Letter to The Editor - Provincetown Banner 3/8/2007

To the editor:

I have been coming to the Cape every year for 50 years, and I spend the spring and fall in Truro. The Eastham windmill story on page one last week saddened and upset me. Sometimes I despair for the human condition. I read it as a story of a mob stirred up by ignorance and fear destroying the good dream, the far-sighted vision.  I commend the township officials who are working towards a sustainable and healthy community. Windmills produce energy better and. more safely than any other utility we've got. A town or region or nation that can generate its own clean power is safer and more secure.

While the gravel pit guy worried about noise made me laugh, I'm sure there are some legitimate concerns. I suggest that now that the windmill plan has been sent back for more study, the opponents should spend some time studying too.  Have they gone to hear the whoosing sound of a windmill’s spokes catching the wind and turning it, into power? I think they will be surprised at how pleasant it is.
Have they visited a veteran in a hospital or gone to a military funeral as our sons and daughters die and are maimed for oil? Have they lived near a coal-burning plant, and experienced their families stricken with asthma, cancer and other dread disease? Have they contemplated a terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant? They should study the cumulative effect of the pollution and degradation from our old-fashioned, dirty, morally compromising and expensive energy system on every living thing.

Wake up, people — it's time to get serious and face the future with all our creative juices flowing. It is up to us to bring about the positive, healthy communities we all want.

I hate to think of future generations cursing us because they suffer on a planet in ruins.

Lori Gold            
      Blairstown, NJ.