One reason for continuing anxiety over the process is that the federal government has yet to say what role it will have in evaluating the project. The terms of reference say only that federal environmental requirements "are being determined." Rightly or wrongly, the public tends to find comfort with a federal presence in such reviews, the bigger the better. This is due partly to lingering suspicion that provincial environmental scrutiny isn't up to snuff, but it's also just the notion that the more expert eyeballs that are studying a project the better. As attractive as this project is conceptually, it must be shown convincingly that it can be done at an acceptable, which is to say minimal, ecological impact and risk.

Recently there has been a lot of he said/ she said concerning the wind energy and its attempted foothold in our community. But the most blatant report of ignorance came in the form of a story about council members visiting a working wind farm in Port Burwell. ...unlike the council members that decided to visit Port Burwell, we have made multiple trips there. The day the story was printed in the Chatham Daily News, Greg Foster and I had just returned from a visit to Goderich to talk to various farmers that are living through the hell that we are trying to avoid. We have spoken to them at great length on the phone as well.

Editor's note: This letter is addressed to the members of Chatham-Kent council and Mayor Randy Hope. ...I am incredibly shocked and disappointed that people who wish to do business in this community could care so little for the people who live in it. It is appalling to me that a representative of this company could show such disdain and contempt for people that could be potential neighbours. So, I am left with the following questions: Should we find that our quality of life is disturbed, the noise level is greater than expected, our property becomes unsellable and/or devalued or our health is adversely affected, who is liable? Where do we seek recourse?

In 1996, Denmark went on to hit industrial producers with a $15 per tonne carbon tax, initially neutralized by cuts in payroll taxes. What happened? By 1998, manufacturers started shutting their doors due to high energy prices, and overall Danish carbon tax revenues started to fall along with manufacturing jobs. At the same time, the cost of government programs rose significantly. The government's solution incredibly was to - wait for it - subsidize electricity to select manufacturers and raise income taxes by lowering the income threshold on the country's top marginal rate. By 2001, with economic growth hovering at one- seventh-of-one-percent, Danes making over CAD$50,000 paid 59 per cent of their income in taxes and had to cope with record electricity prices. The entire debacle led to a change of government that year, with the incoming government promising a tax freeze, followed by a tax reduction - including those taxes on energy.

Chatham-Kent is proud to be known for its farmland, outstanding fishing and hunting and most importantly our quality of life. Now threatening all of this is AIM PowerGen Corp. proposing a possible 100 wind turbine generators and Gengrowth proposing nine wind farms with five wind turbines on each. With government grants and incentives, there will be more. Before we make it easier for them to destroy our quality of life with our tax dollars and by changing existing development bylaws, please stop and consider.

Over the past several months there have been three notices in The Citizen regarding use of provincial lands for installation of monitoring towers to investigate the potential of wind energy. There have been similar notices in Vanderhoof for additional lands in that area. Taken individually, these seem not too intrusive, but cumulatively, looking at the big picture, the possibility of having one big wind farm, stretching from the south side of Cluculz Lake over to the area between Bednesti and Dahl Lakes, then across Highway 16 from Cobb Lake to Eskers Provincial Park - alarm bells start going off. I would like to embrace the concept of wind energy but I am really concerned with regards to the impact these possible installations may have on both resident and migratory birds.

The setback from an industrial wind turbine to a home is smaller than the setback to an industrial zone. Since the wind turbines themselves are industrial, this would seem to be an absurd policy. The setback from property lines and roadways is 50 metres. Since the turbines are 120 m. tall, if one should fall, throw ice, or parts, etc. it would damage neighbouring and/or municipal property. This will also affect what citizens can do in the future with their property (i.e.: not being able to build a barn, or house, or any number of future opportunities that will be curtailed) and so, will be infringing on their rights. The setback from an off-site residential dwelling (a house on a non-leased farm for example) is 300 m., while the setback is 600 m. from a rural residential home (i.e. a house on a severed rural lot). Isn't a home - a home?

A report commissioned by the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities is going to do very little to settle the debate over just how close wind turbines should be located to homes and it's not likely to be welcomed by those fighting proposed wind farms in their backyards - such as those opposing the plan to erect turbines in the Gulf Shore region of Cumberland County. In the report, consultants Jacques Whitford suggest it should be left up to individual municipalities ...The 117-page report concludes there are no internationally accepted standards for dealing with controversial issues surrounding wind farms, especially when it comes to things like setbacks, the impact on real estate values and noise.

Ask yourself if you would purchase a home surrounded by these industrial wind sites. I asked 100 people. Ninety-nine immediately answered no. The one who said yes, quickly changed his mind when I mentioned the high-power lines. Wake up, Harrow and Essex County. These huge giants are on the horizon. They will be in your backyard if you don't speak up now.

Nova Scotia has the potential to become a world leader in tidal power. But to be successful, we have to make sure we get it right economically, socially and environmentally. That's why it's disappointing and even a little alarming that Premier Rodney MacDonald's government rushed out an announcement last Tuesday on a multimillion-dollar test centre on the shores of the Minas Basin - four months before an extensive environmental report is due that is supposed to establish the ground rules for tidal development in the Bay of Fundy. ...In its haste to claim progress on green energy, the government failed to establish a regime of best practices [on siting wind farms]. No standards were put in place, for example, for minimum setbacks from residential properties, protecting sightlines, or trying to engage community ownership. This resulted in acrimony in many rural villages that suddenly found themselves hosting towering industrial turbines owned by people living far away. It wasn't until this past fall that MacDonald's government agreed to cost-share a $45,000 study with the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities on best practices for bylaws regulating wind turbine siting.

Contrary to what you may have heard, the Great Bear Rainforest is not under attack. Neither is Premier Gordon Campbell backing down from his promise to protect environmentally significant portions of the central coast because the province is considering applications for electrical-power generation in the region. As The Sun's Larry Pynn discovered this week, the province is looking at proposals for a large wind farm and four commercial run-of-the-river power generation projects that have the potential to infringe on either existing or planned conservancies. ...The 2006 legislation defining the conservancies on the central coast specifically forbids "large hydro-electric" developments, but permits run-of-the river projects designed to provide power to local communities not serviced by the provincial power grid. ...But the legislation is silent on wind power and does not specifically forbid transmission lines.

To become carbon neutral, a company would either reduce its own emissions or offset the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) it creates by buying credits from a project that has lower emissions. At least one aspect of this proposal could translate into taxpayer savings. Starting in 2008, government organizations are supposed to reduce emissions on government business travel. ...Not only will carbon neutrality probably cost an arm and a leg, it provides no guarantee that man-made CO2 emissions will fall. Although CO2 reductions may result in welcome savings in a day and age when in- person meetings are seldom a technological necessity, offsets could have significant unintended consequences. Hospitals already have enough challenges, and now their bureaucrats are going to spend time and money trading CO2? Just a thought, but maybe reducing surgical wait times should be a higher priority. B.C. taxpayers will be paying big time for feel good messages that may have little or no benefit. This is very costly hot air.

... before we rush off to embrace wind energy we must make darn sure it's not going to ruin people's lives. While it would be easy to study this to death, there has to be definitive answers to lingering questions and they must be settled before the first turbine is put in place next door to communities and homes. It's too late to try and answer questions after they're already erected. Let's get it right while we still have a chance with solid fact-based evidence so we're not looking back at what could have been done.

After 19 months of commercial wind power operating experience in Ontario, there is some good news. Our wind farms produce almost up to target levels. The companies delivering wind power are mostly established energy firms. All are installing state of the art technology. Wind-farm operators in Ontario are subject to stricter technical controls than in Germany where, last November, wind power contributed to a continental grid blackout. For all its strengths, we now have enough information to conclude that wind power in Ontario is a disaster for consumers. ...Wind power's lack of overall value has not prevented our politicians from embracing it. Mr. McGuinty's group has decreed that, by the end of 2010, wind capacity will triple and then almost triple again by 2025. By 2027, the government says wind will supply 12% of the province's power generation. McGuinty's rivals all complain that this is just not enough.

Wind power is not the answer to global warming. Do we have alternatives? We certainly do have alternatives to windmills but they would disrupt the lifestyle of electors and consumers. In Paris, an article in the September 2007 issue of the medical journal, The Lancet, shows with supporting calculations that it would be better to minimize human consumption of meat, for 80% of agriculturally produced methane comes from farm animals. Wind turbines won't even alter the greenhouse gas equation but by a mere .03%, as mentioned above. The way to reduce CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases is to use less energy. Governments must massively invest in energy conservation measures rather than in these wind machines. According to another research, if every English household switched for one single low energy light bulb, a fossil fuel-burning electrical plant could be shut down! Wind power would only be interesting if energy produced can be stored. It has been proposed to fill reservoirs of large hydroelectric dams, for example. An Australian method has just offered in September 2007 to store electricity in liquid accumulators. Quebec would thus be able to utilize wind energy because the major part of our electricity comes from hydroelectric dams, which is not the case for Ontario or New York where, as almost everywhere else in the world, wind power must be backed up by carbon-based generating stations.

Over the summer, the proposed introduction of what one opponent called "industrial scale wind plants" on nearby Wolfe and Amherst Islands divided these quiet, rural communities. Anti-wind-plant protest groups were formed. ...The issue is still festering on Amherst Island. These controversies illustrate that our society hasn't learned anything about how we have reached today's crisis, how running roughshod over lives and resources just doesn't work. The fact is that we can't simply create new sources of energy; we must create a new kind of society - by building and designing our new systems in humane, democratic ways with strict regulations and community input.

... in the rush to set up giant wind-powered turbines to fight global warming, we shouldn't discount growing evidence that they can significantly harm the health of their neighbours if built too close to homes. ...Environmentalists don't seem worried about wind-turbine syndrome, either. The need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions has created an atmosphere where it's tantamount to sacrilege to raise concerns about turbines. Complaints are dismissed as NIMBYism.

It proves actions speak louder than words and the reality is no matter what the government says about coal-fuelled power stations, Ontario is in desperate need of the power they produce. The truth is, a huge power producer cannot be replaced by things like wind turbines even if they were installed downwind of Queen's Park.

The mad excess in the consumption of energy that characterizes what increasingly appears to be a dying way of life, if not civilization, now desires to replace the humanity that used to fill the countryside, with these great, ugly, threshing monstrosities, assaulting our sight wherever we turn. Our government, led by gregarious, grinning Gary Doer, who never saw an open field he didn't think would be improved by a power-generating windmill, wants to make our province into a powerhouse, largely for American consumption.

Some say opponents are uninformed, anti-green, against everything that is good for business, for people, for communities, for the country -- in fact, good for the planet. The industrial wind turbine has become a green icon. Saying you are "against wind" frequently leads to puzzled looks, disbelief or even anger.