Letters / Green investors don’t see the damage they inflict on the environment
It is a strange concept that environmentalists do not appear to see the damage they inflict on the natural habitat in pursuance of their green agenda.
Yes, there is a problem regarding the pollution of our planet that needs to be addressed but pursuing the wrong apparent solution can also be a problem; that can cause as much damage to the natural environment, if not more.
Sometimes you have to step back and take stock of what you are doing to address certain problems and ask yourself a few questions, like how much environmental damage will be done by putting your own perceived environment saving measures in place?
How many of these wind farms would the developers be building if there were no grants and subsidies being paid to the companies who build and run them?
Have the costs of reinstating the wind farm sites back to the condition of the natural habitat created after millennia of natural evolvement, been taken into consideration?
Then you might see that you may be doing more environmental damage trying to fix a problem than the damage the problem was causing in the first place.
The approval of Viking Energy appears to have kickstarted the use of Shetland and its surrounding seabed as an industrial development site for government subsidised wind farms, covering some of the most productive fishing grounds in Europe.
Covering the seabed with wind farm anchors, cables and associated debris, causing the exclusion of Shetland’s fishing fleet from their traditional fishing grounds both East and West of Shetland would potentially wipe out much of what is left of our local fishing industry.
The financial benefits acquired from the sustainable natural resource of fish in our local waters, permeates into practically every other industry and business in Shetland; as fishing has been one of the mainstays of the Shetland economy for hundreds of years.
The construction of wind farms on the fishing grounds will in all probability cause the end of many local businesses.
When inevitably, the subsidies for electric generation are removed; the profitability of the wind farms will diminish and the developers will eventually move on to grab a share of the next available government subsidy, leaving their uneconomical and broken down wind spiels in a polluted industrial wasteland in their wake.
The people of Shetland can then take stock of the wind farm graveyards the environmental developers have left, as a legacy from them saving the environment for our future generations to live in.
The environmentalist developers can then say as they leave, with their subsidies obtained; look and be proud of the enormous sacrifices the people of Shetland have made to save the planet.
William Polson
Whalsay
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