Yes, Quelbazar reads more than usual, these times. Thanks to e-Bibliomedia, a book lending service in digital format proposed by Swiss libraries.
[Amazon_link asses = ‘ 2021392449 ‘ template = ‘ ProductAd ‘ store = ‘ jvhgdjz-21 ‘ marketplace = ‘ en ‘ link_id = ‘ B1dbd26a-6310-11e8-abb7-0ffeab836eae ‘] We see flourishing, in our Swiss regions too, these majestic (yes, it is a judgement of value…) Gear on our hills and our peaks. Like any novelty, this gives rise to heated debates.
No later than last week, in a Facebook group on the Romandie hike, virulent opponents denounced a project in the Jura Vaudois and Neuchâtel. The discussion that followed was stormy. A majority of people who spoke saw wind as an acceptable source of energy, and the impact of these propellers as a necessary evil in order to reduce nuclear dependence, for example.
So I started reading the Mirages of Wind, written by Grégoire Souchay, freelance journalist. The author, visibly “in empathy with the environmental movement”, delivers a relatively neutral and objective analysis of the development of wind power in France. The book addresses the history of wind power, its development in France, and its French legislative twists. It also describes pro-and anti-wind arguments, and political and economic pressures.
Relatively neutral, however, the book has a very “French” approach, and a good part of the chapters concern the Franco-French legislative imbroglios. A situation that differs somewhat from the “Swiss” debates, even if there must be similarities.
On the publisher’s website, you can read:
Wind turbines have become a symbol of the “energy transition”. They are everywhere: on the ridges of the south of the Massif Central, in the plains of the Centre, the north and the Champagne, from the mountains of Morvan to the Occitans coasts, and soon off the coast of Brittany and Normandy. In the “Start-up nation” that would be France today, wind power is seen by many as a reliable and very competitive technology. It would be necessary to develop the wind farms in a timetable that is obvious. But others, more numerous than we think, oppose this blind development and denounce the “industrialisation of the countryside”. Almost everywhere, conflicts are between inhabitants of the countryside and those who want to plant wind turbines.
These conflicts actually reveal the fracture between two visions of ecology: sustainable development and acceptance of capitalism versus sobriety and the desire for emancipation. Some reason with entrepreneurs, others criticize the political and social effects on a community of life. Some want to specialize in energy, others talk about landscapes and nature protection. So, “winning bet” or “big scam”? A highly contemporary investigation.
A freelance journalist, Grégoire Souchay has already published in the same Sivens collection. The dam too. He has coauthored, in order to carry out, a decisive investigation into the circumstances of the death of Rémi Fraisse. Neither “pro” nor “anti” wind, it tries here to clarify this imbroglio of our modernity.
Available at Amazon or FNAC
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