Do we want to fear the wind or greet it as our saviour?

Double Vision with Charlie Adley

It’s a beautiful blue sky crisp autumn morning; Lady Dog and I are enjoying the view from the top of the hillock we call Grassy Knoll. Below us the bog has turned the deepest russet red.

In the far distance the tops of Connemara’s hills are dusted with a sheet of white, reflecting the bright sunlight back into the frosty morning air. Between us and the Twelve Pins, wind turbines spin on the hills around Spiddal.

Sighing with gentle satisfaction I feel relief. Those propellers make me feel we have a chance. Maybe one day I will stop quoting Mahatma Gandhi, who when asked what he thought of western civilisation suggested that it “would be a good idea.”

I want to live in a world where this beautiful view will remain just that.

I want to be a part of a society that understands we cannot forever exploit the planet which offers us a home.

I want to be part of a population that realises we have to make sacrifices to ensure that Ireland is a safe place for the next generation.

Of course there are problems inherent in the supply of wind power. I wouldn’t like to live close to a wind farm, as I’m sure the noise, buffeting and light strobing must be disturbing. I understand that when wind farms are planted on the ocean floor their presence interrupts the local ecosystem and the structure of the sea bed.

Nothing is perfect, least of all our own species. In recent years I’ve become completely confused by the attitudes of people who describe themselves as ‘green’ yet protest against the provision of wind farms. Naturally people become concerned when turbines are erected near their homes, but as my eyes stretch out over this perfect Irish landscape, I wonder at what they want.

Do they want wi-fi? Do they want the light to come on when they flick a switch? Do they want their children to sleep in warm houses with central heating? Do they want to watch the big game on TV?

I suspect that some of these people are so intent on being righteous, they have lost sight of what they want. They certainly don’t want nuclear power, and they post on Facebook campaigning against electricity pylons running around the countryside.

They stand by the famers who don’t want underground cables running through their fields and then they march in the streets protesting against wind farms, because they are an eyesore, a noise hazard and a danger to all when falling down hillsides in mudslides.

I grew up in London during the height of the Cold War, lying in my bed as a paranoiac child, ready for the Russian ICBMs to hit.

To read Charlie’s column in full, see this week’s Galway City Tribune.