England’s former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, unloaded a furious assault on “property owners and nimbys” who he believes are stalling the setting up of wind farms all about Britain and in doing so, are hindering the battle for climate change. In pure warrior mode, Mr. Prescott blasted those against wind power who had effectively blocked proposals for wind turbines because they would blemish their ”chocolate box view”.
He intends to inform the British Wind Energy Association or [BWEA] during their yearly gathering that they must not allow the squires and gentry thwart them from achieving their ethical responsibilities to hand the world over to their children and grand children in a better situation than it is now.
Prescott has played a prominent position in binding together the Kyoto protocol, the present world climate pact back in 1997. He has now found a new role as the pseudo secretary for climate change for the Council of Europe, visiting schools speaking of the dangers presented by global warming.
His discussion at BWEA was to announce that Great Britain’s wind power capacity now stands at four Gigawatts, capable of powering 2.3 million residences in Scottish territory. One Gigawatt is approximately the output of a single coal fired power plant.
After nearly fourteen years, they achieved their first gigawatt of energy thanks to the wind and their installed facilities but the next GW only took twenty months and the third, eighteen months. Wind industry pundits forecast that by next year we should see the construction of the fifth and sixth GW in rapid sequence due to the UK’s desire to meet its objective of thirty GW’s of wind power by 2020.
The problem is that there are currently nine GW’s of wind power potential presently delayed in the planning phase, while approvals for these wind farm projects are only happening at twenty five percent of submissions.
According to Prescott, time and again determined and commendable wind turbine submissions are defeated by an outspoken and marginally based group of landowners and Nimbys. They recruit experts who impede, frustrate and in the end overwhelm the bids.
Prescott goes onto say that it is all well and good to debate that wind operations may blot the chocolate box view for a few homeowners but wonders if the same complainers fought back against cell phone towers that enable them to make the local calls to arrange their griping protests. He wondered if they complained the structures that transmit electricity into their towns and villages, powering their computers, allowing them to email and lobby the committees against wind farms submissions. Of course the answer is no. They relented since these conditions were a requirement.
The government has worked out tactics for Great Britain’s participation in a worldwide resolution to climate concerns. It has national and world policies in place but the local level development is what is required to deliver as promised. He thinks it is scandalous that seventy five percent of all application for wind power installations are being declined, the highest it has been to date.
Prescott makes the suggestion that what is required is for local leaders try and assign certain regions for wind farm projects. Governments should be encouraging the use of renewable energy targets at the grass roots of government. It may work similar to recycling rules when the planning council faces a penalty if it misses the targets.
Mr. Prescott is fanning the flames of a fight that reared up once again last spring when Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Multiband claimed that wind farm antagonists should become as socially unacceptable as not wearing your seatbelt or driving through a Zebra crossing. He was rowdily harangued by anti wind activists who stated that his verbiage was tantamount to fascism and an erosion of free will.
Unscathed by the comments, Prescott continued the discourse by claiming that the squires and gentry have been getting away with their brand of tactics for much too long and they should be told in no uncertain terms that it is not their back yard any longer but ours! The supercharged debate will continue world wide as wind turbine technology becomes more popular.
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