Letter to the Editor: Offshore wind fear ‘very NIMBY’

DEAR News Of The Area,

I write in response to Cherylle Stone’s letter ‘Nothing responsible about it’ in NOTA on 26 June 2025.

She states that offshore wind development ”has the potential to seriously deplete and further distress the ocean, our main already overburdened heat and carbon sink”.

Depleting the ocean implies diminishing its quantity, which can occur in an Ice Age for example, when a four kilometre thick slab of ice covers the poles, resulting in a fall of the sea level of about 130 metres.

Such is not the case currently, as the sea level is rising due to factors like the last remnant of the last Ice Age continuing to melt and thermal expansion of the ocean due to increasing water temperature. In my opinion I find it incorrect and irresponsible, or “nothing responsible”.

Being a Physical-Chemical dynamic system, the ocean does not feel distress it just exemplifies the laws of science.

The poor critters that live in the ocean would feel distress.

Take for example coral bleaching and algal blooms, like the one affecting South Australia, and acidification affecting carbonate formation for many shelled creatures.

Are you being responsible or not, in suggesting a (one) wind farm off the Hunter coast “has the potential to seriously deplete and further distress the ocean, our main already overburdened heat and carbon sink”?

It’s all very ‘NIMBY’, like so many letters previously published, in my opinion.

If I may suggest, get some factual information.

Oxymoron indeed.

Regards,
Mervyn MCCONNOCHIE,
Karuah.