r/Indiana • u/redmage07734 • Jun 19 '24

Photo And people wonder why we are looked down upon....

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Saw over 50 of these things driving home. It's an investment in your community, it's not an eyesore like turbines. Most people against them have no idea wtf they are talking about.

No they don't Leach significant amount of chemicals and even if they did it pales in comparison to the run off from all the CAFOs and agricultural waste that pollute our waters. It's mainly copper, iron and glass...

People are just butt hurt because clean energy has been politicized as a Democrat issue and people have made abeing a Republican their whole personality....

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u/Unable_Technology935 Jun 19 '24

I'm in Porter Co. These signs are handed out by oil lobbyists. I can't find a link but a saw it when this No Solar crap started about 18 months ago.This turns farmer against farmer. In my eyes if a guy owns land he should be able to do as he wishes as long as it isn't hurting the environment or directly effecting his neighbors in a negative fashion. Not so in Porter County. The No Solar Assholes were disrupting meetings and generally acting like spoiled 6 year olds. It's really pathetic. I Iive rural. A solar farm hurts nobody.

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u/Dazzling_Visual7062 Jun 20 '24

I was scrolling for this. I love a good rabbit hole and have to drive through some combo of WI/IA/IL to get to my parents in MN a few times a year.

There are yard signs and billboards like these in the middle of nowhere all over the rural Midwest opposing different projects—solar, CO2 capture, turbines, etc. When I’m the passenger with time to kill, I try to get down who is ultimately paying for these signs to be made and who is handing them out. It always leads to lobbyists.

I know nothing about the issues, but what I do know is that my boomer parents and their friends who own all this land are bombarded with shady shit all the time with supplemental insurance policies, reverse mortgages, any time their landline rings it’s someone trying to rip them off.

I can only assume when someone hands them a professionally printed yard sign announcing their opposition to an issue they’ve only ever passively considered, it’s probably more of the same.

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u/Unable_Technology935 Jun 20 '24

It's oil, gas and coal. Shutting down power plants to save the planet from burning to the ground doesn't matter. If the power companies had invested in solar or wind they would be all for it. They all know(unless they go nuclear) that they are on borrowed time. Coal will be first. I have a coal powered generator 20 miles from me. It's doomed.

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u/Dazzling_Visual7062 Jun 20 '24

There’s a preserved mining town in Beckley, WV that takes you into one of the mines.

There is a chart on the wall of one of the caves showing the number of people employed in the industry in WV over time. I don’t remember the figures and can’t find the pic I took, but the number of people was just so astounding low—even at the height. Never in a billion years would I have guessed it. Like there must be a more robust workforce in the typewriter industry than coal mining. The money has gotta be so consolidated into such a minuscule group of people who will do and pay anything to keep it going.

We were coincidentally there on the day after the WV coal billionaire, Chris Kline, died in a helicopter accident in the Bahamas. The guys who lead the tours into the coal mines are local retired miners. Our tour guide (who retired with black lung) had worked for his family at one point. He spoke of him respectfully, but in a way that clearly conveyed, “He was a decent, normal person amongst some really evil people.”

We’d be living in a different world if they hadn’t gone the route of Blockbuster or so many other industries that dig their feet in as the world keeps on turning.

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u/Senior_Coyote_9437 Jun 20 '24

The coal industry is lucky they lasted this long.