A source of division

It is the great paradox of renewable energy that technologies designed to reduce carbon emissions and so mitigate climate change can be destructive to their immediate environment. Those contradictions could not be more stark than in the proposal for 181 wind turbines across Barvas Moor on the Isle of Lewis. It would have been the largest onshore wind farm in Europe, built on an area of peat bog which had the European Union's highest level of protection for both habitat and birds. The adverse effects on the special protection area of the Lewis peatlands was the reason for the decision by Scotland's energy minister, Jim Mather, to reject the plans by Lewis Wind Power. This decision is welcome but must be put into the context of the SNP's renewable energy policy. Mr Mather made a point of not ruling out other onshore wind farms in the Western Isles. This is significant because there are two other wind farm applications in the south of Lewis and an inquiry will open next month into the 53-turbine scheme at Eisgein. One of the main objectors, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, has already said that its principal concern was the cumulative effect of three wind farms on the island.