“I thought of my forefathers that had been hunting and trapping these grand old mountains of New England since the days of the French & Indian Wars. I think that they would feel the shame that I was experiencing on what man could do in just a short period of time to what took millions of years to create. Here was a view that only God could create being marred by man. What a shame.”
So ends the editorial recently posted on the Daily Bulldog concerning the wind turbines in the Western Maine Mountains. I am always intrigued by those who try to claim the previous generations were wiser and more concerned with the natural environment than the present generation. While it is probably true that this individual had an ancestor or two who enjoyed trekking through the beautiful Maine woods, it is also equally as true that he had many more who were farmers or loggers. Farming and lumbering were the two most prevalent occupations of those who lived in the Western Mountains of Maine. When farmers cleared the land of trees, the most common method was burning. Huge bonfires dotted the landscape as they prepared their land for cultivation. Fertilizer and pesticides were commonly over applied and ran off into the lakes and streams.
Loggers would clear-cut large areas of land and stack it in the winter to prepare it for the river drive in the spring. Once the spring thaw came, they would throw it into the streams and let the freshets carry it to market. Paper mills sprang up on our rivers, further contaminating the environment with unchecked levels of ditoxin. Even the towns in Maine contributed. The typical town sewer system consisted of a pipe which ran to the nearest body of water. The Androscoggin River was turned into a virtual cesspool by our forefathers. Anyone who crossed the bridge in Livermore Falls to take the Crash Road in the 1970’s would have seen “a view that only God could create being marred by man.”
Most people forget that conservation of our land and environment is a relatively new national concept. It was largely a result of Teddy Roosevelt’s visit to Germany that conservation took hold in America. He was determined to make sure what happened to Black Forest never happened in America. Through Roosevelt and those who came after him, the EPA was formed and Americans began to protect the environment.
Indeed, it is only the last few generations, which have really considered the impact of man on the environment. Generations prior to “the Greatest Generation” never even conceived the notion that puny man could destroy the earth. The Greatest Generation saw that nuclear war could destroy the earth and the Baby Boomers, after consuming vast quantities of oil, finally came to the realization that it wouldn’t take a nuclear war, that mere consumption would do the trick.
While I am sympathetic to marring of the view of the Western Mountains, what is the alternative? Every form of energy generation has its strengths and weaknesses. Nuclear power has been proven to be a safe and reliable energy source which is used extensively in Europe, but Three Mile Island and Chernobyl have soured the Maine people on it. Plus, who stores the spent rods, which will remain radioactive for thousands of years? Hydro dams, while renewable energy sources, require the damming of our rivers, creating a huge environmental impact. Solar energy is promising on a small scale, but the costs associated with it on a large scale are astronomical. Trash to energy plants? Tidal pool generation? Geothermal? Coal-fired energy? Pick your poison…
Now is the time for us to plan for the future generations. We need desperately to end our reliance on fossil fuels. Clean, renewable energy sources, even those which mar our “natural beauty” are needed on a large scale. The age of fossil fuels will end, and its end is very near. For China and India, representing over one-third of the world’s population, are starting to consume oil at a tremendous rate and will soon overtake us as the largest consumer of petroleum products. And if we, a nation of 300 million can consume the lion’s share of the world’s oil in hundred short years, how much longer can it survive with 1.3 billion people using it?
Richard W. Wilde
Farmington, ME
Richard very well done. As you point out there are no easy answers to our future energy needs. A book that is worth reading is James Knunstlers “The Long Emergency”.
The author of the first paragraph failed to mention that the forefathers had over fished and over hunted the Maine wilderness. They had in effect, raped the wilderness. They kept all fish and game, not caring about future generations.
amen.
Interesting citation Mr. Harvell.
From Kunstler’s website:
R. Crumb’s Short History of America
http://www.kunstler.com/Grunt_Crumbshorthistory.html
Lauri Sibulkin, Phillips
Our predecessors used and miss used these mountains and water ways. They did what they did, using what ever level of understanding they had.
Now it is our turn. And we operate under an entirely different set of circumstances than did our grand parents.
We must above all examine what we are doing or proposing to do and decide if it will leave Maine a better place than it was when we took over management from the last generation. I personally am very much worried about how radioactive waste can be contained for millennia. I also understand that we can’t go on dumping tons of petro chemical exhaust and coal smoke into the air. Building more hydro dams has huge consequences for river dwellers. I got it!
Now please listen to me.
I ask that all development of industrial wind be completely halted for as long as it takes to figure out who is guessing correctly. Are my colleagues correct in our educated opinion that industrial wind is a financially unsustainable, ecologically devastating, socially un livable wrong idea? Are Angus King and his peers correct when they claim that these complexes will truly produce the amount of power they claim, while not resulting in tremendous loss of clean streams, heavy exodus of wild life and a massive down spike in all the livelihoods dependent upon a clean and quiet Eastern and Western Mountains?
I ask for a complete moratorium on all industrial wind development.
Give the existing complexes at Mars Hill, Stetson I and II, Kibby A and B, and the smaller ones already up and running time to produce numbers. If they turn out to be harmless after 5 years, if they actually produce enough power to make a difference, if they result in fossil fuel plants being shut down, if near by neighbors actually get used to them or the companies become willing to buy the property at fair market value, if, if, if…
However, if I am correct and these monsters can’t generate enough power, year in and year out, or are so erratic that they are more of a pain in the ass to the grid as a whole than a usable source, or if the Maine Guides report that there are no clients coming and no game left near by, or Wind Turbine Syndrome is proven to be a real and dangerous health risk, and, and, and
If the number prove industrial wind power is a good thing the mountains will still be there. The clients will still need the power, and Denmark will still want to screw us over and export the turbines to us. Nothing lost other than a few years spent in making sure this is a good thing.
On the other hand, if the numbers prove industrial wind power is no good, Maine will have saved our mountains, saved millions of lost revenues from all the tourism that doesn’t come any more, saved our prime hunting and fishing areas and earned a reputation for not being a stupid bunch of suckers for any slick talking idiot governor, ex-governor or out of state sales team with a shady deal they want us to pay for.
What do we have to loose by waiting for the numbers to come in from the existing wind farms?
Think about it!
(Mr.) Lauri Sibulkin, Phillips, Maine
We need to reduce our consumption. Industrial wind, like solar, might not be the best way. I propose doing away with the power grid and making each home or homestead responsible for their own energy production. If everyone put a solar panel or two on their roofs and managed their own energy use, we could do away with much of our dependence on foreign oil.
kunstler… wasn’t he abby hoffman’s lawyer?
There is no way you could power your house here in Maine with solar only unless you had a fair amount of solar panels and a good sized battery bank. And handling a battery bank is expensive because they wear out and can be dangerous.You also loose efficiency inverting from dc back to ac. Plus millions of people dont own a home, where do their panels go? Its hard to beat economy of scale, whether your talking about power generation, growing crops, making booze, or catching fish.