We all remember, from our youth, the wonderful stories of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. "Grimm's Fairy Tales," as they are known, include immortal stories that often take place in the deep woods, such as "Snow White," "Rapunzel," and "Hansel and Gretel." They have been translated many times, read to children by parents, read to students by teachers, and adapted into movies of, well varying quality.
The stories were written in the early to mid-1800s, at a time when forests were valuable not only for building material and shelter but for fuel, as the primary energy source people used in Germany in those days was wood and charcoal. Now, Germany has much better energy sources available, like natural gas and nuclear power. But in the name of "renewable" energy, Germany is tearing down a forest that may well have been known to Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm and may have even inspired some of their stories.
In the Reinhardswald near Kassel, known as the Fairytale Forest, a previously untouched natural and cultural landscape with trees over 500 years old, is today being irreversibly destroyed. Why? To protect nature and the climate, the wind industry and green proponents claim.
So, they are destroying the village - excuse me, the forest, to save the forest. Or, at least, the environment. Or something.
I've been to Germany; in fact, I spent six months in Bavaria when I was reactivated for President Clinton's Balkans distraction in 1996. I was living more or less on the edge of the famous Black Forest, and spent a lot of my days off hiking in those beautiful, cool, deep woods. The forests of Germany are some of the most beautiful places in Europe, and now this one, a forest with considerable historical significance, is being destroyed for no good reason.
And no, "destroyed" is no overstatement:
The region, which plays a central role in the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, is being transformed into a large-scale industrial construction site comprising of 18 large scale turbines.
To build the 244-meter-high wind turbines, large roads are cut into the forest, thousands of trees felled, slopes leveled and large quantities of gravel piled up on the forest floor. All this will cause irreversible damage and destruction to the forest biotope. Critics and conservationists emphasize that the extent of the destruction goes far beyond what one would expect from the construction of a wind turbine in an open field.
It isn't just the trees being removed. There's more to it than that. This will affect drainage, it will affect forest wildlife like Germany's ubiquitous roe deer, red deer, and wild boar, all of which are forest-adapted and need the forests to survive.
Has no one thought this through? Worse, no one seems to have considered what the people who live in the area might think of all this.
The local population, in particular the seven surrounding communities, are protesting unitedly against the project and have organized themselves into citizens’ initiatives. But despite the opposition and ongoing legal proceedings, construction work is progressing rapidly. The project’s critics say the destruction is taking place under the guise of the energy transition and the concerns expressed by the regional population are being totally ignored.
The Reinhardswald is a beautiful and historic place. Why is this happening, and why are the people who live there being ignored?
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A German site (translated from the Deutsch) has this to say about the progress of this travesty:
The characteristic low mountain structure of the fairytale forest is hardly suitable for heavy technology. Height differences require massive interventions: fillings of up to five metres, excavations just as deep to make room for routes and crane areas.
Local residents report an alienated landscape. What was once a natural jewel now looks like an industrial area. The seven surrounding communities are closed. Hundreds of citizens have organized themselves. However, the owner of the land is the state of Hesse – referendums remain excluded.
It's as I've been saying and writing for years: This isn't about the climate, and it isn't about the environment.
Germany has any number of power sources available, all of which are spectacularly more efficient and higher energy-density than these huge, ugly windmills. They have natural gas; they could have nuclear power, but they shut down all the nuclear power plants they had been using since the '70s. Nuclear power plants and natural gas power would take up a smaller, less invasive footprint than this wind project.
But Germany and the state of Hesse, where this is taking place, don't seem to care about all that. They will, instead, force people to rely on unreliable, intermittent sources, while destroying a historic forest to do so. It's hypocrisy on steroids, and it's being done in the name of a claimed anthropogenic climate change that can't be supported scientifically.
What's next for Germany? Tearing down St. Peter's Cathedral to install a field of solar panels?
