A country can commit to 300 years of wind energy, temporarily harming a bit of nature.
Once a better solution has been found, the land can be freed for the nature to take over again.
We have no issues with stealing a couple of square miles of nature in order to pave it for our cities or to use it for farming.
Once you remove the wind turbines, the harm you've done to the nature was minimal: production of the turbines, used area and generated noise, minimal pollution of the area, the troubles of recycling them. That's mostly it.
You don't have this with oil, nor with current-age nuclear.
Also, we've already accepted the noise of cars, trucks, motorcycles and planes.
So I really don't get what they are protesting about, specially in Germany.
> given support to these fake public interest groups in attempts to sue wind projects out of existence.
Remember - that's the core issue. Development of housing or green energy projects or industries with low externalities should be by-right.
Astroturfing has been the favorite MO of harmful industries like tobacco, oil, and defense for a long time now.
It's sad that this has become so normal, and that they can pressure opponents into silence. I'm wondering if we'll ever get rid of this.
Yup, and George Soros does actually funds pro-wind groups. Open Society Foundation gives $400 million over 8 years to green economic development. That said, I think that's a bullshit argument for not supporting wind, and I'd much rather have an argument with data about the long-term economics.
I read the article but it's still unclear what argument the anti-wind groups use to say _why_ "wind is bad for environment/our children/the economy/greater good"?
Surprised Pikachu face. There is an entire well-funded ecosystem of "academic" research, think tanks, policy groups and so on that exist solely to propagandize the status quo.
It goes well beyond that though. I always like to tell the story of Steven Donziger to show just how corrupt this system is.
Ecuador of course has less regulation than the US and oil company went down there and made a total mess. Steven Donziger, an American lawyer, went down there and helped the people and the governemnt sue Chevron and won a $9.5 billion judgement in 2011 to clean this up.
Chevron didn't like this, withdrew their assets from Ecuador and went back to the US and sued Donziger in federal court. The judgement was deemed to be fraudulent (based pretty much on a video tape where Donziger and a minister were at the same event years earlier).
But it didn't end there. Donziger was disbarred for this. Chevron made a complaint to the Department of Justice to criminally prosecute Donziger. The DoJ declined.
But it didn't end there. The federal judge appointed a private law firm that served Chevron to criminally prosecute Donziger for not turning over a computer and other work products that were absolutely covered by attorney-client privilege. This is a little-known and little-used law for private prosecution.
Donziger was placed on house arrest with an $800,000 bail for years for contempt of court.
Donziger claims Chevron has spent in excess of $2 billion in legal fees on all this.
Don't doubt for a second that the courts don't work directly for the interests of corporations and capital owners. In fact, this is about the best way to determine how the Supreme Court will rule on key matters: what benefits the wealthy. It's not strictly true. There are exceptions but it's amazing how often it's correct.
The courts have now been packed with Christian Nationalists who will absolutely weaponize the bench in future years against climate activists and probably get them declared terrorist organizations. That's just the reality we live in now.
Always reminded of the Tom Toro (2012) New Yorker cartoon:
> Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.
* https://www.instagram.com/tbtoro/p/B_SdEVThgCr/
* https://www.insidehook.com/culture/story-tom-toro-new-yorker...
A major reason I don't treat conspiracy theorists seriously is that with all their paranoia they have a huge blind spot for the Captain-Planet-cartoon-villainy the oil industry is engaging in.
Just the stuff the Heartland Institute does is enough to write a book about and still not a peep from the usual crowd.
Wind is only useful up to a point, once it gets above 20% of generation capacity ensuing grid stability becomes expensive either through huge price swings or grid level energy storage.
As I'm fond of saying, if you want to find True Bird Lovers, try constructing some windmills. They stay silent for oil spills and habitat destruction for fossil fuel exploration but they come out of the woodwork the minute they sense a wind turbine.
it's not about energy, it's about the USD monetary system relying on oil to back it up
Not saying this isn't a real issue, but the degree of bias in this reporting (and indeed in the original article) is not the most comfortable here either.
I mean, is it really surprising that a law company with expertise in the energy sector would handle energy clients? And is it really surprising that a publication with clear bias harming the reputation of its clients would elicit a legal response?
How did the publication even get through peer review in the first place without a reviewer requesting the equivalent links for other energy sources to ensure this wasn't effectively p-hacking?
Obligatory Simpsons clip from 32 years ago :
No shit Sherlock. As in everything, just follow the money to find the true villains.
The disgust this article invokes is overwhelming.
I n my ideal world these people would be prosecuted.
I think capitalism will win out on this one too. Trump won't be President forever. "Windmills" will continue to truck along with a few "wins" for Trump to bandy about while other projects in wind-friendly states stay the course. The red states who hate "windmills" will get left in the dust.
Anti-wind groups are oil-funded? Surprised Pikachu.
How and why would “Scientists” be doing any kind of “exposing” in the first place (“scientists” are now some kind of detectives?) and why all the biased language; “anti-wind”, “oil-funded”?
Also why does this feel like cult-like conditioning of, “we the righteous ones against the evil anti-us false opposition”? It is “they hate you, but I love you, and they want to use the state to take your babies away from you so you better come live in my compound” vibes.
That’s propaganda and abuse, especially when “scientists” is used like some kind of omnipotent deity. “The great and wonderful scientists have revealed the truth to us!”
If they are supporting “anti-wind”, who wouldn’t expect oil companies to support opposition? Are people not allowed to oppose your thing? It’s being treated like some kind of heresy against the corrupt church, and only if you support the subsidized, corrupt wind turbine industry that has politicians on the payroll to push selling wind turbines at public expense, are you righteous believers.
The problem is that all industries and all of our governments are massively corrupted and rotten, and everyone wants to get the other-peoples-money the corrupt politicians have to hand out like the despotic kings or lords they effectively have become.
“Oh yes, lord, you are the most gracious lord of all lords for bestowing upon me the lands and peasants that work them”
In the case of America, where do you think much of that $32 Trillion dollars in national debt deficit spending went in the last 25 years?? If you spend any time in the circles of the 0.1% it will become apparent where that money went, even if you can’t understand that it also went into your 1% pockets.
If you’re having a hard time or will never get access to the top 0.1%, reference the graph of the wealth of the richest people.
In the case of Europe and Germany especially now, they’ve been trying to get at the national “savings” of the German people for decades now, and it seems that BlackRock Merz has finally cracked the vault and he’s going to let the thieves plunder Germany and Europe, as he commits $9 billion annually to the Ukraine for absolutely no rational reason and funding the whole EU project to plunder the German savings, while he tells German pensioners that they can’t get what they worked for all their lives because foreigners that have invaded their country need to be prioritized.
I know regular, grounded people who are in “anti wind” groups they themselves founded, who are clearly not “oil funded” and simply oppose “wind” in their local community because they have heard from others about the impacts. They just don’t like deforesting tracts of woodland and natural habitat, putting in massive concrete foundations, digging up orchards, killing thousands of birds, the noise pollution of the turbines son at all, and the massive corruption due to kickbacks, subsidies, and political aspirations; to build wind turbines where there is basically no wind at all and the turbines won’t pay for themselves even with massive price distorting subsidies. They’re not opposed to “wind” in general, just not the corrupted kind that makes no ecological or business sense, to enrich individuals at the public expense.
I personally think the best solution to these things is that supporters not only get signed up to pay for what they support, but they also get bonded to the projects doing what they promised they would do. You support “wind”; ok, great, you get taxed another 10% to pay for the cost and compensation to anyone affected, and if the turbines don’t produce what you said they would, then you pay for full removal, ecologically sound disposal, and ecological restoration.
But it’s always so allowing to be con artists to trick others out of their money instead.
Next you’ll tell me anti-oil groups are wind-funded.
I don’t think big oil feels particularly threatened by renewables. They are definitely scared of nuclear and car batteries.
The sudden US pivot towards actively suppressing wind energy is absolutely wild.
There are farms that are nearing completion and now are just in limbo.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/26/business/wind-project-can...