Growing Global Grassroots Groundswell Against Big Wind

Throughout the UK — indeed, all over the world — fights against large-scale wind-energy projects are raging. The European Platform against Windfarms lists 518 signatory organizations from 23 countries. The UK alone now has about 285 anti-wind groups. Last May, some 1,500 protesters descended on the Welsh assembly, the Senedd, demanding that a massive wind project planned for central Wales be stopped.

Although environmental groups like Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace claim that wind energy is the answer when it comes to slowing the rate of growth in carbon dioxide emissions, policymakers from Ontario to Australia are responding to angry landowners who don’t want 100-meter-high wind turbines built near their homes. _NYP Robert Bryce

In the article excerpted above and below, Robert Bryce discusses a new video documentary which exposes the growing conflict between real homeowners on the ground, and the heavily subsidised crony capitalism of big wind energy. As big wind projects impinge upon farmlands and residential areas, more people are beginning to learn that big wind and a quality life are not compatible -- at least when in close proximity.

Last September, CBC News reported that Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment has logged “hundreds of health complaints” about the thumping noise generated by the province’s growing fleet of wind turbines. In December, government officials in the Australian state of New South Wales issued guidelines that give residents living within two kilometers of a proposed wind project the right to delay, or even stop, the project’s development.

Back here in the States, many communities are passing ordinances that prohibit large-scale wind energy development. On Nov. 8, for instance, residents of Brooksville, Maine, voted by more than 2 to 1 in favor of a measure that bans all wind turbines with towers exceeding 100 feet in height. _Robert Bryce NYP

Warren Buffett will not be forced to live near the big wind projects he is helping to finance -- courtesy of hefty government subsidies and guarantees. Neither will the other wealthy, connected, and crony backers of big wind farms be forced to suffer the hazards and tortures of living close to monster wind turbines.

Small wind turbines -- meant to power rural pumps and off-grid households -- are fine as long as the owners and operators know what they are doing. But as big wind works its way deeper and deeper into a society's power structure, bad things are certain to happen. Not the least of which will be skyrocketing power costs to utility customers.

It is time for the people to revolt against the great green empire of lefty-Luddite dieoff faux environmentalists and crony capitalists. Time to take your lives back.