What does this mean? Do they improve the environment? Do they change a bad environment into a good environment?

One turbine on Hackney Marshes could change the way we feel or don’t feel about the environment forever. Please read on:

Climate change is one gigantic effect; an event; a happening! It comes as a result of many, many activities, but mainly it is just those ‘things that people do’ that changes our world.

Will it be possible to persuade people to change their behaviour and the things that they do in order to save their own breathing and living space?

Who can be trusted to do the persuading? Is their anyone who does not have their own axe to grind; their own power or career or personal fortune to expand?

The most honest and persuasive character, along-side of us in this situation is Mother Nature herself.

The free space of an open blue sky and the green busy work of nature in trees, meadows and grassland say more about the meaning and value of life than any lecture or tele-ad campaign.

We have a small piece of countryside on our doorstep which is capable of speaking to us and our children about these matters.

It is Hackney Marshes, which seem so much bigger than they really are because they are part of the greater Lea Marshes. They are misrepresented as a collection of football pitches but that is only a small part of their glory.

The open free space of sky and countryside of the Lea Marshes is about to be split and bound by towers of concrete and steel.

High-rise building projects are planned, courtesy of Waltham Forest Council, which will divide the marshes and dominate the skyline of the south and north end of Hackney Marshes.

Residents of the new tower blocks will be grateful for the views they enjoy. Developers will profit from the last bounce of the housing bubble in this part of the world, but what of the wind turbine which will dominate the skies?

I fear that the slim beauty of the turbine that we once saw as a symbol of hope and an alternative future will become a symbol of domination. As the landscape dwindles under its mighty span we will feel the chilly shadows of a new kind of eco-fundamentalism.

This new religion will have money behind it and it is ready primed to persuade us that we must sacrifice the places we love in order to survive in a place we don’t recognise.

The case for the Hackney wind turbine is bogus!

If you place one more turbine on the Essex flood plain a very clever man will push the electricity from the turbine into a cable and the electricity will pop out of the other end of that cable when it reaches Hackney.

Here is just part of the case against it:

1) The site for the turbine is common land, control of land will be handed over to a private interest energy company or companies.

2)The turbine could be sited anywhere else and the energy transmitted by cable to Hackney in the normal way.

3) A series of smaller turbines would generate the same energy without dominating the skyline.

4) Hackney Marshes and the greater Lea Marshes still provide an experience of a rural environment in close proximity to very dense housing conurbations. The open horizens and ‘big sky’ are a key element of this. A towering structure, combined with large-scale housing developments through the Lea Marshes will destroy this forever.

5) Mental health problems are suffered by very large numbers of people in the borough, and depression is now being recognised aa a much more widespread problem than previously recorded. Recovery from these conditions along with M.E. [Myalgic Encephalopathy/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome] and a whole variety of stress related illnesses is improved when sufferers have the opportunity to enjoy the experience of an outdoor natural, semi-rural environment.

6) The leisure and recreation opportunities of this open space have barely begun to be developed by schools & other learning groups. A small sample study by University College London in the adjacent housing estate revealed that children and play-workers have no experience of, and know almost nothing about ‘cost free’ types of play and recreation in natural free-space.

7) While many are content to use their motor cars to take their children to the seaside or other wide open spaces, the people who cannot afford to travel are not being informed of the benefits that lie on their doorstep. The majority of Hackney residents know very little about the Marshes other than the football pitches. The council seems content to reinforce this narrow idea.

The choice between football and the environment is a cruelly false one. It disguises the take-over of common land by private companies. It plays on people’s capacity to surrender something for the greater good.

For shades of things to come, go to Millfields Recreation Ground E5, and see the land …[occupied]… by the National Grid and EDF by their redeveloped power station.

Wind turbines are iconic, beautiful and powerful political symbols, but, just like the Statue of Liberty, siting and context are everything. This turbine could be an albatross around the neck of the green movement for generations to come.

‘Greens’ must not forget the inter-connectedness of nature and society. A small change in one part can send a ripple of changes through everything. A turbine here may be a symbol of victory for them today. What will it mean in 2013 when we count the cost of the Olympics?

If Hackney schools were teaching children the pleasures and the meaning of the enjoyment of the countryside, those same children would eventually be spending more time outdoors and less time indoors with the heating thermostat at maximum while they play at ‘virtual outdoors’ electronic games.

This policy would also fit with the Government ‘Horizons’ project. This scheme aims to reduce personal depression among the adult population by ensuring that children have meaningful emotional experiences.

There are no fast profits to be had, and there are limited political gains in the quiet enjoyment of natural free-space; perhaps there are some healthy gains, though, for the ecology and well-being of our shared world and a growth in direct knowledge of its precious fragility.

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