One of the finest vistas in the vicinity of Inverness is that westwards, looking up the stretch of water known as the Beauly Firth. Walk out on a fine day to the point where the Caledonian Canal enters the firth, and the eye is led onwards by the water, and beyond to the mountain tops north of Affric. As the mind softens, the soul is drawn into stillness and silence.
This great view westwards has recently acquired an additional feature. On a clear day, the newly-erected wind turbines at Fairburn can be spied, making their own special contribution. When the wind blows, their constant chopping of the air destroys the stillness of the scene. On a calm day, if the sun is in the right place, their silvery glint detracts from the sombre, deepening quality of the view.
Look north from the Moray Firth coastline - or, for that matter, from the low hill ten minutes' walk from my house - and the wind farm to the east of Ben Wyvis impresses itself on the mind. To the south, there is the huge wind factory at Farr, straddling the Monadhliath Mountains, and clealy visible from many locations around.
Head east from Inverness, and nearly every small town seems to have a wind factory in its environs. Not visible from Inverness itself, but a prominent feature from many mountain tops and ridges, is the Millenium Windfarm, just off Loch Ness. Ditto the soon-to-be-built Lochluichart shrine to desecration. Yes, the Scottish Misgovernment's plan to turn the Highlands into an industrial theme park is progressing very nicely, thank you.
I have recently finished reading 'The Wind Farm Scam' by John Etherington. Some of it does not make for easy reading for a person like me, with its talk of rotors, hubs, and windshafts; megawatts, gigawatts, and load factor. Later chapters, however, on 'Landscape degradation and wildlife', for example, and 'Misrepresentation and manipulation' are compelling. In general, the book confirms much that I already knew, or suspected to be true. The bottom line is, as Mr Etherington concludes in chapter seven: 'They {wind farms} are money factories which industrialise the landscape for no other significant purpose.' And remember that the author is not some weird far-out like me, but a retired Reader in Ecology at the University of Wales, and former co-editor of 'Journal of Ecology'.
Do not imagine that the constructors of wind farms wake up in a cold sweat at three in the morning worrying about the fate of polar bears. The only thing to induce such a reaction would be a nightmare in which the government had cancelled their fat cat subsidies. Renewable energy is big business, and for many of the people involved it could be anything. Tesco, coltan from the Democratic Republic of Congo, arms to Nigeria, it's all pretty much the same.
Actually, the supposed need to combat human-made climate change is a supreme example of dominators showing their true spots. It could, conceivably, have been a great opportunity to involve ordinary people, by emphasising energy efficiency and promoting local projects above all else. Local identity and empowering people is the last thing that the control system wants, though. Instead, it's a case of rolling out the blueprint: bring in the multinationals, set up large faceless projects (eg wind farms) involving huge investment, and maintain the dominators' myth: power and money for the chosen few. To see a bunch of alien metal-and-plastic monsters that you don't want go up on your doorstep must be a distressing and horribly disempowering experience. Which is exactly what the dominators want, above all else: disempowerment of the masses.
The Lochluichart/Corriemoillie project was a particularly controversial one. It is proximate to several prime wild mountain areas, and was vigorously opposed by the Mountaineering Council of Scotland among others. The small local communities of Garve and Achnasheen were split amongst great bitterness, as an occasional look at the local paper, 'The Ross-shire Journal', made clear. Most local people opposed the plan; nearly all the neighbouring estates objected. Highland Council approved it by what seems to amount to subterfuge. Announcing the Scottish Misgovernment's green light for Lochluichart, the Scottish Minister (I think it was Puppet Muppet Mather again) proudly proclaimed 'This is exactly the kind of project we want to support.' It is, I have noticed, an increasingly common characteristic of control system envoys to make absurd statements that fly in the face of all evidence, reason, and truth. Later, however, I came to realise that, for once, a politician had told it like it is. A project that most of the people affected don't want; a well-executed case of 'divide-and-rule'; a situation where power and money circulate amongst the dominators of big business and politics, keeping everybody else in their place. Yes, it is exactly the kind of project they would want to support!
As usual, language tells its own story. Master Local Puppet Salmond talks about Scotland becoming 'the Saudi Arabia of renewables.' With due respect to the Saudis, they may not be the most perfect models of freedom, democracy, and respect for Gaia. Though, to their credit, they do at least produce something that does the job properly. And a few weeks ago, in this case talking about marine renewables, the local press compared it to the Klondyke. Well, there is certainly a Wild West feeling about a lot of this: Scotland's wild places are up for grabs, with zero regard to their innate value, so let's get in there quick while there are still renewable obligation certificates for the taking.
I reserve the strongest of my Gaian rage for the so-called 'environmental groups' who have thrown their weight so vociferously behind the industrialisation of wild places. Save the planet by destroying it: sound convincing? How much of their blind support is due to misplaced ideology, how much to infiltration by the big boys of business, and how much to what depth psychology might term unconscious archetypal activity, I do not know. But Friends of the Earth certainly are not earth-friendly, the Green Party is as green as a red herring, and the funding of the World Wildlife Fund is a topic of its own, I believe. In short, a lot of the 'environmental movement' gives the impression of a bunch of rather nasty little ideologists. And ideology, as we know, is a dangerous thing. See the Green Party member on television, exhorting the Scottish Misgovernment to build more wind farms now, now, NOW! The glint in his eye was scary, like a person possessed. 'I shall throw a tantrum if I don't get my way - NOW!' And the new leader of Greenpeace International glibly telling Andrew Marr on his Sunday morning television programme: 'We want to see more wind projects in Britain. You have a lot of wind. Of course, not so much sun.' Kneejerk reactions. Bullshit. Why do these people get so much media time anyway? Nobody voted them in. My antennae also detect a kind of collective shadow projection at work, onto the word 'carbon'. This was evidenced by oh-so predictable objections to proposals for a new coal project in Ayrshire, fitted with the latest carbon capture technology. A project that, unlike the Lochluichart wind fiasco, might actually make a difference. Carbon the destroyer; Shiva at large in the world. Environmentalists, go see your shrink.
In conclusion, the 'environmental movement' is generally dancing to the same tune as the rest of the control system: scientific (sort of and selectively), materialistic, reductionist, totalitarianism. No real awareness of connectedness and our kinship with everything else. No sense of love for the hills, the heather - or the wind. At the mercy of their own unconscious configurations. Lost....
'The Wind Farm Scam' is worth reading as a classic example of dominator tactics, and the consequences of 'human separateness' psychology. In case you were wondering, here are just some of the points: wind farms produce little energy; they need constant back-up eg coal, gas, or nuclear, for when the wind doesn't blow; they and their electricity are expensive, heavily subsidised through government and paid for by consumers; they destroy landscapes and wildlife; most people don't like them; their consequences for tourism, house prices are obvious. The spirits of the hills are not happy, either.
Here is a poem I wrote in 2007, before the Corriemoillie wind factory had been approved. In the poem, Beinn Liath Mhor Fannaich is a nearby mountain:
Fannaich Epiphany
Beinn Liath Mhor Fannaich; nothing
save the silence of the spheres
skies stretched in all directions
intimations of eternity
And the wind
Once-upon-a-time cornices
now grey-white streaks in the Fannaich wonderland
their fairytale spent for another year.
Mascara smudged white on a grey-green mountainside
the show is nearly over
and the wind
Below, water, rare blue sparkling
Beyond, An Teallach, rock stegosaur
and north, far north, strange shapes in Assynt;
origami, cut-out mountains
primeval forms stark against a soundless blue
immeasurable
And the wind
Yes, always the wind
Eastwards, the gaze led along a valley,
trouble stirs: Luichart, Corriemoillie.
Spectres rise of a future undetermined
but dark the vision in the eye of the Fannaich wind:
Mean metal monsters waving in the wind
blades scything through silence.
Harvest! Harness! Tamed at last
the winds of Fannaich
They do not ask a lot, the gods,
or so the Greeks said:
recognition, respect, homage in proper time.
Pay them their due, and all will be happy.
Now come the metal machines, mocking the gods
of the hill, the stream, and the Fannaich wind.
Triffids come steel-grey in modern times
twisting being into becoming
and misery shall follow as night follows day.
So sing the gods, and the wind
on Beinn Liath Mhor Fannaich
A jumbled pile of stones
hardly a summit cairn;
white-bellied ptarmigan waddles over
as if drunk on the wind.
Intimation of eternity
On Beinn Liath Mhor Fannaich
