Earth Equity News

French Wind Farm Proposal at Mont-Saint-Michel Stirs Controversy. By Edward Cody, WashPost, October 11, 2009. "On one side are those who want to reduce carbon emissions by drawing electricity out of wind. On the other stand equally dedicated ecologists who say the sight of 21st-century windmills churning above the tidal flats around Mont-Saint-Michel would detract from one of the world's most striking and best-known monuments... The project has the support of local officials and President Nicolas Sarkozy's government. For these advocates of the environment, it would be a worthy contribution to France's program to expand its 2,500 windmills producing 4,500 megawatts a year to 8,500 producing 25,000 megawatts by 2020... [Oponents] here have no quarrel with the quest for clean energy, but, they argue, putting windmills on the ridgeline above Mont-Saint-Michel is not the way to do it. Backed by allies around the country, they have mounted a campaign to prove that the windmills -- even at 10 miles away -- would desecrate the vista for the more than 3 million visitors who come every year to admire the rock-top monastery rising from tidewater more than 500 feet into the sky."