The announcement at Westminster yesterday on ending wind farm subsidies was described as "wrong headed, perverse, downright outrageous, and utterly wrong-headed," and that was just by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
Her Energy Minister, Fergus Ewing was somewhat restrained, calling it "regrettable" while Green politicians and the renewables industry in general went what our youngsters call Tonto or ballistic.
But whatever you think of the decision by the UK Government can we point out that it was completely, honourably, dare we say impeccably democratic? The Conservatives put scrapping the so-called renewables obligation in their manifesto and they then won power as a majority government. The only argument is whether they are being a bit previous by introducing the change a year earlier than suggested, but the rules on new wind power schemes which have already received planning consent may take care of that.
The bottom line is that the UK Government has a democratic mandate to do this. We can argue the merits and demerits of it, but not the legitimacy. The merits are few, the demerits many, but this is so much whistling in the wind.
The fundamental argument is that onshore wind offers us our best and cheapest opportunity of a shift away from carbon fuel, a proven technology but one which does not work when the wind doesn't blow, thus raising questions about base levels of supply.
Offshore wind offers the same, at greater expense but with fewer aesthetic objections. Tidal or wave may offer the best solution but the technology is not yet fully developed. So for a low carbon future without the long-term risks and giant subsidies of nuclear, wind remains a good bet, particularly if we can find energy storage solutions.
Then along came Nimbyism on a grand scale. There has always been an element of people not wanting wind farms in their back yards. Some find them ugly, some find them serenely beautiful, but there are question marks over their close proximity to homes.
Where there is no question mark is in relation to them being the most proven source of clean power. There seems little point of Scottish and UK governments signing up to climate change targets and then sabotaging the best means of meeting them.
Pope Francis has waded into the climate change debate, proclaiming: "Doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain. The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth."
This intervention has outraged many Catholic Republicans in the US where a strand of right-wing opinion now regards it as a matter of faith that climate change and global warming are myths. This is not a view shared here even by most Conservatives.
Which begs the question: Why is this government moving swiftly to shut down one of our cheapest sources of clean energy? The answer would appear to be opposition from rural Conservative constituencies, meaning the prejudices of the Shires and Nimbyism are trumping stated policies on climate control.
Worse, they are having a significant and damaging effect on the renewables industry, an industry which happens to be more significant in Scotland. We could point out that had Scotland voted Yes last year there would be no UK subsidies for renewables. But the nation did not back independence and this abrupt withdrawal seems a calculated slap.
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