Many voices are needed in support of meeting the challenge of our changing climate, with all the accompanying effects on health, environment and the lives of our children and grandchildren. There have been numerous highly emotional pleas from “friends…” of this and that, yet none of them say what a real friend would say, and what we might not want to hear.

Mitigating and adapting to climate change demands every possible resource we have, and wind power is one of those, (along with solar, geothermal, hydro, biomass, nuclear and, most important of all, conservation).

Surprisingly, however, there are highly intelligent folk out there who choose to resist wind for many reasons, only two of which are valid, i.e., turbines do change the view, and they do make noise. A true friend will tell you this, and then go on to say to make a gain we have to make a sacrifice; and the true friend will also tell you that there is no medical support for the claims of negative health effects, even though, to my personal embarrassment, some of my colleagues have stated such.

I recall in the 1950s when seat belts were introduced, it took the support of the medical profession to educate the public to comply. The time has come again when we physicians must educate the people of Maine as to the value of wind as part of the “silver buckshot” that we need, as a friend, to deal with the threat of climate change.

Richard K. Jennings, MD, Fayette