Highland community councillors are angry, united and very vocal
The reaction from the audience was angry, united and very vocal.
READ MORE: Lesley Riddoch: Highlanders have the right to be angry over explosion of wind farms
Most of the blame lies with Holyrood. The climate is changing, but using a woolly connection to net zero (whatever that means for us) is no reason for further energy exploitation.
Communities were there to call for a halt to the rubber-stamping of the industrialisation of the Highlands by multinationals for energy export. They were there because they are being sidelined, landscapes commodified, and voices drowned out by corporate ambition dressed up as green progress. They are being steamrollered by rampant speculative development, and silenced by political complicity in corporate colonisation.
The environment, wildlife, our wellbeing and health are being sacrificed for a green agenda that has no overarching plan and no independent cost/benefit analysis. Our health is being scoped out of planning applications, with Scottish Government and local authority approval, and the cost to all – environmentally, economically and emotionally – is immeasurable. Our tourism industry is under threat: visitors come for the views, not the volts.
READ MORE: MPs and MSPs commit to debates on Highland energy projects pause
The community so-called benefit that a few politicians thought should be wrung out of the developers won't touch what has been lost and destroyed, and was forcefully rejected.
As for community ownership, it should have been a number one priority more than a decade ago. Do communities want yet more energy developments? Ask them. Ballot them. Do not presume to speak on their behalf based on cherry-picked national polling that fails to reflect their reality.
Attempting to silence people, mentally and financially burdening them and allowing huge swathes of their natural environment to be plundered by wealthy multinationals is not democracy – especially when the enabling ministers don't even bother showing up to face the music but happily, and regularly, meet the very multinationals responsible for so much misery. What is happening in our glens and villages smacks of dictatorship.
READ MORE: Scottish spot named one of Europe's best for stargazing
The scale of the Big Energy construction that we are witnessing today was in no manifesto I read. We have been deliberately kept in the dark as to the true intentions of what was in store for us. That is not just or fair.
It is certainly not honest, and we doubt it is even legal. For some it's a life sentence for a crime they didn't commit.
We demand a halt. A moratorium against further Big Energy development just like the Scottish Government has in place for nuclear and fracking. They do have the powers. We need an independent cost/benefit analysis. We need a sensible plan – not reckless over-production of energy without guaranteed customers that will increase constraint payments and raise bills. What a ludicrous business model that has turned out to be for the Scottish people. And we need a national inquiry. We need all of that and we need it now before there is nothing left to save.
This is not obstruction – this is survival.
Lyndsey Ward, Beauly
Communities B4 Power Companies
EXCELLENT article from Lesley Riddoch (Highlander revolt is not a case of climate change denying and Nimbyism – it's anger, Aug 14).
It is appalling that Highland communities are being left – each one on its own – to raise awareness, organise, and fight the destruction of their local environment. If the Scottish Government wants that, it is inexplicable and shameful. If it doesn't, but can't do anything, it should say so, fight back, and give the electorate another good reason to vote for independence.
John Galloway
via thenational.scot
AN excellent letter from Ron Lumiere (Aug 14), which should be compulsory reading for politicians of all parties and those making public statements promoting either side of a 'complex policy question' as a 'binary contest', especially in matters related to 'culture wars'.
Life presents few simple choices and the polarising doctrine of the far-right is more likely to spread misunderstandings, diminish mutual respect and 'fuel conflict' than bring enlightened harmony.
Politicians in particular should be wary of arrogantly adopting entrenched positions, no matter the heights of their self-perceived personal intellects or otherwise.
Stan Grodynski
Longniddry, East Lothian
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