Pretty Industrial Wind Turbines? (eco-activist reports from the pristine)

UK Climate campaigner Andrew Griffiths, recently posted (with pictures) about his vacation bike tour.

One great things about cycling for hours at a time through beautiful countryside is your mind getting space to creatively wander. Over the last couple of days I found a few more parallel lessons that felt worth sharing…

Similarly in working life, when I have a large and daunting task (like manually coding the conditions for 50+ pieces of legislation in Planet Mark‘s soon to be launched Carbon Policy Tracker ) I find it helpful to break down the task into the smallest possible pieces, ignore how much there is to do and just celebrate each little milestone as it comes before setting my sights on the next one.

The idyllic pictures of green mountains inspired me to comment:

No wind turbines or solar farms … But greenery from CO2. Good choice!

To which Andrew responded:

Did you really need to come and pick a fight on my holiday post Rob? Im trying to relax and my interactions with you are rarely that.

I actually stopped by a wind farm today – magnificent thing that has been turned into a nature reserve for walks etc. They were proper big ones and it’s amazing how quiet they are.

“Greenery from CO2” – What a very reductive statement given that you only today said “I never said CO2 fertilisation would fully mitigate the effects of climate change and global warming”.

You’re also forgetting that water is a key part of the equation for photosynthesis and another of the myriad of effects of climate change is increased droughts, often followed by flash floods. Real world problems that might affect some of these laboratory only results you tend to refer to.

I answered:

Sorry, but what joy in the true wilds. That is the point.

If your wind turbines do not have a ‘swishing’ sound and are pretty, then I just do not know what environmentalism is. Machines in the pristine …

More droughts from ‘climate change’? What is the global times series on that? Weather is not climate.

And plants with higher CO2 digest water more efficiently. https://www.masterresource.org/carbon-dioxide/idso-co2-benefits-summary/

Again, the joy of nature is not having it machined up with industrial wind turbines and solar arrays. That’s true environmentalism, and you escaped to such a place in your pictures.

[His other picture added irony–evidently the middle finger is a cyclist sign. It is not because of the absence of “green” energy.]