Germany’s top leftist, “Red Oskar” Lafontaine has a commentary in the Thursday’s print edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, where he comes out against wind power. The title: “How wind turbines are destroying the environment.”
He realizes that the whole scam is only benefitting capitalists, is causing more CO2 and is ruining the beauty of Germany’s once charming landscape.
In his opinion piece Lafontaine writes that the “well intentioned renewable energy source is destroying the natural landscape heritage and is involuntarily boosting coal power plants“. It’s time to end wind power, Lafontaine writes.
Wind turbines are growing in size, and are approaching a height of 200 meters. Lafontaine also says that despite the huge investment in wind energy, it only provided Germany with 1.3% of its power in 2012. Is it worth the price of ruining the landscape, he asks?
Moreover, Lafontaine points out that wind energy has not reduced CO2 emissions in Germany, but likely has increased it because gas-fired power plants operating part-time to compensate for windless and sunless days are not profitable. Thus power companies are putting more and more coal power plants back online.
But it’s the industrialization of Germany’s natural landscape that really has Lafontaine against it. He quotes writer Botho Strauß:
A more brutal destruction of the landscape as we see with wind turbines was never ever caused by any phase of industrialization.
“The landscape,” Lafontaine, says, “is being robbed of its poety“. It’s not about protecting nature; it’s about money.
Lafontaine writes that the wind turbines also represent a threat to wildlife and biodiversity.
He summarizes his opinion piece.
It is economically and technically senseless to stay on a path that increases the emission of carbon dioxide, increases the price of electricity. The targets can be reached more easily and cheaply by using more intelligent technology.”
“Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.” Ben Franklin
Lafontaine has a long way to go before he reaches “wise”. Okay, give him credit for being wise on windmills.
Finally they are getting some common sense in their green heads. These windmills are ruining the landscape of the whole planet, not only Germany.
It is time to stop this green subsidized madness and start using our brains in stead of trying to go back to the middle ages.
If the observed reality has become obvious enough to break through the Left’s stultifying narrative on “renewable” power so that even Lefty icons are protesting at the effects, then the Green living nightmare in Europe must be starting to break asunder – and not before time.
Socialist Lafontaine lives in a beautiful villa overlooking the Saar valley with his spouse, Sarah Wagenknecht, sipping his wine. Maybe someone dared to erect a propeller in his line of sight? We proles in the frugal largely flat landscape of N Germany have been looking on forests of propellers for a decade now. He probably never got around to visit Northern Germany. Only now the hills of Southern Germany get instrumented with propellers, as the North already suffers from power surges due to the many propellers, whose power output grows with the third power of wind speed.
I just wish some prominent UK “Greens” would come out with the same common sense.