To the editor:
I’m not surprised by Fenner wind farm opponents’ statement (“Madison County Wind Farm Neighbors Feel Betrayed by NY State,” Dec. 17, 2025). I have attended many public comment hearings on wind and solar farms. If you attend enough hearings, you start to see a pattern.
First, you declare that you understand the dangers of climate change and support renewable energy sources; maybe you have solar power at home. Then you say that even though you support renewable energy, you are against this particular project because the site is wrong. Build it somewhere else, anywhere, but not in my community.
You highlight how this big corporation or better still a foreign owned corporation is coming into your town and coming down hard on the locals who have been betrayed by government officials. If you’re a rural community, you place emphasis on how this massive industrial project will affect the quality of life.
You emphasize the environmental costs, such as the impact on bird life if it is a wind farm, the number of trees felled, tons of concrete poured.
You frame it as a David and Goliath battle with the life of your online community. It’s all a matter of perspective.
Let’s look at it through a different lens.
For example, put yourself in the shoes of a farmer. I spoke to farmers who wanted to lease some of their land for a renewable energy farm. They told me that farming is hard work, especially as they get older. The income from renting out part of the land would make their lives easier and allow them to pass the farm on to the next generation. It gives them options.
It’s also about change – about people’s willingness to embrace change and think beyond our own immediate interests. Change is hard for all of us. We all tend to want to keep things the way they are. If you live in a rural community, you want to see agricultural fields forever—not solar or wind farms.
However, we have changed the atmosphere that we depend on for life. The CO2 concentration was 270 ppm at the beginning of the industrial revolution and today it is 420 ppm and rising. Increase CO2 concentration, the planet warms and weather and ecological systems destabilize – simple science.
I have lived in central New York since 1971. I have seen our winters change radically. This type of change should occur in geologic time—thousands of years, not decades! If you understand this, you can appreciate how serious the situation is.
We live an energy-intensive lifestyle and we are not willing to give it up. In the US, total energy consumption has increased dramatically, more than tripling since 1950. Something has to give.
The old model was large industrial power plants (gas, coal, oil) spewing tons of greenhouse gases, often located in neighborhoods and areas of the state where people had little political power. Most of us either don’t realize where our energy comes from or we were fine with a system where the big power plants were in someone else’s backyard. Anywhere, as long as it wasn’t in our backyard.
The new model is smaller renewable energy systems throughout New York State. For the first time, we are challenged to have power plants in our communities – not dirty fossil fuels, but clean, renewable energy.
We need to channel the spirit of the greatest generation (World War II) that sacrificed itself for the common good. Embracing change and embracing the common good are the challenges we face. Everything else is a distraction.
Pete Wirth
Fayetteville
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