Unfortunately, it also contained an article by Muriel Gray. More of that in a moment.
The Tom Morton piece brought us a history of the goings-on in Shetland regarding the plans to site a wind farm there and the campaign against it which has divided the community. Mr Morton was of the same opinion as me, that the fightback from the pro-wind groups took a long time to get going but now the momentum is with them.
He also left us with little doubt as to his opinions of those who have led the anti-wind campaign and their tactics, which was brave for someone in the public eye so closely associated with the islands. Although I was saddened to see him resort at times to the old standby of berating the incomer who has no idea how a real community works.
I've always liked Muriel Gray, but yesterday's article was so full of bile for the green movement that it left a bitter taste.
Attacking the decision to upgrade the Beauly-Denny powerline, she begins by aligning herself with the anti-pylon campaigners with the phrase
those who are anxious about the fragility of our Scottish landscape
She doesn't seem to realise that we are pro-pylon precisely because we are anxious about the "fragility" of our Scottish landscape. Throughout the article she seems to take the view that climate change is something that will happen elsewhere, not to Scotland, calling our emissions targets "utterly miniscule" and not "globally important". She must have missed the announcement of the North Sea Supergrid last week, in which Scotland will play a big role.
In her hyperbole, this one power line equates to trashing the entire country at the whim of a power company. She attacks those who call the anti-pyloners names on blogs, then goes on to rebrand Friends of the Earth as
Friends Of Corporate Management, Capitalist Shareholders And Vested Political Interests
Finally, she rounds it off with an anti-SNP, anti-Green rant in which she seems to call for a moratorium on all renewable energy schemes until we can develop the technology further. Which funnily enough is the same sort of thing spouted by the pro-coal Republicans in America.
Again, I come back to the point that if we don't build renewable energy schemes, if we don't build the transmission lines to get the power to the populations, then Scotland isn't going to look like it does now. Ms Gray can go and bag a Munro and while sitting at the top she can ponder why there's a New Town built on the lower slopes to house all of the Bangladeshi refugees who have found themselves with nowhere else to go, and by the way didn't Scotland used to have a skiing industry not so far from this mountain?
2 comments:
I was lucky enough to spend several hours with yon Muriel Grey article on the train this Sunday. On exceedingly shrill form, she was. The detail you mention despite, I was also struck by the neurotic tenor of her remarks - references to digital, online hitmen, hired by the Scottish government to maliciously label protesters 'white settlers', mad, ignorant and so on. Heaven knows what blogs she has been reading. Being lofty, she disdained to sink to specifics and kept her outrages allegations untestably general.
On the other hand, and in her defence even though it grates, she is paid to be controversial once a week. There would be no point in her writing a column about how she peels spuds. However, I'm sure she could make her points without recreating The Exorcist in front of her computer.
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