This Just In: Wind Power Opponents Run Out of Wind-related Puns, Abandon Cause and Go Home

“When we first heard about the proposed wind turbines in Schoharie County we were outraged and immediately mobilized to fight against them” say’s Joe Blow of Against the Wind, a non-profit (5019(C) status pending) organization dedicated to fighting proposed wind power developments. A few weeks later, Will Gust, a life-long resident of Richmondville founded a weekly newsletter entitling it: “Clearing the Air”. The newsletter was designed to debunk the supposedly “green” nature of wind power.

Excited by the prospect of taking up a cause with such potential for clever headlines and sloganeering, the wind power opponents scoured the internet in search of evidence showing the deadly hazards of wind turbines. Apparently somewhere a wind turbine caught on fire spewing toxic fumes and lubricants into the atmosphere. As far as the wind power opponents knew, no innocent coal-fired generating plant or nuclear plant ever had such a mishap with such disastrous consequences.

And on the litany of charges went. One angry letter writer even suggested that the ultra-low frequency noise generated by wind turbines was responsible for causing coronary diseases. However, it would be unfair not to point out that in these cases, the possibility that these low frequency noises were generated by the activities of extra-terrestrials, paranormal hauntings, or top-secret governmental weather-controlling experiments could not be ruled out.

Soon however, these wind power opponents so filled with fury began to notice a decline in the number of catchy puns to serve as banners and slogans for their crusade. “I felt like somebody was taking the wind out of our sails” explains a once enthusiastic Joe Blow. “I searched and searched for potential wind puns, metaphors, idioms, double entendre and any and all manner of wordplay devices, but there was nothing left” claimed Will Gust. Finally, when one opponent, groping desperately for a wind-related pun, simply said “ahh, just blow me” to an audience of environmental scientists, energy policy specialists and engineers, they were a little less than “blown away” by the logic of his argument.

And so the crusade to fight against wind power development in Schoharie County petered out as its most vehement members failed to find the creative wordplay required to disguise a movement that simply has little more to offer than empty bluster and hot air.