The Wind, The Wind...The Wind has Changed!*

We went on a road trip this past weekend to see a play in Stratford. It's about three hours from where we currently live and so we had to take the road trip in stride. About an hours drive in, we started passing these gigantic wind turbines. It was not so much a wind farm more like individual farms with four or five on their land. They seemed to pop up everywhere as we drove along the highway. The turbines were enormous yet elegant.



We stopped to take a look and listen. All we could hear was the wind. Other than that the turbines moved silently. Some anti-wind power activists say that since the installment of these wind power generators local residents have felt ill, get headaches, and all because of the supposed vibration these things cause.

Mind you, we were just passing through, but I felt no such difference in that area than in our own backyard. My husband likes to point out that no matter where you live, city or country, beneath wind turbines or elsewhere, there are frequencies passing through us all the time we just don't notice them.



Perhaps certain people are more sensitive to these vibrations, or perhaps they are just causing a squawk for no reason other than aesthetics. I can not determine someone else's comfort (or lack thereof) so I must give these claims some thought.

What I do know is this: our way of life and our ability to continue living like this is dependent upon our ability to find alternatives. We need a cleaner more permanent solution than coal or oil. Nuclear power is clean but not desired. Solar energy is expensive and has more impact on a individual basis than on a larger scale. Wind Turbines generate a lot of power and can be done on a larger scale for the general population but people don't like the look of them.

I don't like the look, or possible fall out of a nuclear plant. I don't like the look of oil spills. I certainly don't like knowing that somewhere in the world someone is blackening their lungs while mining coal for our energy. Taking everything into consideration I like the look of a turbine better than any of these other, more standard energy producers. And I certainly wouldn't mind having one in my own backyard.

*Inside joke from a production of Saint Joan in highschool.