A more insidious propaganda that is getting some traction is also presenting wind (as well as solar) as essentially a scam: a subsidies capturing "sucker's trap" that would enrich a few and not bring any tangible benefit.

In this Le Monde article (actually an online chat with readers), Mr Vérilhac calls windmills as "territorial rape" and further states that "Plague is no justification for cholera".
Just so you know at which level we're starting the debate.

In my experience, the typical anti-winder is motivated by a NIMBY ideology, in which the entire French landscape is their back yard. Technology, industry and wealth creation in general should be delegated to technocrats and tucked away out of sight in places we don't have to look at.

And then there are the technocrats themselves : the EDF, AREVA, Suez etc. who, by the magic of privatization, have become the new oligarchs. I am increasingly convinced that they have instrumentalized the anti-wind movement, because they don't want the downward pressure on electricity prices that wind power would bring to France.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

Thus, the electricity market partly organized/pushed by that arch-fiend and now dead organized crime figure, Ken Lay of Enron (Kenny-Boy) is doing its new job - making profits for paid off old (but recently "privatized and/or deregulated") units when high marginal/peak prices raise prices for that hour. Many of these old plants were sold off via "orders" for deregulation - sort of similar to what happened in Russia. Two coal burners I know of (1200 MW capacity at the time) were bought for $240 million, and when the crazy prices during the summer of 2005 happened (Katrina, Rita, Wilma), that investment was paid off in less than 100 days. Not bad. Dang, almost like bankster grade profits - though it did take 100 days to pay off $240 million.

So, now prices are depressed, but maybe not for forever. And there is a well paid for effort (oil, natural gas, nukes, coal type money, or just obnoxious billionaire type money) setting up astroturf entities all over rural NY and now Michigan, using these very terms ("rape" of the Great Lakes, "Scarring" the horizon, "defiling" the ridgeline, "pillage" the rural lands, etc). And I doubt these people read any language other than "'Murcan", or read much else but the trash divvied out by teabaggers and what their corporate masters emanate. Of course, one of their best arguments is that "Foreign" corporations, or at least "outsiders" will own the wind resource derived electricity, and leave them with essentially zip. Well, due to the "no Feed-In Law" and the way that the PTC and MACRS incentives are set up, essentially only the rich can profit by wind energy investments. But, the "anti-turbinites" take that glimmer of truth and run with it (along with lots of deep pocket money). Anyway, it's interesting that it also is happening in France - a contagion from England, no doubt.

See http://wagengineering.blogspot.com/2010/03/anti-tubinite-lies-parade-of-new.html and http://wagengineering.blogspot.com/2010/03/anti-turbinite-lies-part-2-more-from.html for examples of this.

Anyway, the anti-turbine folks seem to behave like "modern Zombies" - debate does seem to be pointless, nor does their seem to be any way to deter them. But, the general public is the real target of these zombies..... and getting access to the public media seems to be no problem when their money backers seem to be able to throw so much money around. So how do we get access to the media, now that there is (maybe really never was) no Fairness Doctrine of any sort to even the playing field a touch?

FWIW, that old Danish standard of "your own pigs don't stink" may be a solution. When more people find out they, or their neighbors or their community can make a living/get jobs/bring in tax money, etc from the wind industry, a lot of this "anti" movement will go up in smoke. But the problem is that in places like NY State, all the talk of Green Jobs combined with a distinct absence of said Green Jobs has left the public quite soured on the Wind Industry. All hat and no cattle, so far, at least around these parts, and citing jobs created elsewhere does not help matters much. To date, those Green Jobs are largely figments of wishful thinkers and (desperate for some job creation) politician's imaginations.

Bummer.

Man, do we need a Feed-In Law here. By and large, there does not seem to be nearly as much of a problem across the creek (Niagara and St Lawrence Rivers) or ponds (Lake Erie, Lake Ontario) in Ontario where they have a brand new Feed-In Law, and where the focus is on job creation. Though I'm sure there is bound to be some bitching and moaning going down there, too.

Nb41

Another approach to the "energy crisis" would be a significant reduction in global population. This is a taboo point for discussion, though.