August 7, 2006

Sacred view threatened on Lewis

Every 18 years, the moon is reborn on Scotland's island of Lewis, rising from between the knees of the Old Woman of the Moors, Cailleach na Mointeach. The ancient Callanish stones mark this cyclic event -- the resynchronization of lunar and solar time, the "golden year" that Catholicism still uses to date Easter -- and now a 16-foot-diameter cairn has been discovered near the hills that are the Cailleach's knees. That could prevent the construction of some of the giant wind turbines proposed for the island moors (never mind that disruption of peat by the turbines' erections would release so much carbon it would cancel any possible benefits for 25 years (should they last that long)). Needless to say, the turbines would stand in the way of this view that has been sacred for thousands of years.

wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism