On the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, opposite the northern tip of Scotland, lines are drawn about building a wind farm that would harness the island’s natural resource — it’s a very windy place — and help the warming world. Or would it? Environmentalists find themselves between a rock and a hard place:
Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and other groups back the project. Lining up against it, the Scottish Wildlife Trust, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, among others, argue that the turbines will cause incalculable damage to the flora and fauna of the moor. The RSPB, which has been particularly vocal, speaks of "bird genocide," and even the developers concede that the giant rotors are not ornithologically friendly.
Sometimes it’s hard to know what’s right.
The story is by Chi Trib’s man in the UK, Tom Hundley, and ran Friday with a wonderful color foto on p. 16 showing three residents and an ancient shepherd’s stone shepherd’s hut. Readers of Walter Scott take notice of such a story: his The Pirate was set in the Shetland Islands, which are north of Scotland and were settled by Norwegians long before the English came.
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