Wind farms are risk to national treasure

In the WMN (April 6) Energy Secretary Ed Miliband warns that communities in the Westcountry have "no option" but to support a "massive expansion" of wind farms.

Does he think we are the only ones who care about what happens to the countryside? Many of the people who live in cities but come down here on holiday will be shocked and angry too when they find that the places they love have been turned into, or are surrounded by, wind power stations.

The sand dunes of Braunton Burrows are one such place: a national treasure and internationally famous. The picture with this letter is the view from the edge of the Burrows, taken after turning inland on the coast footpath, past Crow Point. Soon this facing line of hills will be sprouting with the giant (361ft) turbines of the Fullabrook Down wind farm.

As can be seen on the website I run - www.artistsagainstwind farms.com - even bigger (400ft high) turbines could look down on to the Burrows as well, from the opposite side of the Taw Estuary at Yelland.

With more turbines threatened across Bideford Bay at Parkham, the character of the Burrows could be altered drastically - dominated from most sides by industrial turbines. And the "massive expansion" has not even started yet.

As my father, James Lovelock, the environmental scientist, said in the WMN on April 3, wind farms are "no answer to global warming".

The more we rely on wind power, the more likely it is that the lights will go off - just when we need them most, in the middle of cold midwinter anticyclones.

And, because wind power needs conventional power stations as back-up, it does little to reduce CO2 emissions.

Ed Miliband has also said that protests against wind farms should be "socially unacceptable". Energy security and climate change are such serious issues that he should instead welcome all serious scrutiny of government policies on these matters.