Windmills and Wildflowers: Debate Over Gorman Hills

I would have never thought that I would be writing a letter in rebuttal to someone calling himself an environmentalist but I am. Barnbaum makes a plea to preserve the hills around Gorman as a state park so wind generators won’t be placed there. Keeping these hills unblemished for their brief burst of glorious color at the expense of an opportunity to generate clean energy is not a luxury this ailing planet can afford.

Our reliance on the burning of fossils fuels is generating excesses of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causing global warming, commonly called the greenhouse effect. This threatens to change the world in profound ways. It should be our highest priority to stem this greenhouse effect by being more efficient in our use of fossil fuels and finding alternative energy sources. Wind-generated energy is one of those alternative energy sources.

Unlike damming a river or building a nuclear power plant, the placement of wind generators does not obliterate the surrounding environs. Certainly, some land is covered with the bases for the towers, but the vast majority of the land is left uncovered to go on with the annual bloom of spring flowers.

I sympathize with Barnbaum’s wish for a state park but there are more worthwhile places; generators won’t threaten the continued beauty of spring wildflowers, and the use of wind generators represents a trend toward energy sources that will have to be our future if we want humans as well as wildflowers to continue to thrive.

LAURA WILLBANKS

Long Beach