Topic: NIMBY vs. humanity's future - page 2. (Read 239 times)
It depends on what that actual reason for the protest was. Is there any real environmental concern, e.g. about wildlife or erosion? If it's just about not wanting to see the wind farm then that's a bit crazy. Wind turbines look great. But then I also think that NPP cooling towers look cool so perhaps I'm not the best judge of industrial charm.
Recently in my town there was a very big uproar because the municipality had signed a contract with some privates to install large scale wind turbines atop a very, very remote hill in order to create a wind farm.
Basically the group of protesters succeeded its goal to postpone the project. From both an economic and environmental standpoint this is really regressive because the alternative, fossil fuel energy production, is really polluting and also quite inefficient. Whatever percentage of energy needs could be replaced by renewable sources, it should be done IMO.
We've reached a point where breaking even (both for carbon emissions and) economically for wind farms takes around a year. So clean energy is certainly worth it. And yet, some people consider it their right to not have wind farms on the public property that is the hills visible thousands of meters away form their place of residence. Oftentimes the arguments these people will adopt is that they're trying to block the installation of renewable energy source farms to help the environment, which is just nuts if you ask me...
I think that if NIMBY style movements get more prevalent at this time, when the world is supposed to make the great leap towards green energy sources, then we're just going to accelerate climate change effects for everybody. Hopefully what happened in my town will be an exception and things will start to change for the better. What do you think? Should it be people's right to not have renewable energy farms behind their "back yard"? And is this a right worth affording to anyone if humanity's future is at stake?
Basically the group of protesters succeeded its goal to postpone the project. From both an economic and environmental standpoint this is really regressive because the alternative, fossil fuel energy production, is really polluting and also quite inefficient. Whatever percentage of energy needs could be replaced by renewable sources, it should be done IMO.
We've reached a point where breaking even (both for carbon emissions and) economically for wind farms takes around a year. So clean energy is certainly worth it. And yet, some people consider it their right to not have wind farms on the public property that is the hills visible thousands of meters away form their place of residence. Oftentimes the arguments these people will adopt is that they're trying to block the installation of renewable energy source farms to help the environment, which is just nuts if you ask me...
I think that if NIMBY style movements get more prevalent at this time, when the world is supposed to make the great leap towards green energy sources, then we're just going to accelerate climate change effects for everybody. Hopefully what happened in my town will be an exception and things will start to change for the better. What do you think? Should it be people's right to not have renewable energy farms behind their "back yard"? And is this a right worth affording to anyone if humanity's future is at stake?
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