This is in response to the letters of Steve Johnson Aug. 3 and Joseph Minott Aug. 13 concerning wind energy. First of all, the only people needing educated are the people who think wind turbines are the answer.

Mr. Johnson sounds like his education was from the School of Spin! Industrial wind turbines are available 98 percent of the time, but the wind is only available 25 percent of the time. They are the most unreliable source of energy there is while obliterating miles of forest.

The destruction of lush forests full of life will only encourage global warming. The state's new Carbon Management Advisory Group (CMAG) Report notes that loss of forests to development causes a one-time surge of greenhouse gas emissions and eliminates the forests' future ability to sequester carbon.

As for Mr Minott, he lives in Philadelphia, home of our turbine hungry governor and Gamesa. It sounds like Mr. Minott is doing a promo for Gamesa. It's odd that he is intent on reading a little Somerset County newspaper.

The wind industries target small rural areas because they think we are stupid and our homes and life don't matter. There are no mountains like this in Philadelphia. Someone who has lived their whole life and raised their family on these mountains know the importance and value of the trees and the ecosystem that they sustain.

Go back and read your 5th grade science book. Or better yet, I urge you to go to www.windaction.org or www.wind-watch.org and get yourself a real life education. Wind energy can be good by siting them properly as not to destroy what cannot be replaced, like strip cuts and old farmlands.

Maybe it would be more beneficial to install them in every mall parking lot and big cities where there are no trees, plenty of noise to drown them out, and where the people that really want them can see them and enjoy them as much as they think they do. The "landowners" that actually want them don't live where they will be. They just want the money without consideration of the destruction it causes and the lives it destroys. Timbering only targets the largest, oldest trees, allowing the younger trees a chance to grow. They are not ripped out by the roots or fill the ground with concrete as with wind turbines, with no chance of anything ever growing again.

And one more thing, trees are not "burned" down to make paper. Now, who needs educated?