The culture war around the wind turbine

Why is it the wind turbine, of all things, that has become the lightning rod in the culture war over climate and energy policy? Why are rotor blades attacked while other forms of energy production largely escape criticism? Anyone who sees this dispute as a purely technical debate seriously underestimates it. Because this is not about electricity — it is about narrative power.

In political conflicts, technical issues are usually framed in stark opposites. Technology becomes a projection screen for expectations — or for aversions. In the eyes of the observer, technology is almost never neutral. Either it threatens everything familiar, or it promises salvation. There is little room in between — especially in a field as culturally charged as energy policy. Because anyone seeking to mobilise people needs clear images.

The wind turbine fits this role perfectly. It is large and visible for miles — even at night. It is climate policy made tangible; not an abstract metric, but something that is physically present in the landscape and here to stay. Precisely for that reason, it becomes a political symbol — and a target, especially for the right. Right-wing mobilization is most effective when it can draw on familiar framings: against elites, against (big-city) urbanites and cosmopolitans, against the state.

Political science studies (e.g., by Dechézelles & Scotti or Radtke & Löw-Beer) now trace this pattern in conflicts over wind power in several European countries. Particularly effective are conflicts that can be framed as something imposed by the liberal state — as an intervention “from the outside”. Because wind power does not only stand for technology, but also for planning, permitting procedures, and state intervention. This makes it politically useful for polarisation.

The outrage that is stirred up follows clear political lines. Highways, for example, are seen by the political right as symbols of progress and guarantors of personal freedom. They too cut through landscapes and seal vast areas of land. Yet it is wind turbines that are framed as the provocation. Those who only yesterday defended highway expansion suddenly rediscover their love of nature — but only where it can be used against renewable energy. This selective “environmentalism” is not a contradiction. It is a strategy. And for decades it has served the interests of fossil-fuel business models.

Research in Europe and the United States — including studies by the Climate and Development Lab at Brown University — shows how networks supported by fossil interests and right-wing think tanks have deliberately constructed anti-wind narratives: as seemingly local protests, as “citizens’ initiatives”, as concerns about nature, health or freedom. What looks like grassroots mobilisation is often carefully orchestrated. The pattern fits. Because attacks on the energy transition today rarely take the form of outright climate denial. Instead they target its most visible solutions.

Some solutions are simply easier targets than others. Unlike wind power, solar energy enjoys considerable support even among many conservatives — as the example of Hungary shows. Solar technology can be appropriated. On a rooftop or balcony, it belongs to you. You can use the electricity yourself and even earn money from it. That naturally makes it much harder to frame solar as a threat.

Wind turbines, by contrast, almost always belong to someone else. Their benefits are abstract — their visual presence very concrete. The electricity flows to the cities; the towers stand in the countryside. Distributional conflicts emerge as well. One farmer profits from leasing his land. Another does not. Envy replaces acceptance.

Wind turbines can be deliberately politicized and embedded in narratives about homeland, landscape, and anti-elite politics. Studies such as those by Dresden-based researcher Manès Weisskircher show that right-wing populist parties benefit from local conflicts over wind energy projects. Climate policy is framed as a threat to people’s way of life or economic prosperity. Fossil companies and allied think tanks have invested precisely where the economic stakes are highest. The cultural framing of the debate serves a very practical purpose: it shifts the conflict away from market shares and profits toward identity, homeland and fear.

Wind turbines are also particularly suited to emotional exaggeration — something polarisation cannot do without. In right-wing narratives a strikingly sexualised language repeatedly appears. The landscape is described as wounded, disfigured or even “raped”. The homeland appears as a female victim of an external assault.

This is not a rhetorical slip. Technology is translated into a bodily conflict. Infrastructure becomes violence; energy policy becomes a threat to one’s own world. This imagery links fear, outrage and narratives of victimhood — and turns the wind turbine into the perfect enemy. In this narrative, the turbine “rapes” the landscape. It is difficult to imagine a greater threat to the homeland.

In contrast, fossil energy appears in right-wing narratives in a strikingly positive light. What dominates here is a form of so-called petro-masculinity — a term coined by political scientist Cara Daggett to describe the connection between fossil fuels, masculinity and authoritarian politics. Fossil energy extraction appears as an almost archaic act: pulling something out of the ground with strength, machines and dirt. Drill, baby, drill. It fits neatly into a worldview in which nature is something to be conquered, penetrated and exploited.

While fossil energy is seen as something to be harnessed, wind power is portrayed as something people are exposed to. That is why the conflict around wind power escalates so reliably. It bundles economic interests, cultural narratives and political mobilisation into a single symbol. That is why the wind turbine is more than energy infrastructure. It is a political battlefield.