Killing the goose that lays the golden eggs

According to Radio Scotland's Business Scotland programme yesterday, the tourist industry provides 175,000 jobs in Scotland whereas the renewable energy sector only provides 11,000. Even if 100% of our energy were to come from renewable sources, the number of jobs involved would only be about 33,000, since, at the moment, renewables provides around one-third of our energy needs. Calton is admittedly employing some very simple arithmetic here but you can see the drift. Given that the self-same radio programme also stated that Scotland is becoming increasingly reliant on the tourism sector, does it make sense to put 175,000 jobs at risk for the sake of 33,000 jobs, ie less than a fifth of that number, by spoiling our beautiful sea and landscapes with wind turbines? Tourism is one of the few growth industries we have at the moment however it seems that the SNP are quite happy to see the goose that lays the golden eggs decapitated by a windmill blade. It will be interesting to see if this view is shared by the electorate in the forthcoming local council elections.