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Comment by tomohawk | Hacker News Reader

Was driving on a back country road. Those living in the area lived in a beautiful place, but in poverty.

The beautiful mountain views were marred by the windmills put there at the behest of elites living in far off cities. The quiet of the countryside was broken by the constant thrum of the windmills. I really couldn't imagine living there with that constant low frequency noise.

With the best of intentions, these poor people were robbed of one of the very few perks in their lives - the beauty of the area they lived in, and the peace and quiet they once had.

EDIT: given the area of the country, it is highly likely that a large number of these people had formerly been employed in the coal industry.

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All resource exploitation has externalities, and sure, those are real costs and worth discussing. If you want to make a case that the externalities of wind power are more expensive than those for coal extraction and power generation, then you go ahead and make that case.

But cut the hyperbole and poetry, dude. I see your "marred views" and "constant thrums" and raise you a bunch of fucking removed mountaintops, an acid rain epidemic and generations of health problems we're still paying for.

"Marred views", sigh...

Was driving on a back country road.

The beautiful bush views were marred by the coal mines put there at the behest of elites living down in Sydney. The quiet of the countryside was broken by the constant thrum of machinery. I really couldn't imagine living there with that constant coal dust and noise.

With no good intentions at all, these poor people were robbed of one of the very few perks in their lives - the beauty of the area they lived in, and the peace and quiet they once had.

I can't imagine thinking millions or billions of people getting displaced and potentially losing secure access to food is less important than having to look at windmills

> EDIT: given the area of the country, it is highly likely that a large number of these people had formerly been employed in the coal industry.

I'm not following the logic of this.

My small British village has a wind farm right on its doorstep. When it was built the utility company had to set up a grant worth millions to fund local projects which immediately benefitted the local area, and I believe we get an ongoing subsidy from it until a predetermined date.

Is this not the case where you're from?

Incidentally, I've walked through it many times and never heard a "thrum". I've never heard them from my house at all and they're less than half a mile away.

Windmills do have controversy surrounding them, and whatever the case may be, I would neither want to live by a coal plant nor a wind turbine.

Adverse health effects of industrial wind turbines

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3653647/

Does living near wind turbines negatively impact human health?

https://phys.org/news/2018-06-turbines-negatively-impact-hum...

Can Wind Turbines Make You Sick

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/can-wind-turbines-make...

Vermont Sets New Noise Rules for Wind Turbines

https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/vermont-sets-ne...

You should go spend some time in the South Pacific then. And talk to the locals about the impending devastation of their countries and entire way of living.

Or how about go spend some times in hurricane or snow affected areas around the US which have been devastated by the increasing instability of our climate.

Most of these people would kill for a stable climate and some low frequency noise.

Oh, the irony. I presume you are referring to those mountaintops which still exist.

If you hate what windmills do to the view, you should see what mountain top removal does to it.

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