On a recent drive to Cornwall, my toddler in the back seat suddenly spoke up in excitement. But what was he trying to say? Win termites? Whip Turnips?
“Wind turbines!”
Dozens of them had appeared alongside the A30 around Carland Cross. As each bladed white spire emerged like a Channel 4 ident, he called out in excitement. From the front seats we repeated the words, helping him to wrap his mouth around the sounds.
It seems it would have been a different scene if Donald Trump was at the wheel. This week, the president of the United States condemned wind turbines as blighting the Scottish landscape and described them as a “con job”.
Speaking at his Turnberry Golf Course in South Ayrshire, he said: “It’s probably the best course in the world. And I look over the horizon and I see nine windmills at the end of the 18th. I said: ‘Isn’t that a shame.’”
Putting all paternal biases to one side, I am still going to side with a two-year-old over the leader of the free world on this matter.
Visually intrusive
Wind turbines became Britain’s leading source of energy in 2024, contributing 30 per cent to the national grid. This is an energy source created on home soil, not reliant on shaky geopolitical shipping lanes. Granted, they are reliant on unpredictable weather patterns, but this doesn’t seem to be the main reason they get so much grief.
One argument I often hear is that wind turbines are visually intrusive manmade blots on our countryside. “I’d rather look at an ancient oak or a willow, than a wind turbine,” my colleague just said to me. Our green space is shrinking. Should we not leave the precious acreage that remains untouched?
OK, well here’s an experiment. Think “countryside” and what do you imagine? Hills, rivers and forests, sure, but also dry stone walls. Barns. Hedgerows. Country lanes. Hay bales. Cottages. Bridges. Church spires. Viaducts. Kissing gates. The British countryside is very much a manmade landscape.
These modern windmills are an extension of our millennia-old history of commanding the land for our needs, just like how the animal kingdom builds nests, mounds and dams to suit its needs, too.
On a recent drive to Cornwall, my toddler in the back seat suddenly spoke up in excitement. But what was he trying to say? Win termites? Whip Turnips?
“Wind turbines!”
Dozens of them had appeared alongside the A30 around Carland Cross. As each bladed white spire emerged like a Channel 4 ident, he called out in excitement. From the front seats we repeated the words, helping him to wrap his mouth around the sounds.
It seems it would have been a different scene if Donald Trump was at the wheel. This week, the president of the United States condemned wind turbines as blighting the Scottish landscape and described them as a “con job”.
Speaking at his Turnberry Golf Course in South Ayrshire, he said: “It’s probably the best course in the world. And I look over the horizon and I see nine windmills at the end of the 18th. I said: ‘Isn’t that a shame.’”
Putting all paternal biases to one side, I am still going to side with a two-year-old over the leader of the free world on this matter.
Visually intrusive
Wind turbines became Britain’s leading source of energy in 2024, contributing 30 per cent to the national grid. This is an energy source created on home soil, not reliant on shaky geopolitical shipping lanes. Granted, they are reliant on unpredictable weather patterns, but this doesn’t seem to be the main reason they get so much grief.
One argument I often hear is that wind turbines are visually intrusive manmade blots on our countryside. “I’d rather look at an ancient oak or a willow, than a wind turbine,” my colleague just said to me. Our green space is shrinking. Should we not leave the precious acreage that remains untouched?
OK, well here’s an experiment. Think “countryside” and what do you imagine? Hills, rivers and forests, sure, but also dry stone walls. Barns. Hedgerows. Country lanes. Hay bales. Cottages. Bridges. Church spires. Viaducts. Kissing gates. The British countryside is very much a manmade landscape.
These modern windmills are an extension of our millennia-old history of commanding the land for our needs, just like how the animal kingdom builds nests, mounds and dams to suit its needs, too.