Does wind power cause visual pollution in your opinion?
I remember reading somewhere (probably my high school textbook) that one of the reasons people don’t like wind power being built is they cause visual pollution.
In my opinion, I think it would be pretty cool to just look out my window and see a giant windmill there, the opposite of visual pollution.
No, I like the rhythmic visual quality. And on a conscious level they make me feel happy about clean electricity. I see windmills every single day and they do not get old for me.
This complaint about wind power has always come across as the kind of thing people say because they heard somebody else say it. imo, it's just stupid people who desperately want to have an opinion on the topic weighing in with the only piece of criticism they've overhead some Sky News host parrot at some point in the past, and because that host had authority on the matter in their minds, it gives them some kind of false confidence to then go forward and proclaim the visual pollution argument, as if it has any real basis in anything.
I have actually heard the “original person” complaining about this… but the original person is also the kind of person who wants a picture-perfect ocean view every single day. Wind turbines? Visual pollution. Ships passing by? Visual pollution. Their neighbor has too many holiday decorations up? Visual pollution.
They just genuinely expect the rest of civilization around them to comply to their demands for a fantasy-perfect oceanside existence.
Sounds like my dad. We don’t talk anymore. Remember his irrational anger to the idea that other people were using HIS highway when he was driving on it. Also he had a war against a neighbor who sublet to his cousin “cause it is zoned for single family and a cousin is a different family”. Just fucking admit you don’t want a brown family on your block, I would honestly respect honest bigotry more.
Im not sure I even agree that visual pollution should be a real thing. People like to pretend that there is a divide between man-made structures and “nature” but humans are animals and we construct our environment out of natural materials. Humans ARE natural and the things we make are not separate from nature. Obviously that doesn’t remove our responsibility to avoid causing overall harm with toxic chemicals that pollute or structures that destabilize equilibriums, but that being said I dont think we should have this mentality about our structures being an inherent detriment to the area we make them in, and wind farms seem like a good example of good structures in a good environment to me. End rant.
I live in the middle of a sprawling wind farm. Every direction I turn, I can see wind turbines looking ominously over my neighbor’s houses. It’s awesome, and way more interesting than the hundreds of square miles of corn fields they otherwise occupy.
A little bit, in the same way that any man made structure does. But they’re quite peaceful to look at and compared to a nuclear or coal plant they’re way better to look at.
I wouldn’t like to see them in an area of outstanding beauty, but I’m cool with them anywhere else.
Slight nitpick: they’re wind turbines, not windmills. Windmills are used to grind things down, like wheat into flour.
People didn’t seem to mind fugly coal plants but now that weve got a clean energy source usually built in the middle of nowhere they suddenly have a problem with “visual pollution.”
To me it sounds a lot like those dudes that spew smoke out the back of their truck for no other reason than to “trigger” anyone they think might not approve.
I’ve tended to find people against them want the same skyline their grandparents had 50 years ago, ignoring that even the trees changed shape. So to them its change and conservative rural people abhor anychange that doesn’t have an immediate and tangible benefit.
You offer anyone whose home is within sight of a wind turbine say… 5000kw/h a year in free electricity. With a little careful planning and given that your average turbine produces around 6 million kwh a year. Id imagine they shut up pretty fucking fast.
Makes sense to me. If people who have to deal with something are invested in that thing they will defend it. Never miss an opportunity to take someone outside pissing in and put them inside pissing out.
The strobe effect is a thing but it really doesn’t impact a lot of people since you know windmills are usually not by apartment buildings. Being very kind to that point of view seeing things that are new can put you out of sorts.
Personally I think they look cool, that doesn’t mean I can’t see other POVs. Still, people will adapt when they get more common and frankly I am not into NIMBY anyway.
You get used to them, and in a way look very cool because of their use and what they represent. Although I wouldn’t like to see them in a natural reserve.
I have another neat use for them. Since I can see some out of my window and use this sight to check wind direction and plan my bike route to have tail wind on the end of the route!
I would anytime put up a wind turbine in my yard and enjoy the free energy then complain about how it looks like.
In fact I am planning to power my side building/garage, utility rooms, freezer box and yard lights (basically everything except my house) by wind power. Domestic wind turbines are super cool and you can even make one yourself or just get a smaller one with super easy installation.
Whenever someone brings up that argument (windmills are ugly), which is quite a controversial topic in the country I live in, I take them to the open pit coal mines of the area. Those are really ugly.
I do understand the argument that the intermittent shadows the rotating blades may cast on residential areas are annoying.
Why the heck would you build that on residential area anyway? SimCity taught me since I was a kid that industrial factories and windmills shouldn’t be built beside houses
I love telling this story. I lived on the second story apartment above a restaurant, behind the restaurant was this shed. One sat morning, very hung over, I am awaken at sunrise with a bright bedroom. Wtf? Look outside and turns out the shed now has solar panels that just happened to catch the light at sunrise and reflect it into my window.
They can’t be set next to residential areas for many reasons. One freak reason most people don’t know is that ice can accumulate on the tip of the blades and get thrown into the air. Having a 5kg ice blocks randomly falling on your house isn’t nice.
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