Letters / Let’s not close our eyes to what’s happening
Following the announcement of the proposed offshore development by Cerulean Winds, I went for a look at their website.
Prominent among the reasons they give for the benefits of such a project is that it is a ‘resolution to the ‘not in my backyard’ (NIMBY) issue’.
Being positioned over the horizon, no-one will be able to see it on a daily basis.
The innate arrogance in this statement is astounding. It presupposes that most environmental campaigners are motivated simply by a desire not to see development in their own immediate area, and it then compounds that by suggesting that hiding it over the horizon where out of sight means out of mind effectively deals with this.
Offshore wind developer confident of securing licence for floating turbines west of Shetland
Perhaps those who oppose such developments actually have the natural environment’s interests in mind are deeply concerned that, having wreaked havoc on the land that our oceans are now to be equally impacted in the pursuit of profit.
The question I feel we should be constantly asking ourselves is ‘What are we currently doing that our descendants will look back on and ask “What were they thinking?”.
We look back on the 19th century slave trade, incredulous that anyone could ever believe that such a thing was acceptable. Everyone knew it was happening but, because the country was benefitting, most went along with it.
We are now living with the consequences of the global prevalence of plastic. Its durability, the very quality that was hailed as its greatest feature, has become its biggest problem. Our oceans are drowning in the stuff and it’s strewn across the countryside because it’s here virtually forever.
So let’s not close our eyes to what is happening in our generation. Just because something has the tag ‘green’ hung on it doesn’t mean it is! We need to focus much more on reducing our consumption of energy and goods rather than constantly searching for more opportunities to produce them.
Maybe developments like the Cerulean Winds are part of our future energy solution (though I’m not convinced), but let’s not allow these projects to forge ahead without first counting the cost, and I’m not talking about money.
Moraig Lyall
Laxfirth
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