Bob Mentzinger, in his outdoors column today, bemoans the current spell of unseasonably warm weather and the resulting dismal ski season to date.

I'm with you Bob. On that anyway. It's been grim.

Mentzinger goes on a bit about global warming, and while he doesn't directly link our January warm spell and lousy shussing to it, you can infer a connection.

I appreciate the sentiments, but I think that may be a stretch.

Our global climate has been always been subject to natural cyclical fluctuations in temperature. And while human activity does contribute to the problem, I question its impact and whether it is truly significant. In the rather myopic view over the short span of a human lifetime--our normal frame of reference--yes.

But in the grand scheme of things, over the course of many millenia, I wonder. And therefore, I put more stock in the notion that nature and the naturally occurring forces and events in and on the earth account for the lion's share of climate change over the long term.

But I don't figure that to mean we should sit on our hands.

I agree with Mentzinger that we should and must develop alternative energy sources, as well as conserve more energy. Scientists continue to debate just how much oil is left and when supplies will finally be exhausted or become economically unfeasible to obtain. But it really is a question of "when" not "if".

On that point I suspect there can hardly be a doubt. Whether it will happen in our lifetime or the next, it will happen. So pursuing the advance of alternative energy sources today is a clearly good idea.

Like, as Mentzinger suggests, wind energy.

Clean, renewable wind.

But, if we are to do so in Maine, wind energy will come at a hefty cost: Huge wind generating towers, some thirty of them, atop the now relatively wild Redington range of mountains near Sugarloaf and the Appalachian Trail. The visual impact will be enormous. Never mind the power lines and access roads that will accompany the project.

Can we abide by such a cost? Can we make peace with ourselves with such an environmental swap, the wild and rugged mountain tops for some kilowatts of clean energy?

I wonder.

You?

I've just returned from a trip to the Mojave Desert in southern California. Just outside of Palm Springs, where I flew in and out of, is the world's largest wind farm, the Mojave Desert Wind Project.

Spanning the head of the Coachella Valley from Banning Pass to Palm Springs and from Whitewater Creek to the base of Mt. San Jacinto, are hundreds (maybe more) of wind towers. It's quite an amazing sight, really. Almost alien. At first I thought it was ugly. But it grew on me. As did the logic of it.

In this part of the desert, situated as it is between two high mountain ranges, the winds blow hard nearly all the time. Why not take advantage of it and harness this natural power? And so California did. Today, wind produces an estimated 30% of the state's power. Impressive.

But the woods and mountains of Maine are not the deserts of California. Can we do the same here? Will we do it? Do we want to do it?

Hard tellin'.

As an outdoor lover, do you feel the squeeze on this issue? What do you think of the prospects and viability of wind energy production in Maine?