Blowing Wind

West of Salina, Kansas

Every time I make a little trek west on I-70 from Manhattan to Denver, I become more and more impressed by the rapid expansion of efforts to harvest wind energy, and simultaneously more and more amazed that anyone or any organization could be opposed to them.  There are two stretches of wind farms on the route, one west of Salina Kansas stretching 20 miles long and another near Burlington Colorado.  Along a highway of inner America where the landscape is charitably described as stark, where the population is scant, and where the per-acre profit for dry-land farm income and ranching is minimal, I can't imagine a better place to build an industry based on the value of what is above the land, rather than what is beneath it.

ProfessorRoush is part of a generation who were told as children that by now, in the second decade of the 21st century, the world would be completely out of oil.  I admit that I feel it is a testimony to science and human ingenuity that there are now believed to be more oil reserves (and ways to get at them) than were ever dreamed of in the 1970's.  On my most recent trip to Colorado, a radio program celebrated that the United States is again the world's largest producer of oil this year, surpassing even Saudia Arabia.  I'm surely not alone, however, when I say that record oil production is not a positive event for the Earth in the long term.  I say leave it all in the ground. 

Oil is nice. Natural gas and coal are nice. They're known, dependable entities, somewhat like the skanky relatives we'd like to pretend not to know.  But they're not renewable.  Whether it is this decade or this century, they will run out. Even a global warming skeptic, like myself, can admit that we'd be better off if we didn't use fossil fuels in any form.  And the answer is right in front of us, clean, free for the taking and equally profitable right now. Wind. Wind blowing across land whose best use as a Buffalo Commons was once proposed by some meddling Easterners. Wind driven by the energy of the sun across the vast grass prairies, almost free for the taking. I complain about the difficulties of gardening against the wind in Kansas constantly, but I applaud any effort to use that wind for the better. 


The future, stretching into the distance.....

I'm astonished, sometimes, at the opposition to wind energy, but then, I also recognize that "all politics are local", and that most of the groups in opposition just don't want the turbine towers in their back yards.    Heck, I'll take them in mine.   Riley County has several "experimental" turbines of varying heights that are already visible from our home. I think they're haunting and beautiful, clean and statuesque.  Concerns about effects of wind turbines on wildlife and people have either been proven unfounded or have been minimized by design changes.  Wind farms are a source of local jobs and an extra income source for ranchers who can still farm and graze cattle beneath them.   On a per-kilowatt basis, taking into account initial capital costs, maintenance, fuel, and operation, and excluding tax incentives, wind energy is already cheaper than "clean" coal, nuclear, and solar technologies (according to the US Department of Energy), equal to conventional coal and geothermal sources, and only slightly more expensive than hydroelectric power.  Other sources list it as being among the cheapest of all sources of electricity generation.  And it will only get cheaper as the technology develops, and better as we learn to store the generated energy for use when the wind doesn't blow. Take that, oil wells.

I'll fully admit that my aesthetic tastes are often questioned, but I think these clean, white towers are the picturesque equal of the Parthenon or the Taj Mahal.  And they're the best outcome that modern technology can give to the 7th Generation and to the Earth.  I dare you to convince me otherwise.

Seventh Generation Gardening

Jim Nollman, in "Why We Garden"  tells a unique story in the chapter on his Sequoia tree garden.  He relates that whenever the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy held a council meeting, the  Haudenosaunee (Iroquois tribal government) took a moment to invoke the presence of the seventh future generation.  According to Nollman, under the Great Law of Peace, any vote among the living council members also included an equal vote for the needs and dignity of those who would live in the seventh generation to come. 

Isn't that just a great concept?  If in everything we did, in everything done by our system of government, there was a voice or a vote by a representative for the Seventh Generation, how would that change the debates?  What would it mean for US environmental policies?  For drilling in the Arctic tundra?  For saving the Spotted Owl?   At the turn of the 20th Century, would it have saved the Ivory-billed Woodpecker?  Or the Carolina Parakeet?  If the Executive Board of British Petroleum had a member whose sole duty was to represent the Seventh Generation, would the Gulf Spill have happened?  Unfortunately, the modern expression  of the "Seventh Generation" idea seems to have only spawned hype for any number of modern products and outcomes, from the green cleaners and laundry detergents made by Seventh Generation Inc., to the Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development, to the proposed Seventh Generation Amendment (Common Property Amendment) for the US Constitution.

 Unfortunately, it also all seems to be based on a myth.  I'll admit that I'm cheating on the research effort, since I've only searched the Internet, but in two different translations of Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois available to me, the word "seven" is mentioned only twice, both times in relation to how thick a skin a council member should have, and the future generations are only invoked in a vague sense, as in Article 56 "They therefore shall labor, legislate, and council together for the interest of future generations,"  or in another passage that states, "Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground."  And in practice, I suppose the idea of a representative for the Seventh Generation wouldn't work in our government.  Who would speak for the Seventh Generation?  Al Gore?  George Soros?  Rush Limbaugh?
 
Luckily for gardeners, the Seventh Generation concept does work well in our own gardens.  When I planted a slow-growing Scarlet Oak at the back of my garden, who did I think would benefit from its shade?  Not me, surely, for 8 years later it still barely lifts its branches four foot above the ground.  When I plant a pecan tree, what generation am I expecting will finally be the beneficiary of the nuts that will rain down sometime in the distant future?  Do I maintain my Purple Martin houses and Bluebird trail for my enjoyment, or so that there will be a chance that Eastern Bluebirds and Purple Martins will always return to this bit of Flint Hills prairie with each Spring? How long will vanity let me leave the volunteer milkweeds alone, creating a shamble of my garden design, but providing food for the dwindling Monarch butterflies?  
 
Whether or not the story told by Nollman is true, please plant something today, make a new garden bed, or put up a new birdhouse, I urge you, for the Seventh Generation.