Wind Turbines, UNESCO And The Mont St Michel

Mont St Michel could lose it's UNESCO status because of the Church of Climatology

As most of Europe abandons wind power because of declining wind speeds across western europe, Britain and France are still pursuing the Holy Grail of Wind Power, without any thought to cost, or energy security for their respective countries.

The latest scheme from France would see 3 giant wind turbines, each two thirds the height of the Eiffel Tower, situated 20km from the Mont St Michel, and easily viewable on clear day.

The scheme has UNESCO worried about the world heritage status of Frances greatest provincial tourist attraction which gets 3 million visitors a year; there will be an additional bird choppers off the coast at Juno and Omaha beaches which has angered veterans, and environmentalists as well.

The UN body has ordered France to provide details of plans to build three towering wind turbines off the coast of Normandy. Critics say that given their size – two thirds the height of the Eiffel Tower – the turbines will blight the view from Mont St Michel, a rocky island whose 8th century abbey stretches up into the clouds atop a granite pinnacle.

Mont St Michel, population 43, annual visitors 3 million, is the most visited site in provincial France.

Light pollution from the offshore electricity generators will turn the medieval pilgrimage site into a “Christmas garland”, according to Environment and Landscape, an environmental group. It is one of several pressure groups that complained to UNESCO about the plan – one of seven possible projects involving 31 wind turbines on this stretch of coastline.

UNESCO has declared it is “concerned about the potential impact of the wind farms on the landscape of the site.” On Monday, France handed UNESCO a report on its plans. In June, the body will decide whether to review Mont St Michel’s world heritage status, which it earned in 1979.

Nothing is safe from the Church of Climatalogy’s version of the crucifix, the wind turbine.

 

Last week, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a 10 billion-euro plan to build five giant rows of generators off France’s western coast from 2015. Two of these are off the north Norman coast, two off the Breton coast and one off the D-Day beaches of Juno and Omaha off northeastern France.

The choice of the latter site, 11 kilometres off Courseulles-Sur-Mer (Juno Beach), has raised hackles among veterans and environmentalists.

Admiral Christian Brac de la Perrière, the president of the Comité du Débarquement, the official French body for commemorating D-Day, described it as “inappropriate and incoherent”.

Jacky Bonnemains, president of Robin des Bois (Robin Hood), a militant French ecological group, said: “I find it extraordinary no one in government grasps that this will change forever the character of a place of sacred memory. They just don’t seem to care.” The seascape would be “desecrated” as a result, he warned.

H/T Toy Tory for finding the story