Hacker News Reader

Its funny how much handwringing there is about wind farming aesthetic. The alternative is far uglier. A field of oil derricks is both ugly and smelly. A refinery takes up a massive footprint, is also smelly and ugly, and demands a lot of trucking and freight rail connections to boot. We even put this stuff next to our most valuable real estate, in the case of the inglewood oil field or chevron’s el segundo refinery.

View on HN

That’s very true, but I do think if the goal is to increase wind power adoption, the aesthetic issue should be addressed. In other words, just saying the alternative is uglier isn’t really the optimal approach.

How about:

It's literally not an issue. They are industrial pieces of machinery, which probably work better if we don't handicap them with some asinine requirement to "look good", which is an unworkable requirement since plenty of people ALREADY think they look wonderful and would look worse if changed.

We should not let a bunch of NIMBYs crying about stuff not even on their property or neighborhood who are just pitching a fit about any change stop us from undoing the impending climate catastrophe we have created for ourselves by refusing to do anything that the dumbest and angriest people seem to be upset about. Wind turbine adoption is driven at the ballot box, not in the hearts and minds of a bunch of selfish people.

I'd pick recyclability over aesthetics any day.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com