The recent article about the petition to stop wind power in Highland, Lexington and Concord made me cringe.

Even if the high percentages of local people reported to be opposed to projects in this area are correct, these communities are so small that we are really talking about only a few people. Is it right that they and small numbers of like-minded people can control where, when and if renewable energy such as wind is developed in Maine?

Just because a few people have decided to move deep into the woods to get away from the rest of us, does this mean they can dictate how we go about cleaning up our energy problems?

There are always tradeoffs to be made when discussing energy production and use. Opponents to wind conveniently avoid the current energy context — dominance by polluting and rapidly disappearing fossil fuels. They dismiss the facts about the good things wind power provides — jobs, clean energy, community benefits and taxable investment.

Worse, many of them travel the state spreading misinformation, disrupting projects far from their homes, and insulting or bullying anyone who thinks differently from them. A quick look at the reader comments under an online newspaper story — perhaps even this one — demonstrates these tactics well.

Wind opponents are selfishly standing in the way of progress. They don’t own the land where these wind projects are proposed. Their motives, tactics and information area highly questionable.

Michael Tremblay

Moscow