Ah those beautiful windmills
How important is scenery and landscape in our lives and how can it best be preserved? Should it be regulated, as city-scapes are? If so, how? In modern times, when landscapes are changing so rapidly, is the writer′s idea of preserving landscapes through the visual arts a good one? If wind-turbines destroy the view of landscapes, do their costs outweigh their benefits? Should Slovakia go the way of our western neighbor and build more of them?
Living outside of the Bratislava, I have been part of the countryside most of my life. Idea of building windmills was raised here for many times, but each time developers were unsuccessful. Why? Even “wind park” would bring many benefits to local community with new jobs, cheaper energy and gabel for land owners, each time local residents raised concert against them. In my opinion, good mixture of energy sources included renewable are essential for our society. But it is going take year with technological improvements and funds to reach that level of harmony.
ReplyDeleteOpponents usually argue that windmills don’t have their place in our landscape, since they would degrade it. Would you like to have a picture of Spis castle with couple of tall windmills next to it? Beside typical stereotype like they are laud or dangerous for birds, windmills are really expensive and nobody would be interest in building them without government subsidies. Subsidies include government corruption and high inefficient usage of our money. There are many different disadvantages of windmills that outweigh advantages. Bratislava’s landscape is already marked, so it is just up to us rather we are going to let this happen in the rest of the country. Of course there are industrialized areas where they wouldn’t “hurt” landscape that much, but we should not let them mark our natural heritage. Mountains and their landscapes are amazing source of spiritual energy for us and we should try to preserve it. Would Austrians built windmills in Alps, just think about it…
Landscape and scenery, they both are very important to us, and play an essential role in our lives. Landscape comprises the visible features of the land areas around us that include various land forms as mountains, rivers or seas. Every part of the land on Earth is different when talking about deserts, savannas, rainforests or Polar Regions. The variety of differences may also be due to living elements as vegetation, or human elements as the land use of constructing buildings and structures in a particular area.
ReplyDeleteThe preservation of land is often times very difficult because people have already used their human elements to negatively intervene into this issue. However, there are already some existing national parks in different regions of Earth, but it is still not enough to preserve all the most beautiful sceneries of the landscapes. I don’t think that it would be the best idea to regulate this as the city-scrapes because it would do worse than better. I also do not share the idea of the writer of preserving the landscape through visual arts, because it is in my opinion not adequate. By this I mean that it is impossible to preserve huge areas all over the world by only visual arts. The visual arts are art forms that retain only tiny parts of the whole feeling. The feeling from different breath-taking sceneries and landscapes can be in my opinion felt only after seeing it in real. Even though visual arts catch some emotions, they are for me only forms of art, not possible preservation. Preservation must be stricter in order to achieve the goal of preserving the Earths landscapes.
I asked about turbines some people around me, and what I got were answers of only positive opinions. Well, turbines can be very helpful. I also share the opinion that turbines are very essential, even if they cost so much. Let’s take Austria as an example. As we all know, Austria is a country of high quality, but it is known also for its amount of these wind turbines. I don’t think that they would invest so much money in these wind turbines if they weren’t worth it. So, I guess that even if it is expensive, it must be the best choice of the modern times. It doesn’t require a huge area, the construction of it doesn’t take long, and it is modern... If Slovakia would be about to buy these turbines, I would definitely support it. Obviously some complain that it destroys the scenery, but in my opinion it doesn’t. It even makes the scenery more attractive and interesting for me even if it is not as natural as it was before.
Well in my opinion scenery is something really beautiful, something I cannot even describe how perfect it is. I know it may sound weird and a bit too romantic, but I often just sit outside and watch the beautiful scenery. Sometimes it is so beautiful that the whole world stops and all I can focus on is the beauty that is everywhere around us. I often feel that people do not realize how beautiful the world is, since they live a hectic life and all they care about is job, success and they never just stop, to truly enjoy life.
ReplyDeleteHowever, when talking about the wind mills, I think it is more a matter of subjective opinion, since there are people who really could think that these wind mills are beautiful and they just supplement the beauty. On the other side, since I am expressing my subjective opinion in this comment, I do not think that these wind mills really supplement the beauty. In my opinion, these wind mills are spoiling the nature. Since I live in Devín, I see these wind mills every day from my balcony, and I can try really hard, but I still do not think that the wind mills are being a nice detail in the scenery. I am not really experienced in this area, but I think that people should try producing energy by some different means, since nature is the only thing we have and we shouldn’t ruin it more than we did until now. I just do not want to see Earth in the future, over-filled with machines and technology. Even though it may sound strange, but I am happy that I will not live that long, that I will see how much worse it will get. People are complicating things too much and they are spoiling such a beautiful thing as nature. I really hate this modern age where everything is somehow connected with technology.
In conclusion, I would not be happy if Slovakia would build more wind turbines, such as Austria did. I am happy that we have at least as much nature in Slovakia as we do. I am worried about our planet, I am worried of what will it become after a few more years.
I agree with Barboras’ opinion that many people don’t appreciate the beauty of nature and how fascinating it is. I am too afraid of what is going to happen to this planet and concerned about the fact that human maybe are one of the reason why our planet is changing. I do not believe that human are the only reason why there is global warming since there were already drastic changes in the earth’s temperature even before humans. Though, I think that people should be more environment friendly as for example recycle, ride the bicycle and use solar and wind energy.
DeleteI also agree with Barbora that windmills are not the nicest thing to look at but I totally disagree with her saying that “people should try producing energy by some different means, since nature is the only thing we have and we shouldn’t ruin it more than we did until now”. People built wind mills and use wind power not because they want to ruin the nature, but because it is an environment friendly way of producing energy. The only thing it can ruin is the view but that’s all.
I also disagree with Barbara saying that she is worried about our planet because of technology and machines as is a wind mill. Wind mills are a great use of modern technology to decreases the CO2 content in air.
The issue of natural landscape in contrast with people artificially changing the environment is nowadays is a widely discussed topic. England is a very conservative country, in which people dislike radical changes and protect their green parks and natural countryside. According to the author of the article, English countryside is ambitiously and idealistically beautiful. To a certain extend I agree with the authors opinion since I have lived in England for a few months.
ReplyDeleteI think that England is environmentally friendly and takes care of the “green“ their country was given, and therefore the concerns about windmills destroying English countryside seem quite natural. I agree with Rasťo on his opinion about wind-turbines not being “particularly beautiful”. A great example is the windmills in Austria bordering Slovakia. They ruin the countryside and change the atmosphere of the place. In addition, wind-power is insufficient and makes only about 10% of the world energy. I definitely think nuclear power stations are better in an economic matter. Of source, nuclear power stations are not as ecologic, however I think that the huge amount of energy and small amount of space they take (in comparison to windmill fields) is worth it. I admit that a lot of people may not agree with my opinion because it is not ecologically friendly.
I think that Slovakia should not invest into wind power, but rather rely on the sources of energy we have, and improve them. It would definitely affect the Slovak economy, which in time of crisis is not worthy. Furthermore, it could destroy a part of nature in our small country.
To conclude, I think that scenery we are exposed to in is more respected in the modern society. People care about the environment they live in. I think that wind-turbines are not a great contribution to the society as an alternative source and participate on ruining the landscape of a country.