problem, however, is that there are some very dark forces in our world which are gladly providing these knuckleheads with the "evidence" to back up their demented, and wildly inaccurate, claims about wind power.  Like the fools of Montgomeryshire Against Pylons (MAP), lately criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority for indulging in disgraceful terror tactics and spreading false information in a lunatic attempt at converting public opinion, the nimbies who routinely and thoughtlessly oppose windfarms are rather too ready to soak up and spew out any stupid gobbet of misinformation they can get.  And much of it comes from lobby groups like the disreputable Renewable Energy Foundation and Nigel Lawson's propagandist Global Warming Policy Foundation (both of them fronts for the fossil fuel industries).

"Lord" Lawson repeatedly tells lies in order to pull the wool over people's eyes.  As a committed capitalist, he refuses to believe that the insanity of over-reliance on fossil fuels is causing any kind of problem at all.  Now, if he wants to believe something as cretinous as that, well, that's up to him.  But he goes further, taking large amounts of money from shady sources (which he refuses to name) and spreading false information in a deliberate attempt to confuse the public about the realities of climate change (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/21/lord-lawson-global-warming-errors).  If Planet Earth had a single enemy, it would probably be Lawson.  Karma will decide what to do with him, and it won't be pleasant.

However, every tin-pot right-wing nutcase who decides that anything "green" is clearly some sort of EU/Socialist/New World Order conspiracy is only too happy to quote Lawson's egregious climate lies, or the equally mendacious gobbledegook promoted by REF.  Take the latest group of climate traitors to lumber over the horizon - a national anti-windfarm campaign group calling themselves NOW.  Not only are all their facts wrong (nothing unusual there - try finding an anti-wind nimby who actually knows anything about wind power, even though they like to give the impression that they know a lot) but they have made it their ambition to oppose every wind development in the UK.  That, folks, is a betrayal of everything - our children's future, our climate commitments, our energy security, our right to the least expensive form of electricity available, as well as government policy, global agreements and the longterm health of the planet we call home.  People like Lawson might be massively deluded and evil enough to try and delude everybody else, but the motives behind NOW are completely insane.  It's a campaign based entirely on an complete absence of reliable evidence and scientific fact: a kind of supernimby group dedicated to undermining the United Kingdom.  They should be locked up for their own good, let alone the good of everybody and everything else.

It's not just the perversion of scientific evidence, the presentation of false evidence, the cherry-picking of data and the willingness to misinterpret that data along profoundly unscientific lines (a la Lawson, and various other right-wing thinktanks) that gives the nimbies comfort.  There's also the bare-faced egotism of the practised liar who seems to believe that he has a right to bully and browbeat everybody in sight into doing what he says.  Plenty of those thuggish sorts in the nimby movement, for all their risible posturing as the "victims" of something or other.  But they have anointed a new king who, just for now, finds it convenient to support the anti-wind lunatics, although that probably won't last.  His name is Donald Trump.

There have been a slew of opinion polls, the results of which have been published in the last few days, and all indicate that the clear majority of Britons (over two-thirds) actively support wind power, do not think that windfarms are a blot on the landscape and feel that subsidies for wind power are the right thing to do (by way of contrast, less than 10% of Britons are actively opposed to wind energy).  Other polls have shown that tourists are singularly unfazed by windfarms (thus demolishing the brainless nimby argument that a windfarm would destroy local tourism).  Add to that the fact that the RSPB has recently published the results of a long-running study which shows that wind turbines are not the "bird blenders" that nimby idiots want you to think they are, and you begin to wonder whether anything a nimby has ever said in his or her life ever turned out to be true.

People like Trump, though, don't care.  For them, it's all bluster.  It's a matter of smearing your opponents, hiring lawyers to do your dirty work, and lying in public.  During Trump's farcically egotistical appearance before the Scottish Parliament today, the folically-challenged one actually had the effrontery to answer questions about whether he could provide any evidence to back up his far-fetched claims with the words, "I am the evidence."  One of his henchmen then told the MSPs that, just because they were democratically elected, that did not give them the right to carry out their policies.  So, a rather strange notion of what democracy is and what it means in the Trump camp.

Or, rather, a strange notion of what counts as the truth.  But it doesn't matter.  People like Lord Lawson can manufacture false evidence, based on a skewed idea of what science is.  People like Trump don't bother with that.  They just make their ridiculous statements and assume that, because they made them, everybody will agree with them.  Okay, so opinion polls and other surveys have shown that windfarms do not adversely affect tourism.  But Trump thinks he knows better.  After all, he is "the evidence".

Between them, Lawson and Trump represent the twin fists of the nimby knuckledraggers.  They both tell lies.  One, however, twists science in order to create illusions.  The other just swaggers and bullies people.  Spend any length of time near an anti-wind nimby group and you'll come across both character types - the Pseudo-Scientist and the Ugly Thug.  Chances are, those two will be the mainstays of your local nimby campaign.  One, at least, tries to make it look like they've got some evidence on their side, even it is absolute rubbish with no basis in reality.  The other doesn't care: you'll either do what they say or they'll make you suffer for it.

Can we really afford to let these delusional right-wing extremists, these greedy egotistical monsters, these practised liars and their hired hoodlums dictate our energy policy for years to come?

Or shall we believe in democracy and science?

Put it this way.  It's a lot cleaner and healthier outside the mind of a nimby.  They'd like to pretend that it's windfarms that keep people awake at night.  But with corrupted consciences like theirs, it's a wonder that they can ever sleep at all.