But the thought of trucks rolling out of Bennington, west into New York state to pick up the wood chips to heat the schoolchildren of Bennington, and back to Bennington — while the Green Mountain National Forest sits off-limits to logging in the school’s own backyard — does not pass the common sense test.

Since the PSB alone cannot change the system, I hope that it will work with the legislature to change the law, to develop a process for independent review of all the evidence. Conflicting claims should not be adjudicated in an adversarial forum.

I walked on my normal walk in the woods one day and looked up to the top of the mountain. Just several months before it had been a picturesque view of wilderness beauty ... the kind that attracts tourists and creates much of the state's income. Now, it was lined with these tall mechanical monsters, towering over the trees of an old forest. I am not talking about the quaint and charming windmills of Holland here, we are talking about metal and flashing lights and a size that miniaturizes the grand forest beneath it.

A green energy future beyond 2012 that includes both nuclear energy and large hydro. Renewables (i.e., small-scale wind and hydro), efficiency, and demand side management programs should be our first choice for new energy supplies, but cannot realistically fill the enormous gap that would be created if Vermont Yankee's and Hydro-Quebec's licenses are not renewed. These two sources make up about 70 percent of Vermont's energy supply. Vermonters don't want their energy future stockings filled with lumps of smog-producing coal.

In that survey, twice as many people said they would find them unacceptable or ugly. That's 2 to 1 against among those who actually had an opinion.

Could it be that the confused senator's judgment is clouded by his personal relationship with certain landowners in Lowell who stand to make huge profits at our expense?

If it does come down to making a choice, bats or humans, obviously we are going to choose humans. But in choosing humans, we also are counting on human ingenuity to preserve and protect our fellow tenants on the earth. True enough, it's a fine line, a razor's edge. But if we don't walk this particular path, then we all will end up walking on a paved sidewalk in a concrete jungle, instead of in a world where - in some places - things grow green.

And now we don’t have to go to Disneyland. Because, child, Disneyland is the whole state covered with wind towers.

The recent vote in Sheffield in favor of wind towers proves the point. While the majority of opinion across the NEK opposes the denigration of our ridge lines, individual towns, sensing a rescue from rising taxes, can be inveigled to accept wind farms that industrialize our ridge lines to the detriment of surrounding towns and citizens. It is highly unlikely, though, that the general population, given a chance to vote yes or no on dozens of the monster towers and fans, would approve of them.

Wind power projects of the magnitude proposed on our ridge lines would drastically affect the character of our state and do little or nothing to alleviate the problems of acid rain and greenhouse warming. Maybe Vince should listen to his colleagues. Some of them might know as much or more than he does.

Energy efficiency is by no means a permanent solution, but it should be a permanent part of the solution. Sensible energy use, combined with new power resources, is the only workable answer for New England.

There are 18 families who live under a mile and downwind of the Mars Hill wind project who have been negatively impacted by these massive turbines. We all want for people to understand what is at stake when turbines move into your community. The 28, GE 1.5 megawatt turbines here in Mars Hill have destroyed a way of life that many have cherished for generations. It is an industrial facility that covers over 3 miles. It has destroyed wildlife habitat, breathtaking views, and property values. It has forever scarred the mountain. It has disturbed streams, ponds and wetlands. Safety issues with ice throw, risks of fire and tower collapse are all things that neighbors have to consider.

Most opponents of industrial wind don't support it anywhere. They've looked into it and found it wanting.

Wind power is an idea that is appealing to the imagination. It sounds like a "free" source of energy that would be non-polluting and stable in cost. I am an optimist, and I love technology. If I thought for one moment that windmills would be a source of low cost energy, I would be building them. The reality is quite the contrary--wind power is wasteful of human and natural resources.

As is too often the case we have failed to engage in advance thinking and are therefore slugging it out town by town in the after-the-fact regulatory process. The process is bitter, expensive, stressful and time consuming.

Proponents of the Little Equinox Mountain wind facility say it will create jobs, create tax dollars, and enhance tourism. Your readers in Manchester, Vt. might be interested to know how that argument played out when FPL Energy similarly invaded our community in 2004

There is no question that between the number and size of the proposed wind towers in Ira that it does raise questions of aesthetics. Thirty-three industrialized wind turbines between 400 and 500 feet in height in such a small town are an abomination and absurdity. The town and its townspeople do have the right to make an argument of aesthetics. But it is not the primary argument.

We who voted "no" are not willing to sacrifice the focal point of Londonderry for something that will produce so little benefit and that will create so many problems.

The agency has informed the Public Service Board that the agency cannot make the legally required finding of no "undue adverse effect on ...the natural environment," including birds and bats, because there is insufficient evidence to support such a conclusion. The developer has not conducted the wildlife studies requested by the agency for over two years that would provide baseline data on the numbers of birds and bats that migrate over the project site.