Wind turbines and Opera music, they go together like peanut butter and jelly, or so says Peter Gardiner and the good people at Glyndebourne opera company in England. They think that there new 850kw turbine will supply 100% of the opera house’s annual energy needs.

Executive chairman Gus Christie said: “For the sake of future generations and for the sake of the beautiful Downs, we have to do something, we can do something, and I think this will send a very positive message to people who visit and people who live around the area.”(via)

The project was not without its detractors, who claimed it would change the natural beauty of the local environment.

Lewes planning officers had recommended the application be turned down, believing it would “cause serious harm to the natural beauty, character and tranquillity of the Sussex Downs and the proposed South Downs National Park”.

This raises some interesting questions. Just about anyone you ask will tell you that they like the natural world to look as, well, natural as possible. However this flies in the face of the facts of our lives. We build houses, lay down roads, put up electrical lines, dig mines, damn rivers, cut down forests, plant crops, and a whole host of other activities that change the way the natural world works. In fact one could make an argument that for the last couple hundred years we have been engaging in a giant world sized experiment in changing the very climate we live in. We might not have realized that we were doing it, but all that coal, oil and gas that we have been burning has been doing some interesting things to the planet.

From the point of view of say a bacteria, this is no problem, they will keep adapting, keep changing, a cold earth, a hot earth, they don’t care. For something a little bigger and more complicated, something that breeds slowly and might have a hard time adapting to rapid change, humans maybe, this experiment could be a big deal indeed. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a warmer earth, unless of course your survival depends on the climate we have now. In that case you might be a bit miffed if say your crops die in a massive drought and your house is swallow up by the ocean

If you want to slap some solar panels on your home, should the local home owners association be able to tell you no? Is preserving the look and feel of your home more important than saving the species? What if someone wants to put up a wind farm 5 miles off the shore of cape cod, should we let a couple people worried about the view keep us from harnessing clean renewable power?

The point I am making (I knew I had one), was that for too long we have been too willing to accept the status quo. We will gladly allow a nasty coal, oil or gas power plant to spew dangerous greenhouse gas emissions into the air day and night. Emissions that will lead to the destruction of thousands of coastal communities, the killing of uncountable plants and animals, and that might lead to the destruction of our culture. Yet we throw a fit when someone wants to put up a wind turbine, because we think it is going to alter the view. NOT putting up the turbine is going to alter the view far more than putting up the turbine.

At a certain point it becomes folly to put up with this sort of attitude. If the boat is sinking you don’t fuss about what you hair looks like, you jump into the damn life raft and hope for the best. Lets just hope we all can realize this before the boat sinks below the waters.