George Monbiot vs. the CPRE

I came across an interesting and lively debate between George Monbiot and the head of the Campaign for Rural England, Shaun Spiers (I can't describe how much I wanted to write spiders instead then but there you go) on the Guardian website today. Gorgeous George's main point of attack was an apparent bias of CPRE policy against wind farm construction, whilst simultaneously ignoring the threat of open cast mining on the rural England they supposedly adore. Here's the link.

An interesting argument, this. Poor Mr Spiers was well and truly given the old Monbiot intellectual one-two, and left in the peculiar situation of apparently agreeing with GM whilst answering for the somewhat militant Cornish branch of the CPRE, who advocate a policy of total abandonment of renewables for a resurgence in open cast coal.

An interesting point was certainly raised here, that of class. CPRE objects to windfarms but not to open cast mining: why? Well, wind farm locations are found by definition in windy places, namely upland. Let's face it, picturesque Wordsworth country. Open cast mining is often opted for in, well, less salubrious locations. The middle classes love Wordsworth country but couldn't give a flying ferret about some filthy mining community in the likes of York ...shire? But what on Earth has class got to do with environmentalism? Well you might be surprised. Hate to generalise here but the CPRE aren't exactly the great unwashed Greenpeace fellas we all adore. In short it can't loose that Jam and Jerusalem image (and why should it?), the Daily Mail NGO. No-one joins the CPRE to be a radical after all.

Interestingly, the CPRE have now apparently addressed this. Jolly good show!

Being from Stoke-on-Trent coal mining is something that is close to me. I remember a few years ago there was a very real threat of open cast mining making a return to that lovely city. It was rightfully shouted down and run out of town by the locals (minus the pitchforks). Let's not forget this is a deprived, ex-industrial town with a coal mining heritage. That's how much people HATE these things. That city has tried incredibly hard to eliminate this dirty heritage, to reinvent. Why go back to unskilled, dirty dangerous jobs? So there we go. It's not about economics, this. It's about people and their environments. Nimbyism. It would be interesting to see how Stokies would feel about a few turbines though...