How would you imagine an environmentalist would react when presented with the following proposition? A power company plans to build a new development on a stretch of wild moorland. It will be nearly seven miles long, and consist of 150 structures, each made of steel and mounted on hundreds of tons of concrete. ...The answer is that if you are like many modern environmentalists you will support this project without question. You will dismiss anyone who opposes it as a nimby ...and campaign for thousands more.

Imagine that all gas pumps were wind "powered." How sure would you be that the amount of gas you wanted would be there? How long might it take to fill your tank? How long would the lines be awaiting service? As you parse this situation, think of the loss in productivity that would result. Because it produces no capacity value, is inimical to demand cycles, provides only early 19th century power productivity, in the process making everything and everyone around it work harder.

"Governor, I spent the first 35 years of my life in and around Fond du Lac County. "Returning after several years away, I find vast swaths of rural Wisconsin being heedlessly vandalized by industrial wind turbines, monstrosities that produce no useful output except tax breaks and carbon offsets for fat cats in Chicago and New York.

When LCRA announced the plan for its renewable energy transmission line from San Angelo to Comfort, Kimble County residents formed Clear View Alliance, Inc. Clear View's mission is to create a working relationship with LCRA to achieve environmentally responsible routing and construction methods. Let me be clear at this point: Clear View is not making NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) arguments as to the location of the transmission line despite the fact one LCRA representative, Krista Umscheid-Ramirez, wants to frame our mission in this manner.

If the nature of this debate sends one clear message, it's that wind power legislation needs to be thoroughly studied, not rushed through. The locus of the debate isn't over wind power itself, but of size, scale and most of all - location. Sen. Steve Goss of Watauga County wants farms permitted on ridge top locations in his area; Sens. Martin Nesbitt, D-Buncombe, John Snow, D-Murphy, and Joe Sam Queen, D-Waynesville, point to the fact that such large structures would run afoul of the mountain ridge law.

So people on Manitoulin can't handle change or that we think that turbines are monsters. I would suggest to Martin and Northland Power that people on Manitoulin are not children to be condescended to. We know turbines are not monsters and we would accept change as well as anyone, provided that it is to the benefit of all of residents, adjacent landowners, farm owners who are leasing their land. We want the concerns clearly addressed, not just reassurances that turbines are not monsters and that everything will be fine. Islanders deserve better then that.

The debate has its roots in a condominium project that popped up on a mountain ridge in the 1980s. There were no mountain area zoning laws to prevent it, and when the Sugar Top project emerged to stick out like a sore thumb, the General Assembly quickly acted. It adopted the Ridge Law, intended to stop the erection of excessively tall structures atop mountain ridges in altitudes of 3,000 feet or greater.

Performing a detailed feasibility study and siting analysis of wind turbine placement atop our Berkshire hills is dependent upon corporate proprietary information which could be purposely withheld (in restraint of trade) for fear that competition could gain an unfair advantage if it were divulged. Such a practice stifles competition from firms performing similar services ...but is particularly injurious to the industry which depends the most on the wise use of our land-based natural resources.

As if there are not enough already of these largely-ineffective and unsightly wind turbines in this region, the latest proposal is to build 20 to 30 more between Fountainhall and Oxton. The Borders is at risk of becoming the dumping ground for these monstrous eyesores and if people are concerned about preserving the natural beauty and landscape of the Borders, they have good cause to be worried by the threat of yet more turbines dominating the landscape.

"How the hell did we let that happen?" we often ask ourselves when we look at the brutalist monstrosity tower blocks which we allowed to blight our towns in the sixties. In a few decades' time we're going to be asking exactly the same question about the 300 foot wind turbines ruining what's left of Britain's wilderness. And a bit like the perpetrators of terrible sixties architecture now, no one's going to be able to come up with a satisfactory answer because, quite simply, there isn't one: wind turbines are a bad idea in almost every way imaginable.

Before we go any further, let me address something that comes up every time someone asks questions about a green project in this province. It's a favourite tactic of our Liberal government to dismiss concerns of their constituents as being NIMBYism (Not in My Backyard), or those people don't want to help the planet. A word of warning to the province: that kind of dismissal here on the Island just makes Islanders dig in harder. As far as I can tell, the concerns of this citizens group are legitimate and I believe they need to be addressed.

Governor Deval Patrick's goal of 2,000 megawatts of wind power by 2020 will achieve very little at great cost, according to the state's own data. Nonetheless, he is seeking from the Legislature an unprecedented set of special privileges to benefit the wind industry. ...The 5 percent of our state's electricity provided by 710 wind turbines in the Berkshires will not slow the rise of coastal sea levels, but it will mean the irretrievable loss of a globally rare landscape.

To continue developing east of Milton-Freewater ...is putting too much of a burden on one area of the county and the state. Make no mistake in identifying these 300- to 550-foot tall structures - they are industrial energy facilities - and the Umatilla County Planning Commissioners are now charged with sifting through the facts to determine whether this is the right decision to make for the majority of the people they serve.

There is a large wind turbine project called Black Fork Wind Farm that consists of 112 turbines 400 feet tall with three 100-foot blades to be placed in an area bounded by the west edge of Shelby on the east, Hazelbrush Road to the north, Hook Road to the south towards Crestline and extending on the west past Tiro towards New Washington. This is a beautiful rural area including Shelby Airport and a KOA campground that will be transformed into an industrial installation.

Back in the good old days there was a saying - "necessity is the mother of invention" but times are changing and in order to meet these changing times we need a new philosophy; case in point - the St. Joseph Wind Project. In a strange twist of logic, it has been deemed - "invention is the mother of necessity" and the St. Joseph wind project is a perfect example of this new way of thinking.

It's a dilemma that forward-thinking, environmentally conscious people do not want to face: Will moving toward carbon-free energy sources mean disrupting bird migration routes and having a negative impact on wildlife populations? This weekend sees the July 12 deadline for public comments on the massive NaiKun wind farm proposed for Hecate Strait. ...The problem arises, however, that this exact location, the shallow water around McIntyre Beach and Rose Spit, is a designated important bird area under the BirdLife International program that lists critical sites for bird populations in over 200 countries worldwide.

The governor has declared a goal of 2,000 megawatts (MW) of wind power in Massachusetts by the year 2020, and his staff has commissioned a study showing that over half could be located in the Berkshires. ...It's hard to imagine so many 40-story structures on our mountains, but the state has already mapped them, identifying more than 50 places with enough acreage and estimated wind resources to support from five to 53 industrial wind turbines.

''If you want to see how invasive a wind farm can be, just take a ride in Schuylkill County,'' he wrote. ''A ridge that stretches from Mahanoy City to Centralia, an area of the best hunting and passive recreational woods in that part of the county, has been ruined with these monstrosities.'' I had not visited that area for years, and the worst environmental damage I recalled was from anthracite mining. That, however, had a legitimate purpose; wind turbines are a scam that serves only to enrich those who peddle and build them.

To reach the ultimate goal of wind producing 20 percent of the energy used in this country by 2030, tens of thousands of 200-foot-high turbines must be installed nationwide, with many of them slated for gusty public lands in Wyoming, Washington, Oregon and Idaho. That's sparked a fight that looks much like the one waged about natural gas in the past couple of decades. Only this time the battle lines are drawn in unexpected places.