Recently, a circular has been anonymously distributed (by mail and through doors) in parts of West Norfolk.
This circular misrepresents the Green Party’s position in relation to renewable energies – so we thought it important to set the record straight.
There has been much local debate regarding wind farms, both on and offshore.
The concern to prese
rve our beautiful countryside is right, and we share that concern 100 per cent.
A mix of different kinds of renewable energy (including tidal and wave, which we believe should be invested in much more heavily) will ensure our local and regional energy security, vital as fossil fuel energy becomes over time more expensive (and more dangerous to the climate).
In short: the alternatives to wind power generation (such as open-cast coal mining – or simply running out of energy) are much worse.
Land-based wind turbines should be sited responsibly and sensibly spaced.
Community approval should be given for higher densities. If fishermen are affected by offshore wind farms, then they need to be appropriately compensated.
It is now universally accepted – not just by the Green Party but by all the leading environmental scientists at the University of East Anglia and across the world, by every political party and at every level of government from local to national and European – that without action to build up our renewable energy resources, manmade climate change will result in sea defences being breached, homes flooded and fenland lost to the sea.
Nobody wants that, and we all have to consider in our communities and as a society how we want to move forward together to avoid these problems. Wind power has to be a part of that mix.
The need for a new basis to our economy also brings opportunities: This summer’s price spike to $150 per barrel of crude oil gives us a frightening glimpse of how reliance on imports of coal and oil will damage our already unstable economy, especially in years to come.
But a new green economy will bring benefits, including sustainable and secure local jobs. Such growth in the local green economy is surely to be welcomed.
Cllr Rupert Read, prospective Green Party MEP for Eastern Region, and Michael de Whalley,
co-ordinator of Lynn and West Norfolk Green Party
