After recent news coverage on the issue in the National Post, a post went up on the Sumeru Canadian Buddhism blog siding with the Ministry of Environment's decision to approve the building of Industrial Wind Turbines by wpd Canada in the Oak Ridges Moraine despite a lack of local support for the project. Push back by the Cham Shan Chinese Buddhist community, who have been developing a retreat centre in the area, has led to an appeal of the decision. At first glance this may seem like a clear case of choosing between green energy or the religious practice of meditation, but choosing to side with the Cham Shan Buddhist community (and other locals, including First Nations communities and the Peterborough airport) is not choosing against the environment. After some reflection, I posted a response clarifying my position. The link to the blog post and the text from my response can be found below:
http://www.sumeru-books.com/2014/02/national-post-catches-wind-ontario-controversy-buddhist-retreat/
"Respectfully and in the spirit of dialogue, I have to disagree with your position. The issue, in my opinion, is not green energy versus meditation as you have framed it. I find this quite misleading. No one in the Cham Shan camp is contesting the benefits of green energy and their request to overturn the decision for the wind-farm in close proximity to the retreat development is not out of accord with the Dharma. You make it seem that a decision in their favour is a decision against the environment. I refute this. As is well known, the retreat project has decades of planning and tens of millions of dollars invested, and the building has begun, whereas the proposed wind-farm can be located elsewhere. There are tracts of land not close to human habitation where this wind-farm can be placed and still help feed the area's energy grid, doubtless a positive thing despite the Sumac Ridge Wind project being a for-profit venture by the wpd Canada company. You suggest that the retreat project is not in jeopardy, but what you might not have considered is that the nature of projects by non-profit charitable organizations are such that deviation from the original plans can in fact jeopardize their funding. The retreat project is very much in jeopardy.
To me, the issue is instead arm's-length provincial political leadership versus on-the-ground local voices in decision-making. It appears as an eco-win for Liberals for the wind project to get the go-ahead, and the PCs conveniently re-affirm commitment to scrap green energy act (see http://freewco.blogspot.ca/201... ) saying that "[t]he Green Energy Act is disastrous for rural Ontarians who live near these intrusive developments." Political wrangling aside, in this particular case, the local voices of minority religious and cultural groups, the Cham Shan Chinese Buddhist community and local Aboriginal communities, were quashed by the decision to approve the wind project. Reconciliation processes might lead us to think that we have progressed beyond the historical violence against minority groups in Canada, especially First Nations, but we are still in a climate that is hardly progressive when we consider the fact that federal spending on spiritual care services for non-mainstream religions has been recently cut. Or considering the over-representation of Aboriginal people in the Canadian Justice System with First Nations people comprising over 25% of the penal population but only 4% of Canadian population. These are but two terrible examples of how far we have to go to achieve fair and equitable treatment of minority groups in Canada.
You are quite right that the resistance has to do with the community's position that the wind-farm will disrupt their practice of meditation (within which I include pilgrimage between the sites in the retreat development). This is in accord with the Dharma as there is a pan-Buddhist injunction to have a beautiful and peaceful environment as support for meditation pursuits, as seen for example in the texts of Northern School Buddhist Masters Shantideva (Indian), Tsong Khapa (Tibetan), and Zhiyi (Chinese) to name but a few. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Your statement that "[p]ersonally, I feel if I were there, the sight of windmills would be very uplifting" assumes that the experience of an outsider to the Cham Shan Chinese Buddhist community would be the same as theirs. It questions the validity of their experience of industrial wind turbines as an interference to their practice. They are entitled to their experience. The construction of 19 industrial wind-turbines will create noise and particulates, and their subsequent operation will create infrasound and is considered by the community as unsightly. This is a strong enough reason for their appeal, on the basis of religious rights and freedoms, without even wading into the issue of harm to humans and animals by industrial wind-turbines. The research that I have uncovered show the harms to birds as existent but statistically low, and although some qualitative research into infrasound shows disturbances to meditators, quantitative research seems inconclusive. This does not mean that there are no empirically measurable health hazards, but rather, that the phenomenon of industrial wind turbine generated energy is young and the research as to its immediate and long-term effects on life even younger.
I fully support the Cham Shan appeal for the Ministry to overturn the approval given to the Sumac Ridge Wind project. In full disclosure, I am serving as an expert witness for the upcoming tribunal. However, my view of the situation is not the result of my acting in this capacity, but rather I am acting in this capacity because of my view.
Thank you for the forum for this discussion.
Sincerely,
Sean Hillman
PhD student, Religion/Bioethics/South Asian Studies
Department for the Study of Religion
University of Toronto"
PhD student, Religion/Bioethics/South Asian Studies
Department for the Study of Religion
University of Toronto"
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