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Why the wind, and energy it produces, should not be private property The energy transition has begun. To succeed--to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar power--that process must be fair. Otherwise, mounting pop- ular protest against wind farms will prolong carbon pollution and deepen the climate crisis. David McDermott Hughes examines that anti-industrial, anti- corporate resistance, drawing on his time spent conducting field research in a Spanish village surrounded by wind turbines.
In the lives of a community freighted with centuries of exploitation--people whom the author comes to know intimately--clean power and social justice fit together only awkwardly. A green economy will require greater efforts to get ordinary people such as these on board. Aesthetics, livelihood, property, and, most essentially, the private nature of wind resources--all these topics must be examined with fresh eyes.