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WELCOME TO THE THIRD WORLD

We have been repeatedly told that Scotland has the best wind resource in Europe. Now, it appears we are prepared to let others harvest this resource and keep all the profits...It's a bit like we had a vast forest (we once did!) and someone offers to cut it all down for us. We reply with glee, "Would you like us to help pay for the necessary equipment?" They accept, cut all the trees and sell them (we might even buy some of them at full retail!) They pocket the proceeds and go home....

In a 'developing' country (or even in the rural areas of the 'developed' world), the typical approach is to make 'contributions' to politicians or parties so that they will approve (and even grant aid) an enterprise which will harvest one or another local resource. Sometimes the 'natives' are offered a few dollars worth of beads. Any profit, and often the bulk of the resource is packed up and carried off to enrich the lifestyles of investors in the first world (cities). Local culture withers and dies, and city folk buy houses for quiet weekends and complain about the smell of manure.

There's also the minor matter of our National Scenic Area. It seems to end at the waterline without including the scenery. Step into the water and you can build almost anything.

My argument is not with windfarms per se, but with being treated the same way we have treated 'third world' nations, not that there isn't a sort of ironic justice in it after centuries of our civilisation raping the rest of the world. Still, I can't rest easy while international financiers harvest our wind and sell it back to us for vast profits to fatten Texan pockets (and campaign funds).

Further tilting at windmills: Grants for Destruction Don Quixote Rides Again Welcome to the Third World What Sort of Folk are the New Neighbours? What is Appropriate in a Scenic Area? Shady Dealings Windfarms Italian Style


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