By Sherri Lange — December 15, 2022
“Combating opposition to industrial wind using Conspiracy Theory is uninformed, immature, and even comical, were the authors not taking the subject so seriously. The opponents of industrial wind will not fall prey to assertions of being paranoid or socially ‘off.’ They are conscientious, studied, well-prepared, and ready to go the full mile. There are reasons to be fighting for your own landscape, health, community, and wildlife.”
“Conspiracy theory” is a phrase tossed around mightily these days, often when people have no rebuttal to deep and real concerns about realities that are increasingly being exposed on many levels. Consider the origins of COVID, Vaccines, President Donald Trump, to name a few. (People on both sides of the argument call each other “conspiracy prey.”)
What one doesn’t expect is that opposition to industrial wind will be called out for Conspiracy. It’s an eccentric connection that authors/professors Kai Sassenberg, Matthew Hornsey, and Kevin Winter make in Anticipating and defusing the role of conspiracy beliefs in shaping opposition to wind farms published recently in Nature Energy.
The underlying assumption is that wind turbine opponents are anxious, possibly paranoid, and have “low coping skills” if they imagine harm to their communities. Additionally, the ingrates are distrustful of municipal and higher authorities.
One can agree with the distrust. But it is insulting to people, wildlife, and pristine land and water areas that do suffer harm—and all being as unnecessary as industrial wind turbines themselves. To mention that the industry worldwide is in disrepute seems moot. The very title and area of study by the professors from Australia and Germany are possibly libelous. “Tricky” and tone deaf, for sure.
Professor Hornsey‘s bio (see Appendix below) blends his interests in “mistrust and defensiveness with climate change, vaccination, evolution, and “so forth.” (The “so forth” appears to include opposition to industrial wind.)
Comments from the article:
QUOTATION ONE Australian and German researchers have found a moderate-to-large link between people who believe in conspiracy theories and rejecting wind farms. They found providing these people with more information also increased their likelihood of supporting wind power, but only if it wasn’t presented as a debate. The team says, with the urgent need for wind energy production to reach net-zero targets, preventative measures are more likely to stop these people from their oppositional opinions than just intervening later on with an info-dump.
Comment: The fix is in starting from such a pro-wind, anti-mineral-energy assumption. Why should citizens-qua-taxpayer and citizens-qua-ratepayer subsidize wind? Why should they put up with the well-known nuisances of industrial wind turbines–noise, flicker, etc.–when the giant machines are not needed to begin with? Why should the extra transmission lines be excused? A free market, anyone?
QUOTATION TWO Reaching net-zero targets requires massive increases in wind energy production, but efforts to build wind farms can meet stern local opposition. Here, inspired by related work on vaccinations, we examine whether opposition to wind farms is associated with a world view that conspiracies are common (‘conspiracy mentality’). In eight pre-registered studies (collective N = 4,170), we found moderate-to-large relationships between various indices of conspiracy beliefs and wind farm opposition. Indeed, the relationship between wind farm opposition and conspiracy beliefs was many times greater than its relationship with age, gender, education and political orientation. Information provision increased support, even among those high in conspiracy mentality. However, information provision was less effective when it was presented as a debate (that is, including negative arguments) and among participants who endorsed specific conspiracy theories about wind farms. Thus, the data suggest preventive measures are more realistic than informational interventions to curb the potentially negative impact of conspiracy beliefs.
Comment: How about focusing on those closest to wind turbines? Would any of the authors like to camp out under a turbine for a few days and report back? And it is fair for any citizen to not want government energy planning and subsidies for politically correct, economically incorrect wind. Is that a ‘conspiracy’.
QUOTATION THREE For many countries, achieving net-zero targets will require an extraordinary ramping up of energy sourced from wind. For example, when Princeton University modelled a pathway to net-zero emissions in the United States that relied entirely on renewable energy, they calculated it would require over 1 million square kilometres of land, roughly the size of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois and Louisiana combined1. In Germany, the current government agreed to designate 2% of the country’s landscape for the construction of wind farms2. The scale of escalation suggests a fundamental transformation in people’s exposure to—and relationship with—wind farms in the future. (Our note: the scale of escalation is not reasonable and will never create a fundamental transformation in people’s opposition. The impact will be inverse to what is hoped for.)
Comment: Thank you for including these facts. And you have refuted your premise of wind as the necessary savior. Machining up the landscape for unreliable, expensive, unnecessary wind power is an environmental imperative.
Robert Bryce encourages us to examine this renewables expansion in more depth.
The scale problem is equally obvious when it comes to wind. In fact, wind-energy’s scale problems are even more thorny because wind energy requires so much land.
Let’s consider the extent of the energy sprawl if the wind-energy sector were to supply that 450 terawatt-hours per year of incremental electricity demand.
The power density of wind energy is roughly two watts per square meter or about five megawatts per square mile. That means that by the end of 2011, the U.S. had covered a land area of about 9,400 square miles with wind turbines, a land area just slightly smaller than the state of Maryland. Therefore, just to keep up with the growth in global electricity demand by using wind energy alone, the global wind industry will need to cover a land area of some 35,000 square miles — about the size of Indiana — with wind turbines. And it will have to do so every year.
That metric’s still hard to grasp, so let me put it another way: in order to merely keep up with the pace of growth of global electricity use, the wind industry would have to cover 96 square miles every day, with wind turbines. That’s an area about the size of four Manhattans.
Then, the Nature Energy article refers to Net Zero: a reality check of Net Zero, shows an unobtainable pie in the sky concept, which has captured imaginations politically, and castrated or deformed energy policies world wide. The problem with SOME conspiracy “theories,” is that they profoundly challenge underlying misrepresentations, many Media promoted/Government endorsed mistakes. Galactic style misrepresentations. This is, indeed, anxiety producing.
QUOTATION FOUR Existing research suggests that people are positive about wind energy in the abstract, but when it comes to actually establishing wind farms in local communities, there has been substantial resistance, to the point where many proposals have been killed off3. In some cases, resistance has been amplified by organized campaigns of disinformation (for example, about negative health consequences of wind farms)4,5. These pockets of resistance might be early red flags for what other nations may soon experience once wind farms become a more visible and salient part of people’s lived experiences. Just as nations will need to massively ramp up investment in wind farms to meet renewable energy targets, so too does the scientific community need to ramp up its ability to anticipate (and defuse) factors that lead to wind farm resistance.
Comment: Abstract support of wind awaits a fair presentation and publicity about the problems of wind for rates, taxes, and the landscape. And particularly for local residents to the turbines.
Less and less do we hear of the NIMBY arguments. Opposition is well grounded in facts and is increasingly visible and fearless. And increasingly successful.
Conclusion
Combating opposition to industrial wind using Conspiracy Theory is uninformed, immature, and even comical, were the authors not taking the subject so seriously. The opponents of industrial wind will not fall prey to assertions of being paranoid or socially ‘off.’ They are conscientious, studied, well-prepared, and ready to go the full mile. There are reasons to be fighting for your own health, land, community, and wildlife.”
Professor Hornsey asks: “Why do people resist apparently reasonable messages?” Flip the script; Hornsey should understand basic energy issues before shortchanging and demeaning on-the-spot victims of wind power. He should question the wind industry to see who is fact-challenged and putting PR above real concerns and issues.
Appendix
Professor Hornsey writes on his bio:
Since graduating in 1999 I have published over 130 papers, and in 2018 I was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Scientists in Australia. A problem that I have examined throughout my career is: “Why do people resist apparently reasonable messages?” I focus on the psychology of how feelings of mistrust and threat can lead people to reject messages. These insights are then translated into concrete and do-able strategies for overcoming defensiveness. Specific examples include ARC-funded research on (1) why people embrace or resist scientific messages about climate change, vaccination, evolution, and so forth, (2) how people respond to gestures of reconciliation from transgressor groups (particularly apologies), and (3) what drives defensiveness in the face of group criticism and recommendations for change.
This professional niche begs us to investigate Hornsey further to uncover such articles as Hornsey, M. J., Harris, E. A. & Fielding, K. S. Relationships among conspiratorial beliefs, conservatism and climate scepticism across nations. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 614–620 (2018). Consider this quotation:
“Another ideology that has been implicated in climate scepticism is conspiratorial ideation, defined as an underlying worldview or predisposition toward viewing events and circumstances as the product of conspiracies12,13. There are a number of conspiracy beliefs about climate science, most prominent of which is that it is a hoax perpetrated by scientists who see it as an opportunity to wield influence, secure funding or act out a green/Marxist agenda13,14,15.”
…so now have to start doubting everything I ever knew about evolution? I mean, really, evolution is not believed in hard enough?
Sounds like someone want me to think some particular way about evolution, and now I have a new conspiracy to worry about.
Oh my…
What I actually wanted to remind everyone of is the recently-discussed program of official Pre-Bunking. The campaign was widely announced, and promptly ridiculed.
Well folks, this is the new academic purse string; “pre-bunk every possible counter-argument those pesky individualists in the herd are likely to come up with”.
I reckon that the first thing to do in opening up the Wind Power debate is to state that the Net Zero Emissions theory is a CONSPIRACY THEORY ITSELF. (calling it a SCAM debases the debate. I should remember that!!)
I have observed over the years that Communists always seem to accuse their challengers of the SIN in which they indulge in themselves.
As for the Wind Challengers:—- How can the Thermodynamic Laws be a Conspiracy? Or merely pointing out the dire consequences, come to that
What objective standards did the authors use to establish whether or not an opinion is a conspiracy theory? The probability is that they didn’t. They just decided that certain views, that they disagreed with, are conspiracy theories. So it becomes a question more of people having certain views more likely to be opposed to windfarms. So, for example, people who raise questions about the validity of vote-counting in certain elections might be more sceptical of claims made by those who want to build more windfarms. Or people who are sceptical of Russian involvement in the Hunter Biden story might also be sceptical of claims made by those promoting more windfarms. Or, simply, that people who like to base their views on evidence also have views about windfarms based on evidence.
After reading this whole thread I stuck on the last two words here:
I’m wondering how “Manhattans” became such a ubiquitous metric for measuring land surface.
For those of us who have never been to New York City it really isn’t any more meaningful than measuring land surface in Delawares, Rhode Islands or even square miles.
There is some debate here about the amount of land that is required for wind turbine plants. Over about 900 square miles of recent permits issued near where I live the average in about 7.5MW per square mile of nameplate rating — 80acres per MW is the figure I quote in testimony.
As for the hazards to wildlife, a recent EIA for the Two Rivers project has nothing at all to say about game animals except that “we don’t know much about them” but even the developer admits that Bald Eagles alone will likely suffer a 28% mortality per year of these birds within their Local Area Population (LAP) which, by the way covers an area of 28,000 square miles of Colorado and Wyoming. Yet, even a 28% annual mortality is countered with a claim that the number of Bald Eagles is probably increasing at something like 15% per year over the LAP…the disconnect is obvious but local FWS and BLM people are in favor of the development. It already has all of its permits from all local and state government entities.
I should clarify that the mortality is from all built and currently permitted wind plants in the LAP. We are just getting started, unfortunately.
Seems to me that a 28% mortality could easily exceed the replacement rate.
Here in fossil fuel rich AB, the civil servant bureaucrats have been pushing for more green energy. However buried in their Alberta Energy System Operator 2021 Market Statistics “During extreme weather events, such as a polar vortex in the winter or a heat wave in the summer, wind generation tends to be very weak”
i.e. when the consumer needs even more electricity during ‘extreme events’ wind energy is a no show.
It is amazing, isn’t it? All sorts of flies apparent in the ointment for the “climate crisis”, buried perhaps but often in the clear in official documents. Yet getting people to pay attention is nigh impossible.
Quotation ONE sounds like a conclusion in one of Lewendowski’s “studies” where using faulty statistics, including minute sample sizes, he concluded that global warming “denial” correlated to disbelief in the moon landing.
The other question is what actual beliefs did they use to define “belief in conspiracies”?
If I thought there were irregularities in the 2020 election am I a conspiracy theorist?
If I thought the charges of Russian Collusion were generated without basis by the opposition party am I a conspiracy theorist?
I’d say you’re much closer to being a “conspiracy theorist” if you believed that there was “Russian Collusion” in the 2016 election, and even more so if you believe that it was the cause of a polarizing and unpopular Hillary Clinton losing said election.
Endless politically motivated “investigations” couldn’t come up with any such evidence.
The Russians have had very minimal influence on U.S. elections. The Democrats claim they are rigging our elections, but there’s never any evidence of any Russian involvement.
There is evidence that the Democrats are rigging our elections.
The Russians and the Chinese are not rigging our elections. They would have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to have any effect at all, and neither one of them does anything like that. I think the most the Russians spent in the 2016 election was a few hundred thousand dollars, and they paid for political rallies for *both* Clinton and Trump. The Russians are a minor player in our elections.
Show me some evidence of Russian or Chinese influence in our elections. It’s a conspiracy theory of the Democrats. Sure the Russians and Chinese try to influence what we think but they have very little penetration into our thought processes.
Those messing with our thought processes are the radical Democrats and their mouthpiece, the Leftwing Media. This is the clear and present danger.
Clinton was threatening to continue the Democrats policy of disabling American fossil fuel production.
Trump promised to remove government restraints and let more American fossil fuels be developed.
The Russians make almost all of their money from selling gas and oil. Why the heck would they ever prefer Trump over Clinton?
Honestly, knowing that the thermal gain from CO2 exists mostly down in the 245°K range and being completely unconcerned about it I DO think that consuming the wind aggressively with ginormous windmills is plausibly more damaging to the environment than adding a plume of fertilizer that wanders back and forth with wind direction adding stress to the plants.
The whole study about higher CO2 causing the plants to have fewer pores is all nice and all but the CO2 isn’t actually uniformly higher everywhere – it is plausible that we won’t see anywhere near as much gain from elevated CO2 as mathematically expected in fertility and there IS a mild concern about increase acidic leaching of crop soils from it just like we experienced with acid rain from sulfuric solution precipitation.
Having seen all the different options for wind generation and agreeing that the large arrays of smaller fan assemblies make more sense from an environmental perspective I can see a way through this.
The last satellite measurements had CO2 ranging from around 395ppm to 405ppm.
That qualifies as higher everywhere.
Ask any non biased electrical generation Engineer about wind & solar power, compared to gas, coal and nuclear – the alarmists and nut zero pushing politicians won’t like the feedback – believe me, I do it regularly
In 2021, wind generated power in the UK was 5.6GW on average
in 2022, thus far, wind generated power in the UK is 6.8GW on average
Out of a total installed wind power of over 25GW, that’s poor, by any low standard – thankfully gas, coal & nuclear keep 60-80% of the lights on all year, every year
Dick was wrong. Social scientists would be a better starting point before the lawyers. Not that I am advocating anything! > ; }