Windy logic

Published on 26/06/2012 00:00

Jane Devine, who wrote the “wind farms are here to stay” distortions (Perspective, 25 June), needs a course in logic.

We read assertions that wind farms have a statuesque beauty with a soothing motion and should be celebrated. But their obvious visual impact is dismissed with the total rejection of any notion that they will spoil our natural landscape on the grounds it is already teeming with human impact.

Oh yeah? 450-foot high whirligigs towering over everything for miles around? There ain’t been anything like that, ever. (The pyramids don’t count, nor do skyscrapers and communication towers; they do not normally revolve unless one has had a bevvy or two).

We all agree that electricity from “renewable” sources is more essential than ever, and even accept wind turbines onshore where placed sensitively and appropriately, but they far too frequently aren’t – even a couple of miles away from dwellings is too close, and in the hills it is accepted that key vistas must not be blocked.

Furthermore, 24-hours-a-day guaranteed electricity is only available from base-load power stations, and “clean” nuclear remains the clear winner while marine systems are built up, but this is quite neglected.

JOE DARBY

Cullicudden

Dingwall, Ross-shire

Jane Devine may or may not have professional expertise on wind farms, but she ignores completely the doubts expressed by those undoubted experts in your letters page on 27 April, 2011 – Colin Gibson, Prof Ken Ledingham, Prof Colin McInnes, Sir Donald Miller, Prof Anthony Trewavas and Prof Jack Ponton. I know whose opinions I respect.

JOHN BIRKETT

Horseleys Park

St Andrews, Fife