Wind Energy

I've always found this annoying and kind of funny in a way. As a society in general, people want more environmentally friendly methods of power generation, such as wind turbines and solar panels. But then the instant the government listens and decides to install wind turbines, everyone in that community is suddenly against it and the town is full of "stop the windmills" signs. They're all for renewable energy, as long as it's nowhere near them. Corporations are just as bad. They really don't care one way or the other, as long as it makes them look good. I've seen wind turbines put on the side of department stores that never spin. The company could have put it high on the their roof or in some field where it might actually do some good, but then no one would see the "effort" the company is putting in to preserve the environment.

The thing I don't get is that the companies are worried that they will not be recognized for their good deed. Yet somehow environmental and animal advocacy groups get information not on display for the public, thus they should also see these deeds. I've been handed brochures before accusing a clothing manufacturer of genital electrocution on animals. I'm pretty sure they didn't have an animal tied to the side of their store being electrocuted, so obviously the things they do are being watched. So if they were to pay for wind turbines to be set up in an ideal location, the lobbyists would see that they aren't the anti-environment corporation they thought they were. We want renewable energy such as wind, but don't want to have turbines in our backyards. So we say large corporations should take the initiative because they have money to spend. So they construct useless turbines in the public eye to increase positive opinion and nothing changes.

The other reason I found this funny was because I saw several towns showing protest against these turbines during the worst of the job recession.  They obviously didn't realize the number of jobs this would be creating to have the turbines transported, built and maintained.