"An anti-something movement displays a purely negative attitude. It has no chance whatever to succeed. Its passionate diatribes virtually advertise the program they attack. People must fight for something that they want to achieve, not simply reject an evil, however bad it may be." - Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises

"Blowin’ in the Wind," an homage to Bob Dylan’s 1963 song, has become the cliché for renewable energy advocates. Google "Blowin’ in the wind," and you still get plenty of references to Mr. Dylan; simply add the word ‘turbine," and you get about 256,000 results, nearly all for the renewable power source. Dr. Stanely Fish, in his Sunday blog entry for the New York Times (subscription required), turns the renewable energy community on its head, and brings a tired cliché of a title to a tired cliché of a debate. NIMBY-ism (or "not in my back yard") is pretty old as a line of defense against any form of energy production (don’t see too many coal fired plants in your neighborhood, do you? Well, unless you’re poor of course.). But Dr. Fish’s line of reasoning for why his sometimes-home of Andes, NY should be against wind turbines is so rehearsed that the AWEA (American Wind Energy Association) has a Fact Sheet that addresses every one of Dr. Fish’s concerns.

It is not that I fully disagree with Dr. Fish. It is true that wind turbines do present a challenge to the environment. It is a valid idea that we should consider the effects of our actions every time we look to change ecosystems. But are wind turbines inherently bad? I don’t think this is the responsible question to ask. The proper question(s) should be "What are the risks and benefits associated with the technology?" and "What is the alternative to this available technology?"

So far, we have been riding hard on the old black rock: coal currently accounts for 50% of our electricity. And with global climate change showing no signs of turning around, it is clear we are going to have to cut back on that consumption. Is it wind versus coal? Not quite. But it may be continued (almost singular) reliance on coal, natural gas and nuclear power (the production of which I doubt very seriously would be big hits in quaint Andes, NY) versus a mixture of efficiency and conservation, renewable energy, and some base load production techniques.

Finally, there’s the question of aesthetics. Do people really want to look at these things? Well, on a personal note, an (extremely large) 1.5 megawatt wind turbine went up just a few weeks ago in the center of my home county of Berkshire, Massachusetts. While we the people of Berkshire County do care about the environment, we probably care about the value of our property more. What a great opportunity to see if Dr. Fish has a point. I called Scott Stafford, writer of this article for the Berkshire Eagle covering the mega turbine’s installation, to see if there had been any acerbic responses sent to the op-ed pages of the Eagle.

Well, Scott, has there been? "You know, it’s weird. There hasn’t been anything, really." After all this huffing and puffing, and, yes, blowin’ in the wind, it boils down to one simple point: once the thing is up, people don’t seem to mind it too much.

And this is why anti-something movements fail. When some people look at a wind turbine, all they see is a bottom line: What will happen to the value of my property? Will the sound interrupt my lifestyle? What about my view? Other people, however, look at a wind turbine and see something entirely different: they feel proud to be cutting green house gases and see a (somewhat) limited view as a small price to pay for a much bigger problem.

Of the two types of people, who would you rather spend your time with?