Let’s face it, it’s a little late in the game to
start crying over the spilt
milk that was the extermination of the British
countryside. For years my backyard would have consisted of impassable-deciduous
forest. Covering all but the loftiest of peaks in Britain’s preceding 8,000
years. Forest in harmony with stone-age human inhabitants, for a bit there was
true equilibrium, we lived the simple life, created families and homes, one day
someone had the idea of community and that was good, for a while because we only
took
enough
but as the man said; we just don’t know when enough is enough these
days.Now, I’m distracted. However,
it’s important that you’ve got that image in your mind - the one our tourist
board sell, the Britain of the last 8,000 years… On the outskirts of the small
town we call home, a backwatered agricultural - moreover ‘quaint’ place, out in
the sticks, there is a development underway -

Wind farms are a renewable and
non-polluting form of electricity generation. Gaseous emissions from
conventional fossil fuel (e.g. coal and oil) power stations are known to cause
acid rain and contribute to global warming. Wind power has developed in recent
years to be one of the most cost effective and reliable of the various renewable
energy
technologies.

- Scottish Renewable Energy Newsletter (February
2001).That’s right! Windfarms are the
North East’s answer, the only feasible form of non-polluting electricity
generation - we can’t work on oil these days! Anyway the American’s took all
that. So, let’s start to connect the
dots…I did sort of use a blanket
statement above, I said 8,000 years of forest - no geography student me. I of
course meant 7,500 years, because 500 years ago we discovered; we
didn’t
have enough - that is - the town dwellers who already ate a little too-much,
didn’t have
too-much-enough.
(See target="NewWindow">Jethro Tull Portrait). As the historians will
tell you people like Tull (farmers / land owners) discovered an energy-hungry
system of using various means, mechanical at the forefront, to manage and
exploit the farmlands of Britain and in a flurry of excitement they got to my
backyard - the lovely view afforded from my patio bench is a direct result of
someone cutting down the clutter.
Thanks.During the 19th century, in
wide parts of Europe, many forests were cut down and depleted. The consequences
- well, there’s a lot more wind around. To fuel the fires of industry, to use
them on our enemies or in some late-90s fit of Ground-Force mayhem, our trees
we’re the first to go.Next up, an
inspirational play by John McGrath; The
Cheviot, The Stag, The Black Black Oil
explains the rest: we let it all go, and threw out the baby with the bath water.
Giving birth to the New-World and through mass Industry; Capitalism
arrived.If you’ve read Lord of The
Rings you’ve heard the Poet’s answer to Industrialisation, the character Tom
Bombadil (if not: target="NewWindow">Who Is Tom Bombadil). Who pines the destruction
of tree’s he’s known “ever since they we’re little saplings”. Anyone who looks
at a evolution of our landscape from a historical distance, from the eyes of Tom
Bombadil - will see the worst is past; we may have wasted our chances… the
exploitation of Britain’s resources has been met with as tough a resistance as
stone is to water.