The Rats of NIMBY

This morning the class I work in/with went to a presentation by BC Hydro. It was a pretty informative session and nicely balanced. The BC Hydro rep had a lot of information about the different types of energy sources that are available - and gave excellent explanations of the benefits and negative qualities of the various types of energy generating sources... I was rather pleased with the information that he had to present to the students and I thought how there are so many people in this area (and province) who have no idea how their power is generated and really have turned a blind eye to any possible problems that we might face regarding our consumption and generation of electricity.

The Hydro rep introduced the class to the concept of NIMBY... the ever so popular "Not in My Back Yard" response that people tend to use regarding the development of any new power generating projects. It was refreshing to hear this coming from BC Hydro directly, as this area has been caught up in the controversy over the proposed Site C hydro electric dam for many years - and there have been many people arguing for the benefits of alternative forms of power like wind or tidal energy, or the development of electricity generating stations in other parts of the province (dam somewhere else they say). However, merely pushing energy generation to another part of the province doesn't really solve our problems. The Rats of NIMBY have proliferated everywhere... we all want power, but how many of us are really willing to mar our landscape with another dam or row upon row of giant windmills?