Most Americans would probably cringe at the thought of our landscapes dotted with wind turbines but such a situation seems acceptable in Denmark where it not unusual to have such an electricity generating device in your backyard. Frances Beinecke, President of the Natural Resources Defense Council, went to Denmark herself to look over the situation with regard to offshore wind turbines and recently described her findings on Ecotalk, the Air America Radio show. She found that the Danes have concluded that it is better to have wind turbines all over the place including offshore than to have coal and nuclear power plants. If this Danish view swept the world dealing with the threat of global warming would obviously become more manageable.
Here in the northeast with our beautiful green hills and mountains technological intruders of large dimension are not warmly welcomed in many places. It seems that no cell tower gets plopped on top of a hill without a good fight. Some are camouflaged as trees to make their presence more acceptable. There is a major fight going on now in Massachusetts about siting wind turbines off the Cape Cod coast. Beinecke pointed out in the interview that the Danes have a long experience of living with windmills in their midst whereas Americans do not which she said probably accounts for the difference in attitudes.
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