This picture represents a single moment in the life of an evolving landscape. It was taken two weeks ago at the point where the River Aire melds with the Ouse, before the latter goes on to join the Trent and the two of them form the Humber Estuary.
It’s a very different scene from the one that would have been captured just two weeks previously. Then the wind turbines had not been hauled into position and the landscape was perfectly flat, interrupted only by occasional houses, the sprawling, restless rivers that characterise this part of the East Riding, and of course, the odd power station.
Ten, out of what I believe will be a total of 12, turbines now truly dominate the skyline between Rawcliffe, where I live, and Airmyn. They multiply, literally during the course of a working day, and stand – clinical, laboratory-white, and so far, deadly still – against the backdrop of the UK’s largest generator of carbon dioxide, as if towering in judgment of our shameful environmental record.
When I pass them, particularly under the grey skies of recent days, I can’t help but be reminded of a certain H.G. Wells novel.
But we’re in Yorkshire, so others are less melodramatic. They have divided local opinion though. Whereas some people welcome the structures, detractors condemn them as a blot on the rural landscape and an intrusion into their lives. Oddly, it seems the older generation mind them the least, perhaps because after seeing a lifetime of change they have learned that when things do alter, it’s rarely the end of a world.
And they are right. Despite their cold appearance and imposing magnitude, these are not the tripod Martians of War of the Worlds threatening Howden with Armageddon. They are here not to destroy our landscape, but to help do the very opposite. Let’s not be naive, they are owned and operated by large companies whose motivation is profit not altruism and they are by no means a silver bullet for the problem of climate change. Neither do they represent the democratisation of energy provision.
But what they do represent, in my eyes at least, is a vision of hope in the face of the most pressing and serious problem in the history of human beings. The industrial revolution was not a single occurrence, but rather a series of forward steps that took place over decades aimed at constantly increasing efficiency. Such will be the case in weaning the industrialised world off its carbon addiction and what these turbines are is a start of that process.
The wind of change that is blowing across the horizon cannot come soon enough for a world whose depleting fossil fuel reserves not only threaten our very existence, but also lie more and more in the hands of banana republics and despots.
Oh, and one other thing it would seem timely to point out – whether you like them or not, wind turbines don’t leak.
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