Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Matt Fisken, a freelance energy adviser and permaculturist who lives in Hartford.
After a summer of limited mobility due to the arrival of our first child, last Sunday we drove to Glover where the 1971 play “Birdcatcher in Hell” was being performed by the Bread and Puppet troupe.
I still have vivid memories of attending the “circus” as a young boy with my parents in the late ’80s when Bread and Puppet’s annual event was not yet a challenge for its rural surroundings. I wasn’t there for the final gathering in 1998, although I did attend the “last” Phish concert at the Newport State Airport in 2004 — a similarly massive and unwieldy congregation born out of a much smaller, simpler idea which also sprouted in the Green Mountains decades ago.
As I sat in the back of the Paper Mache Cathedral holding my son, completely transfixed by the beating of drums, the wild red set, costumes and masks, and a story of a birdcatcher who tries to talk his way out of hell and into heaven, I had that eerie, yet comforting feeling that as much as the world has changed, Vermont’s fertile and inspiring qualities continue to endure. Seeing Phish play a benefit concert for Tropical Storm Irene recovery efforts was another time I experienced this same profound connection and contentment that can best be described by Max Ehrmann’s poem “Desiderata.”
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
At the conclusion of the performance, we shared bread, used the composting toilet, walked around the museum and picked out a few prints. The perfection of the outing was something we could have easily settled for and left the way we came, but we took a detour instead. I hadn’t yet seen the wind projects in Lowell or Sheffield and estimated we could check out both by taking County Road over the hill toward Albany.
After a brief view of Sheffield’s wind plant back to the east, we continued on until we could see the Kingdom Community Wind turbines, all of which were spinning that day with steady 15 mph winds out of the northwest. In contrast to Lowell’s massive towers, we saw a few smaller wind turbines along the way, strikingly minuscule compared to the ominous presence of the industrial wind towers across the valley. Someday I’ll hike Lowell Mountain with my son to see the spectacle up close, but for now, this brief and distant observation was more than enough to show me how the Northeast Kingdom is a much different place than it was just a couple of years ago.
My hope is that an increasing awareness of the environmental and health impacts caused by wind turbines and wireless infrastructure will continue to spread and encourage more Vermonters to stand up for their rights to avoid being harmed in their homes by low frequency infrasound and high frequency microwave energy.
Between all the new cell phone, wireless Internet, and wind towers, we seem to have firmly placed our bets on what the future will bring. Even though wireless communications facilities and grid-tied “renewable electricity” generators hold the support of many people, that enthusiasm quickly wanes among people who actually live next to them. History is littered with pursuits and habits that were popular for a while before wisdom or reality won out over general public preference.
My hope is that an increasing awareness of the environmental and health impacts caused by wind turbines and wireless infrastructure will continue to spread and encourage more Vermonters to stand up for their rights to avoid being harmed in their homes by low frequency infrasound and high frequency microwave energy. Despite the likelihood that it will be a number of years before Vermont’s corporations, elected representatives and appointed officials are able see these serious issues for what they are, the tide is beginning to turn among its citizens.
• While Lowell, Sheffield and Georgia now have their wind projects spinning, other communities have learned from these projects and have voted to oppose industrial wind turbines.
• Nearly 5 percent of electric customers have opted out of having a wireless smart meter attached to their home or business as the usefulness and safety of a “smart grid” is being seriously reconsidered around the world.
• The town of Norwich recently turned down an offer by VTel to build a radio tower for the town in exchange for getting to use it to expand their fledgling wireless network. Instead, the town voted to fund and construct an emergency communications tower itself, retain control of the facility and avoid “larding up” the tower with unnecessary commercial antennas.
• Communities that would be hosts to a proposed Addison natural gas pipeline are organizing in their opposition to this infrastructure that would import more hydraulically fractured and conventionally drilled natural gas into the state and do very little to accomplish the ambitious goals of Vermont’s 2011 Comprehensive Energy Plan.
With Syria now on many minds, “Birdcatcher In Hell” once again provides an appropriate and entertaining commentary on the questionable value of forceful intervention. While some would prefer to plow ahead and continue policing the world or building heavily subsidized “pillars of progress,” we must remember the importance of retaining our humility and a sense of scale. Charging whole hog into a future of 4G and wind “farms” may be appealing at first glance, but if we fail to pause and consider all the other proven solutions which already exist, the heavenly Vermont we know and sometimes take for granted could become a very uncomfortable place in which we won’t be able to talk our way out.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Be careful. Strive to be happy.
