It is most disappointing to see the cavalier declaration by Diane Saxe about “very large setbacks” for wind turbines. Whence the “very” and the “large”, especially considering that in places of far denser population far greater setbacks are mandated?

Sometimes a “backyard” concern overlaps genuinely with a real health and nuisance one. Not only that, but attending closely to questions of scale and appropriateness, strongly involving localist say, is the cultural and political prescription to counter the results of depredations that so many “green”-inclined would make haste about. Such haste can jive all too conveniently with impatient financiers, over-large industrialists, and overburdened and uncomprehending government in making a mockery of “precaution”.

It is a false dilemma to set up as the author does between “burning fossil fuels” and installation of hideous gargantuan wind turbines too close to inhabited areas, just as it is false to overstate that “all sources of power cause serious environmental damage”. Even a little bit of imagination, genuine localist focus and validation of real human concerns would yield co-operation required for effective conservation and installation of scaled-down options for power generation.

It is of concern that the relative youth of the science attesting to health dangers from large wind turbines, even at Saxe’s “very large” distances, might be a deterrent for a court to find in a preautionary vein. But the comparably relative youth of the industry in question should be equally in mind as appropriate precaution is assessed. It is even most disappointing that an environmental lawyer would treat “dislike of noise” so trivially, let alone that that is far from the only concern.

There is a place for centralized leadership, but it is in education, backstopping, conflict resolution with real revalidation of the local at its heart. There is no need either to invoke fears about “complete certainty”. Where one sees “doom [...] to immobility”, another sees an opportunity for salutary cultural shift.

Daryl Vernon
Toronto