Usually I look for and read stuff related to alternative energy, electric cars, things that aren’t that obtrusive to the environment and that don’t harm our children and our planet’s future health. I have never thought for one second that in the 21st century someone can say:
“Oil, not Alternative Energy, is the Future”
For all of you who’ve been reading my blog for the past few years, please let me express my feelings about this statement in a messenger-esque style: ” =)) =)) =))”
Oh… my… God… period. This sentence has been used by Fortune magazine and OnEarth (ironically), an environment-related publication. I read it on smallcapnetwork.com, where (please excuse this) a square-headed editor by the name of Jonathan Yates actually supported this statement and even reasoned it with “logical,” business arguments.
His “logical” arguments were smoked ones, however. Read them here:
There are other costs to alternative energy that does not come with utilizing oil. Installing a wind mill for wind energy requires a major construction project. It is noisy during the building phase and afterwards. The turbines are very noisy as they turn. In addition, the blades kill birds. Wind mills must also be at least 30-feet higher than the closest structure. If a tree is 60-feet high, you are talking about a 90-foot wind tower.
“The blades kill birds!” Oh, yeah? Is that why we shouldn’t build wind turbines anymore? Cool… Mr. Yates, if people would have stopped researching how to make gasoline engines less polluting and more powerful, then nowadays we’d still be driving the Model T.
“The turbines are very noisy as they turn.” – BS, these are nonsense stories made up by angry peasants and have in rare cases proven to be true.
So, two of the reasons why we shouldn’t pursue alternative energy are because it costs a lot to build a turbine and because a turbine creates noise and occasionally kills a sleepy bird.
How many birds have oil spills killed? Numbers, anyone? How many lung cancers and countless other diseases have been caused by air pollution from factories and smoking cars? How about the noise pollution in larger cities? How’s that for a change?
Of course alternative energy “only provides energy in the low single digits in the United States,” of course, that’s because the government has been historically investing in oil and subsidizing it more than it has been investing and subsidizing clean energy!
And I could rant about this forever… I’ve been writing for more than four years about alternative technology and convinced myself that this is the way, regardless of how profitable oil companies seem to be…
I really don’t know how educated people can think like that nowadays. They think it’s all about politics. And they really got me mad this time.
Speaking as a rural peasant & a freelance Eco-Architectural Design consultant, who’s a Moderator at the UK EcoVillage Network, networked with Open Source Ecology, Permaculture, Colleges, Chapter 7/TLIO, and loads more – I very much object to your ignorance.
Not in regards to the article – in which I am in total agreement…
My objection is to your ignorance on who is actually objecting to the Wind Turbines – and it’s not ‘the peasants’ for a start…
If you happen to be rural (peasant &/or a single head of household, who works self-employed/freelance) – then you’re probably homeless. (Like me and my three children.)
The people who ARE actually objecting to proposals for wind turbines/PV/Solar/Geo/Hyro/ADBG etc – are the non-rural & non-peasant ‘townies’ who bought all the affordable cottages – to max out on their profits.
These same executives/CEOs/Politicians/Managers & up their rear end idiots – don’t just object to every planning application for any renewable technology – they are blocking the opportunity for Permaculture & Eco-Villages/Hamlets/Resorts & EcoTourism too.
Goto any Local Authority website, check the planning guidelines for any PV/Solar/Wind – or any other Eco or renewable… and look at who’s objected.
Now check that person’s name out and see what you come up with…
I’ll bet it’s not a ‘peasant’.
What is a ‘peasant’??
(If it’s not the name used to describe people who understand the need to manage Earth organically, and fully appreciate the noxious effects of the petrochemical industry.)
Good God man – I started writing about the effects of Oil pollution when I was eight years old in the 1960s – AS A RURAL PEASANT.
I’ve been an activist all my life – and then the rest of you ‘lot’ all suddenly wake up to what I’d been awoken to from birth – and then you call me a ‘peasant’ …??????????????????????… AND say I’m blocking renewables – when I’m actively blocked from promoting them – and the education of their need too!
Try the word ‘NIMBY’ instead – us peasants don’t own any land to devalue by any wind turbines in the first place.
Wake up – and remember – I actually like your website – and, as a freelance Eco-Design consultant, have it tabbed to show in my open source ecology mobile unit, at Eco-Festivals, Green Build Exhibitions etc…
(And it’s cost me thousands and thousands of pounds – because, being a rural peasant – the banks refused to let me have a bank account, so I couldn’t even get a grant..)
Ignorance and prejudice aside – the top end large scale wind turbines are actually not designed to cope with horizontal rain, storms, tidal surges and sea level rises..
All that money – credit (global debt) – will ALL be wasted – already turbines are burning out in Scotland in high wind… just wait until the waves get bigger around the UK…
Insurance companies will soon be broken by all the claims.. Will they be floated by the banks – with the government’s tax payer’s money floating them in turn – and who, where, not working for a large corporate, also floated by their government…?
We need low-cost, affordable & movable renewable technologies. (They often don’t even need planning consent anyway – and get us all out of the financial poverty, which all the non-rural peasants have created on a global scale.)
Please see the Economists Global Debt map – and ask yourself who, where can possibly pay for all this debt..
Print more money???
A Peasant.
AnEarthMother
AnArkAngel