The film "Windfall" challenges the greenspeak of alternative energy from the wind. Activists on the right path to the future may cringe. Naysayers may gloat. Seekers of open discussion may discover that such important considerations are complicated.
The town of Meredith, New York, rumbles under the weight of a protracted battle over installing energy-transforming wind turbines. The most salient feature of this story is not the right or wrong of it.
What grabs your gut most about this documentary is the disharmony provoked in a rural community. What pokes at anyone interested in the ways of the world is the time and effort involved traveling a bumpy road to the future. What raises the hackles of anyone who sticks a nose in the wind is that corporate profit and exploitation once again plays a major part. And it doesn’t take a sensitive nose to pick up the scent of local conflicts of interest.
Concepts like low frequency noise and shadow flicker and ice throws mix with claims of body aches and psychological ills. However true, any effects take on more strain when the turbines stand 400 feet tall, whomping at 150 miles per hour a half mile from a neighbor’s property line.
Perhaps the most fundamental balking comes from the visual impact on a comparatively idyllic landscape, especially when a commercially viable interest thinks in terms of installing dozens of these monsters.
What’s an alternative energy minded person to do? Well, watch “Windfall” to help keep your finger wet. Then, keep your finger in the wind.