Análisis del contexto.

Benefits being relative and in reference to other forms of electricity generation was something found in all 16 of the interviews in Port Burwell- people (13/16) would most often say wind energy is good because it is better than coal for example. This theme was labeled relative evils and was used in several other contexts by both opponents and supporters of wind energy and is touched on more in the discussion. People also spoke of the relative environmental merits of wind energy compared to other non-energy related developments. When asked about her opinion of wind turbines and bird deaths, “Ann” spoke about how compared to driving your car, the wind turbines do very little to kill birds in flight.

Chad: Ok another kind of big critique or negative impact that a lot of people are saying the wind turbines have is that they kill birds and bats, in flight…

Ann: It’s no different than your car driving the highway (laughter)…how many times has people hit a bird, maybe not a bat but a bird or a chipmunk, or you know, the coons or you know, how many people kill animals with their vehicle and yet they still drive their vehicle…

As pointed out by Sovacool (2009), contextualizing avian mortality in terms of non- energy sources such as skyscrapers or road traffic may be an error because the

comparisons are less relevant. Driving your car will almost certainly always pose a threat to avian health for example, but does that mean we should disregard energy production (including wind energy) that also threatens them? This consideration should be applied more in the conversation of wind turbine impacts (noise, bird deaths, etc.) and will be elaborated upon under relative evils in the discussion section of this paper.

The issue of global climate change was never raised specifically without first asking the participants. For example when asked about the environmental benefits, nobody spoke of turbines as being a possible solution to climate change. This may be for several reasons. It is possible that those who did consider themselves environmentalists or ‘green-minded’ preferred to think of benefits on a local or regional scale. This is in contrast to Khan (2003) who argues the benefits of wind power are mostly at the global and national scales. When it was entered into conversation half of the people (8/16) believed that wind turbines would reduce global warming. Six people gave very vague answers and were clearly unsure of the mechanism of climate change, and two were skeptical of the credibility of climate change science. What this may tell us is that the people of Port Burwell are not ‘rampant environmentalists’ like myself but support wind energy nonetheless. Those that appeared unsure of the causes of climate change did for the most part support wind turbines and would often agree with me on general terms when I asked whether they thought turbines could reduce ‘global warming’. When examining their perception of the issue, conversations would usually be short and vague

in nature. “Mike’s” answer is typical of the six people in the ‘unsure’ group- residents who tentatively agreed with my proposal:

Chad: …the proponents of the wind turbines, one of their kind of green arguments, one of the ways they say, you know these things are good for the planet, good for the environment is that they might through reducing the emissions that they might be good for decreasing global warming and global climate change? What are your thoughts on that?

“Mike”: Well I mean it makes sense.

Discussing climate change with people in Port Burwell was an interesting experience and because they only discussed environmental benefits in local or regional terms, it may well be the case that people are not familiar with the larger-scale goals and possible benefits of wind energy.

Outright denial or skepticism toward climate change was very low in the Port Burwell area (2/16) and one woman, who was clearly supportive of wind energy for economic and some environmental (cleaner air) reasons, believed there was still some doubt when it comes to climate change:

Diane: As far as global warming, Al Gore is in his own inconvenient truth. So and David Suzuki, he, I hope he’s not your uncle…its, it’s made a lot of money for Al Gore and David Suzuki. I think the jury might still be out on that.

Citing Gore and Suzuki reveals a familiarity with the issue of climate change, yet

“Diane” shows an unwillingness to support their messages. Her comments tell us that one can be very supportive of wind energy yet skeptical or unsupportive of one its major touted benefits.

In stark contrast to “Diane”, “Scott” believes that wind turbines and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in general has major implications for climate change and the health of our planet. He was clearly the most knowledgeable when it came to climate science and works in a field that he says has great potential to be affected by some of the predicted impacts:

“Scott” (Port Burwell, supportive): I’m in the [agricultural] business and we’re not going to be able to eat if the temperatures go much higher. Like right [now], there’s a whole lot of corn this year in big trouble because of the heat.

The views from people like “Diane” and “Scott” tell us that there may exist degrees of and reasons for an individual’s sense of environmental awareness in the Port Burwell area. While the majority of people do support wind energy for environmental reasons, there doesn’t appear to be any strong environmentalism in the community and the ‘green’ reasons people give for support vary considerably amongst the sample of people I talked with. Because of these reasons, the sample in Port Burwell may be effectively labeled as “half-greens”. This point is elaborated in the discussion under Environmentalism.