LANDSCAPE vs ENVIRONMENT

The nimbies have struck again.

Near Drymen, in West Stirlingshire, there are plans for a ten-turbine windfarm.  Some of these will go on land that has been farmed by the same family for fifty years.  Sadly, this just means that the family have come under fire from some neighbours who - how shall we put this? - haven't been there quite so long.

The farm in question has an area of land which is effectively unfarmable.  That land can be put to good use by siting wind turbines on it.  It's not as if wind turbines are a rare sight in central Scotland - the locals have had ample opportunity to see that they do not have a negative impact on lives (unless, of course, you decide that they are going to impact on your life, regardless of empirical reality).  And yet, as letters to the local paper have shown, some of the selfish nitwits in the region reckon that visits to windfarms have only convinced them that their lives will "change completely" if the windfarm goes ahead.  How hysterical can you get?

Yes, unbelievably, the nasty nimbies of West Stirlingshire are STILL capable of coming out with all the disproven, discredited and unrealistic hogwash about "noise nuisance" and "light flicker".  You really would think that they live in a turbine-free area, the way they routinely spout the familiar nonsensical nimby lies.  But they don't.  There are plenty of working windfarms in the area.  So we can't put the atrocious claptrap published by members of EVAG (Endrick Valley Action Group) down to ignorance.  Intolerance, yes.  The vaulting hypocrisy of the nimby, yes.  But not ignorance.

Some locals have set out to make the lives of the farmer, his wife and their young children a misery.  Mostly in the form of snide insinuations and vicious comments in the local press and on Facebook.  The unpleasant nimbies of the area don't have the decency or the balls to take up their issues with the windfarm developers, Banks Renewables.  No.  Being typical nasty nimby types, they go straight for the family.  The family that has been there for five decades, when many of the nimbies have only just turned up.

Incredibly, the local hoodlums have accused the farming family of having "no conscience" and of not caring for the environment.

We'll give that one a moment to sink in.

It's true.  The recent arrivals who have taken arms against this perfectly legitimate clean energy development have accused the farmer and his family, on whose land some of the turbines will be sited, of having "no conscience".  A different matter, no doubt, from being unprincipled and unethical enough to attack a genuinely local family for doing the right thing.  And, worse maybe, these knuckleheads have claimed that the farmer does not care for the environment.

Anyone who knows anything about wind turbines know that they are an environment protection measure, as well as being an effective and efficient way of generating cheap electricity with the minimum of environmental harm.  But the delusional fools of EVAG and its sister covens don't actually know the first thing about wind turbines. If they did, they wouldn't bore the readers of the local paper with wildly inaccurate and silly letters making all the usual stupid nimby claims (e.g., that the wind turbines would be "completely inefficient" - a sure sign that this is an out-and-out nimby writing, and not an intelligent member of the human race).

Once again, the nimby nutters are making the fundamental mistake.  They are confusing the landscape with the environment.  It's an easy mistake to make, if you are basically selfish and anti-social.  The environment belongs to us all.  The landscape, these people like to think, belongs only to those who can afford it.

In reality, the landscape is merely the visible form of the environment.  And without renewables - windfarms very much included - then we can just kiss goodbye to the environment.  And the superficial aspect of the environment, which we call the landscape.

The sad fact is that many of the thugs who oppose perfectly sensible and beneficial wind energy developments don't need to care very much about environmental issues, because they won't be around for much longer.  They are happy to leave future generations to suffer the consequences of their insanely selfish lifestyles.

But here we have a farming family, very much a part of the local landscape, who have proven their commitment to the environment.  And they have some land which cannot be farmed.  It's a very good place to site some turbines, and they'll make some income from it.  It's news, of course, to the morons who've just moved to the area that farmers need to make an income (not an easy thing, in this day and age).  The kind of self-centred fool who moves to a rural area and then campaigns against everything genuinely rural will only tolerate farms as long as they are "picturesque".  That is, as long as they serve the narrow-minded notion of the landscape that these cretins import with them when they move there.

Forget the simple fact that farming is an environmental matter, more than merely a matter of aesthetics for the retired and the terminally selfish.  The fools of EVAG just don't want to admit this.  It's all about them, them, them, and what they think the landscape ought to be: a picture postcard they can look at occasionally from their armchairs.

And for that reason, the sad, sad people of EVAG have set out to make the lives of this local farming family a misery.

So EVAG joins the ever-growing list of climate traitors, anti-social monsters, self-deluding propagandists and aggressive idiots - or nimbies, for short.  They think it's their view that they are defending.  But they're not.  They are simply obstructing progress, opposing sustainability, ruining the lives of good people and threatening the future for our children and grandchildren.

Why?  Because they moved into the area.  And now no one else is allowed to do anything.  Oh, and they just love quoting that barefaced liar Donald Trump.  Which goes to show what low forms of amoeboid life they are.