I am as disgusted with the tragedy of coal and the un-sustainability and certain environmental trauma of oil as the next guy.  But I need to address the creeping, incipient danger of windmills.

I cannot imagine waking up some fine June morning on Michigan’s North Manitou Island, stretching, and crawling out of the tent for a glorious early morning wilderness whiz and seeing the image above.  Sure, I want to see us get to 350, but what’s the point if we have to live in an ugly fucking world to do it?  I’ve fought and spent my time and treasure over the years to keep wild places wild.  Now, many of my “environmental establishment” peers are standing behind wind power, even if it ruins vistas on the Great Lakes, to get rid of coal.

These are the same people who would be chaining themselves to trees if anyone suggested building a coal or nuke power plant in the same areas, and would be screaming not just about pollution, but the loss of the aesthetic resources we enjoy now as a society!  “No factory on the People’s Land!”

But you substitute a windmill for a nuke plant and suddenly everyone goes brain dead!!  What the Hell are these people thinking?!?  Ugly, industrial development is Ugly. Industrial, Development – regardless of the source of power!  Who is feeding these otherwise sane people the purple kool-aide?

(For a look at the pros and cons sans vitriol, click here.)

The “Environmental Establishment” (and I’m not a James Sheehan fan, btw) has given up on trying to sell zero population growth and reducing our consumption of shared resources because it was too hard to raise money from rich people if you told them they shouldn’t live in McMansions.  What Happened?

Well, they need to remember what the  issues are here and get back on message!  No amount of alternative energy is going to matter one little bit unless we get a grip on our own reproduction.  We need to reduce our reproductive mean to zero.  Replacement is the only justifiable goal of procreation, and individuals who elect to not have children (and as the father of the two most amazing children in all of creation I can’t imagine the sadness they would have to live with) should be given clear title to McMansions that used to belong to idiots with 9 kids.

But regardless of that, I don’t want to live in some bad Kevin Costner movie with windmills all over my Great Lakes and north woods (or, should you be a fan of Longfellow, the Great Lakes of the Northland).  These are actual holy sites for many of us, and to suggest that we just suck it up and allow ugly fucking windmills to be liberally sprinkled all over them is heresy!!

Now, if the Man wants to talk reasonably about how and where we should site these industrial facilities, I’m ready to sit down.  But if they are simply going to say, “I’m from the government (or environmental establishment) , I’m here to help, trust me.”  I am going to kick their ass from here to Copper Harbor, know what I mean?  There is no excuse for fucking up wild places, I don’t care who you are, or what your motives are.  Wild is the most limited resource on earth.  The surface of the Great Lakes is one of the largest wild areas left in the world, and I refuse to let it become fucked up without a fight.  What do you think?  Leave a comment below.