Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change - Ed Miliband told the UK last month that opposing onshore wind energy projects should be socially taboo.

In response the Council for Protection of Rural England (CPRE) posted a number of questions on their website directed to Ed Miliband. One question asked if he believes local communities have a legitimate role to protect valued local landscapes from what they describe as “damaging energy infrastructure“. Miliband replied saying that he believes that local communities do have an important role. He says on the CPRE website “We’re changing the rules for nationally significant infrastructures so developers have to consult the community before they even submit an application. And I agree that there are some places where wind farms may not be suitable.”

Miliband says that we need to think about our attitudes to wind farms because the biggest threat to our countryside is not the wind turbine, but climate change. He pointed to the recent RSPB report which said climate change is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, threat facing wildlife over the next 100 years.

Miliband believes that to head off that threat, we need all the low-carbon power we can get. “We should build wind offshore, and in fact we have more offshore wind power now than any other country in the world. But the scale of the change is such that we need onshore too. Together, it can make a big difference: last year enough power for all the electricity for the equivalent of two million homes came from wind power.”

The CPRE questions clearly have an anti-wind farm slant. Phrases making an appearance include “because wind turbines are so visible, are they in danger of overshadowing investment in these other less visible renewable energy sources“. Do these people really think that the world is moving over to wind energy because they are visible? Do they really believe that every country investing in wind energy is not really worried about its nations energy security but just what statement their wind turbines are making visually? Miliband told CPRE that wave and tidal energy receives twice the financial credits (ROCS) that onshore wind turbines receive and that £10 million was recently invested in a biomass Anaerobic Digestion Demonstration Programme, which he described as having huge potential.