"The state has to acknowledge that for the past 20 years grave errors have been made, and they can do that by presenting an apology," said Silje Karine Muotka, the president of the Sameting, Norway's Sami parliament. "And concrete actions have to follow: the operating permit has to be cancelled, the turbines have to be fully dismantled, and the area has to be restored, replanted and returned to the herders," she told AFP. With every day that passes, Sissel Stormo Holtan, a 40-year-old herder, loses a little more faith in the legal system.

Impact on Landscape Impact on People Europe

Upon hearing input from some of the newest members of the Maple Valley Township Planning Commission, commissioners voted Thursday to make a number of more restrictive changes to a draft wind energy ordinance.

Impact on People Noise Zoning/Planning Michigan

The full essay, including footnote references, can be accessed by clicking the document links on this page. 

Impact on People Noise

The Engel family has been fighting against the system on Kraiberg for years. She recently discovered damage to a tower. Despite the repairs, there is still no peace.

Pollution Impact on People Noise Germany

Vicente’s parents are no longer alive, but in the small, stone town of Calaceite on a remote Aragonese hillside, he still vividly remembers their stories. Vicente is 83.

Impact on People Europe

Proposed sites trigger terror in residents over home and environmental damage  

Impact on Landscape Impact on People Ireland

Beaten, forced off their land, cheated out of money, and even falsely imprisoned -- farmers in China say they are paying a heavy price as authorities rush to deliver on ambitious pledges to ramp up national green energy output. China has vowed the upcoming Winter Olympics 2022 will be the first Games to be run entirely on wind and solar energy, and have built scores of facilities to increase capacity -- but activists warn ordinary people are being exploited by "land grabs" in the process.

Impact on People Asia

A number of farmers have come together to demand a halt to the project, arguing that the ongoing construction of the wind power plant has adversely affected their houses and shrimp farms, the official claimed. They are afraid that such damage will continue after the plant is completed and put into operation, Hung added. Le Thuy Trang, a local farmer, expressed her anxiety that the operation of wind power poles will be detrimental to her plants and crops.

Impact on People Asia

In what is believed to be the first judgment of its kind in France, Belgians Christel and Luc Fockaert were awarded more than €100,000 in compensation by the judge in Toulouse. ...Alice Terrasse, the couple’s lawyer, told French television: “It’s an unusual case and as far as I know there has been no precedent.” 

Impact on People Legal Europe

For Christel and Luc, this judgment of the Toulouse Court of Appeal is a victory after such a long fight. "We are happy and relieved" they say. At first instance, before the court of Castres they had been dismissed. This time, they feel they have been heard. From the start, they had communicated their problems to the operators of the wind farm, to no avail. The head office of the two companies is located in the Deux-Sèvres department. "They produce green energy far from their own door. As for the concerns of local residents, they don't give a damn , " laments Luc.

Impact on People Noise Legal Europe

The poles, or monopoles driven into the seabed will be 35 feet in diameter, rising 80 stories tall, with 350-foot blades. They will be surrounded by hard structures that had never before existed off the Jersey coast. Hornick worries the construction noise and vibrations will damage marine mammals like dolphins, who depend on echolocation to navigate. And the wind farms could jeopardize the survival of the endangered Atlantic right whale; fewer than 400 are alive today. The Jersey Shore’s fisheries are also worried the wind farms would limit fishing areas and could permanently reduce their catch. The wind farms would occupy some of the most fertile fishing grounds in the nation, prompting a growing battle between fisheries and wind power.

Impact on People Offshore Wind New Jersey

This is a personal fight for me. I don’t want to look at them. I don’t want to see them,” said Commissioner Lorie Johnson. She said she frequently drives past wind turbines in nearby Crawford County. “It looks like a space zone with all the red flickering lights. It’s just absurd. I can’t imagine living underneath that. I can’t imagine living near it. I don’t want to. That’s as close as I want them.”

Impact on People Kansas

“I understand that federal and state decision makers have the power to approve this project without Ocean City’s consent, but I intend to do everything in my power to advocate for Ocean City’s best interests,” Gillian said. “I believe in the objectives of clean energy, but I know these can be advanced while also addressing the points I’ve just listed.”

Impact on Views Impact on People Offshore Wind New Jersey

The supreme court case centred on whether the construction of turbines at Storheia and Roan in the Fosen region of central Norway, part of a $1.3 billion development that is Europe's largest onshore wind farm, had interfered with Sami herders' cultural rights under international conventions. "A grand chamber of the supreme court unanimously found an interference with this right, and ruled the wind power licence and the expropriation decision invalid," the court said in its ruling. It did not say what should happen next to the facilities, but a lawyer representing the herders said the verdict means the 151 wind turbines should be dismantled.

Impact on People Legal Europe

The case concerned the question of whether the development of Storheia and Roan wind turbines at Fosen violates the reindeer herding Sami's right to cultural practice according to the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights (SP) Article 27. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the rights have been violated, and that the decisions are invalid. For this reason, the discretion to determine compensation for the intervention was refused.

Impact on People Legal Europe

It was not immediately clear what the judgment’s consequences of would be, but lawyers for the herders said the 151 turbines on the Fosen peninsula could be torn down. The turbines, whose construction was completed in 2020, form part of the largest onshore windfarm in Europe.

Impact on People Legal Europe

Some Louisa County Board of Supervisor members who visited the property after a CBS 6 inquiry and meeting with Dominion, were critical of the project at their September 7 meeting. "It's pretty catastrophic,” Louisa Supervisor Duane Adams said. “It's really bad." "We can't let anybody clear 1100 acres ever again,” Louisa County Supervisor Fitzgerald Barnes said. "The very people who approved this project also visited the site, and they said that this was a terrible situation. They called it catastrophic." 

Impact on Landscape Impact on People Virginia

On September 22, 2021, Justice Peter Lynch of the New York State Supreme Court, Albany County denied the petitioners’ application in Town of Copake v. New York State Office of Renewable Energy Siting, No. 905502-21 (Sup. Ct. Albany Cty. Sept. 24, 2021), rejecting a challenge to regulations promulgated by the New York State Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES). Justice Lynch’s decision comes following an earlier ruling that denied the petitioners’ application for a temporary restraining order. These rulings have now twice affirmed the validity of the ORES regulations, which will play an important role in helping New York State to achieve its aggressive renewable energy goals.

Impact on People Legal New York

Plans had already been approved for the six turbines being built by French Energy giant EDF, but a new application was submitted after they decided to increase the height of the turbines from 455ft to a new tip height of 491ft - more than twice the height of Edinburgh’s Scott Monument and almost the height of the Blackpool Tower.

Impact on Views Impact on People UK

Local authority officers warn of impact on tourism spending and views from the coastline and Llandudno Pier

Impact on People Tourism UK