Wind skeptics 

Editor:

It’s natural to see climate catastrophe as an environmental problem: CO2, wind and rain, melting glaciers …

The environmental knowledge which drives your solution has at its roots in the wisdom acquired over 10,000 years or more. Traditional Ecological Knowledge, TEK for short, values sharing life with all creatures and plants – their well-being tied-up with ours – the environmentalism of Rachel Carlson.

Some cling to technical solutions concocted by the very same forces that produced the problems they seek to address: runaway industrial growth, pollution, over-consumption, the internet’s electrical imperative.

Reducing greenhouse gases is not a technical problem. Solutions by machines, engineering, chemistry and the like just make it easier to over-consume and demand more. They don’t reach the root of the imbalance driving climate catastrophe.

Manufacturing electricity for a brief 30 years at great cost (in dollars and fossil fuels), as Terra-Gen proposes, is a technical solution sure to have unforeseen consequences and “significant and unavoidable impacts.” (“Planning Commission Gets and Earful from Wind Farm Opponents,” Nov. 21.)

Our indigenous community speaks out against this. Wiyot are most affected, and other tribes stand solidly with them – people who successfully lived off-grid since time immemorial.

Western industrial culture has a deadly speed addiction. We want things now – blinding us to wisdom and help from those not addicted.

The climate crisis is an opportunity to reset our relationship with each other and the earth – requiring a leap into an uncertain future with a faith in values more fundamental than the laws of gravity we manipulated to create it.

Michael Evenson, Petrolia

Editor:

Kudos to Elaine Weinreb for her riveting piece on the Terra-Gen Wind generation project (“Green versus Green,” Nov. 14). Just a minor quibble: The title was misleading as the vast majority of speakers at the hearing – environmentalists, residents and the Wiyot Tribe – oppose the project. I encourage everyone to read the article to find out why.

It’s enough for me to know that this sensitive environmental habitat – the “lungs of the Pacific Northwest” – is a sacred prayer site for the Wiyot people, to be against it.

What I’d really like to know is why the planning commission is rushing through the process before the public has had time to fully digest the Final Environmental Impact Report? Generally, when this happens, it signifies that some folks are on the take. Shame on those commissioners who accepted meals or helicopter rides from Terra-Gen! (Shades of Ryan Sundberg?)

Interesting how the private equity firm pushing the project is attempting to leverage the power outages to generate public approval. Disaster capitalism at work? Is this how lucrative projects get rammed through before the public has time to blink? Can’t say for sure, but I definitely smell a rat.

Please call your reps and demand to know why this project is being rushed through before the environmental impacts are fully understood. And stand with the Wiyot for climate justice.

Lisa Pelletier, Arcata