welcome to the next generation environment environment

Fri, Apr 15, 2011

The First Generation Environment enters our modern consciousness with the Picts, Vikings, Highlanders and sundry other groups to whom the environment was a source of fear. A place to be hurried through and not to be caught out at night. Devils, demons, gods, nymphs and sprites inhabited every rock, pool and hill. Places were named after the effects of the environment. Names like Carn Gluasad (moving), Aonach Air Chrith (shaken), Sgorr Gaoith (wind), Sgurr an Fheadain (chanter, from the noise of the wind). They also reflected the later conflicts of the First Generation. Names such as Meall an Fhudair (gunpowder), Coire a’Mhusgein (muskets), Beinn a’Chleidheimh (sword) and the politics, Sgurr nan Spainteach (Spanish), Stob Coire an Albannaich (Scotsman), Drium an Eireannaich (Irishman).

The Second Generation replaced most of the  fear with awe and a bit of interest in what was out there. Victorians viewed the environment through their bay windows both physically and metaphorically. The environment became picturesque, literally. It looked like the pictures they painted. Landscape was the mode of looking at the environment. Portrait for the individual and to the Victorians’ minds, the one would never fit the other. They were the wrong shapes for them to come together. Radical thinkers such as John Muir made the mental transformation that turned portrait into landscape, allowing them to enter the environment with different viewpoints.

Now I believe we’re reaching the end of the Third Generation Environment. We’ve gone from being afraid of the outdoors, to venturing outside to explore to find that it’s not inhabited by demons and in these modern times with modern gear that can even keep Man alive on another planet, we’ve found that it’s no longer a challenge to stay alive. People ski down Everest, solo climb the north face of the Eiger in less time it takes to walk up a Munro and even jump off hills in a “bat suit”.

Could we be entering the Fourth Generation? I’ll call it Next Generation Environment and this quote from the West Highland Free Press neatly sums it up. The place in question wants to erect a turbine but not why you think. They wish to:

“…erect a single wind turbine which would provide a valuable source of income.”

“…location … means a turbine to supply electricity to the building would prove unsuitable due to the proximity of nearby houses.”

so they are

“…exploring the potential of siting a turbine outside the town which will feed into the grid system”

That simple news item sums up the Next Generation Environment. There to make money. In recent months the attitude to the outdoors has been radically changing from a place of recreation, to one where money can be made on an industrial scale and the Scottish National Party have latched onto this in a big way. Alex Salmond is well known as a renewables fanatic. Brian Taylor’s report from the SNP conference in Glasgow recently keeps us reminded of this:

“On the subject of renewable energy … he was positively evangelical”

but far more worrying, Brian adds:

“positing the reindustralisation of Scotland”

That ominous statement is borne out by recent events put in train by the SNP government. Dunmaglass and the politics of the Scottish landscape. Every day there’s another threat to the environment in the SNP’s view of our industrial future. Osgood MacKenzie made sure his children would be deprived of wildlife by his destruction. Will Alex Salmond be our Osgood MacKenzie? Will his vision deprive our children of the outdoors we know and love?

Attitudes are changing in so many ways. Developers improving the A9 are riding roughshod over the needs of people who have used a right of way for centuries. Resulting in a fight against this “improving”. The word “improve” has a rough history in this country. It’s a euphemism for exploitation of both the land and the people. But the people are rising. Alan Sloman is leading a demonstration against the Monadhliath wind farm and the John Muir Trust are challenging the misinformation propagated by the renewables sector. Others are taking creativity to new levels in showing their disgust at the SNP policy of landscape industrialisation.

With the Scottish Parliament elections coming up, I’ll have to search deep for an answer to the voting question. The Greens are just The Wind Farm Party. Labour are a Scottish branch of English politics and the Liberals are discredited. I won’t even mention the Tories. If only the SNP would listen to the people and not big business.

I just hope the Next Generation Environment will be one suitable for the next generation of outdoors folk. Folk for whom we must fight.