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Scientist exposes anti-wind groups as oil-funded, now they want to silence him

(electrek.co)
542 points xbmcuser | 1 comments | 27 Aug 25 06:49 UTC | HN request time: 0.363s | source
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qwertox ◴[27 Aug 25 10:51 UTC] No.45037882[source]▶
A country can commit to 300 years of wind energy, temporarily harming a bit of nature.

Once a better solution has been found, the land can be freed for the nature to take over again.

We have no issues with stealing a couple of square miles of nature in order to pave it for our cities or to use it for farming.

Once you remove the wind turbines, the harm you've done to the nature was minimal: production of the turbines, used area and generated noise, minimal pollution of the area, the troubles of recycling them. That's mostly it.

You don't have this with oil, nor with current-age nuclear.

Also, we've already accepted the noise of cars, trucks, motorcycles and planes.

So I really don't get what they are protesting about, specially in Germany.

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CalRobert ◴[27 Aug 25 11:20 UTC] No.45038086[source]▶
Germany is famously abhorrent of change. "We've always done it this way" isn't used ironically.
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AlexandrB ◴[27 Aug 25 11:35 UTC] No.45038225[source]▶
Unless the change is shutting down perfectly good nuclear power plants[1]. The energy transition in Germany has been handled horribly for reasons I can't understand.

[1] https://www.base.bund.de/en/nuclear-safety/nuclear-phase-out...

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CalRobert ◴[27 Aug 25 12:17 UTC] No.45038642[source]▶
They were scared after Fukushima, a nuclear disaster that if anything showed how resilient nukes can be compared to coal, which just gets away with killing thousands of people quietly. Perhaps they’re better at vibes than they are at maths.
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1. xg15 ◴[27 Aug 25 21:24 UTC] No.45045478[source]▶
No, antinuclear sentiment in Germany runs much deeper - but if anything, we were scared after Chernobyl.

The German antinuclear movement started as a local aspect of the 68s civil rights and environmental movements. Then, when Chernobyl hit, West Germany enacted restrictions in daily life to cope with the risk of radioactive fallout and contamination. The daily experience of many Germans was probably not too dissimilar from the Covid time. (The restrictions were less severe but the mood was similarly apocalyptic)

This experience made a nuclear-free Germany an absolute core part of the progressive movement here. It's part of the founding story of the Greens.

Other flashpoints were plans for "eternal storage" facilities for nuclear waste. The conflict around the Gorleben facility was going on between government and local population for several decades and had given rise to entire protest communities.

It's a partisan topic like maybe abortion in the US.

The only aspect of Merkel's decision that was surprising was that she did it. She seemingly switched political sides and enacted several parts of the progressive agenda (also gay marriage and "wir schaffen das" - the famously liberal stance on refugees) - as head of the conservative party. Her party and voting base were not happy with that...