Travelling down towards Laurenckirk on a frosty morning, the metal foliage called wind farms emerged from the mist. The gostly grey and filtered sunlight meant the occasional blade reflected the sun - I couldn't time the camera to capture that. I'm still pulled two ways about these massive mathematically precise intrusions onto a natural landscape. The argument about whether they are a viable or effective alternative is one others know more about. It's the aesthetics that perplex me. Are they a blot on the landscape or merely an updating of the pylon lines that criss cross some of our most attractive and sensitive landscapes? I've gotten used to them, but is that a de-sensitization that is mere tolerance of the inevitable and a concession to engineering ugliness as the solution to the energy problem?
Up here of course wind farms are politically contentious. A certain billionaire rages against the loss of aesthtic beauty for the new golf course if these turbines are installed offshore in the line of vision of the privileged golfers who can affford to jet in to the proposed world class golf course.
But whatever the outcome of our search for renewable energy, it seems that in my lifetime we'll have to get used to the sight of machinery that still looks otherworldly, and makes those who've read War of the Worlds a bit nervous.
On another line entirely - I start the course on trinitarian theology next week, and these three bladed power sources, merging in the misty mystery of a Mearns morning, are pictorial reminders of the significance in human thought and culture of threefoldness.
They also remind me of the early Ban the Bomb logo which was a badge I wore proudly as a teenager - a wee while ago.....
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