You blew it on wind power.

• Author: Wilson, John
• Position: Letter to the editor

Your article on wind power ("Wind Takes Iowa by Storm," Erik Lorenzsonn, July issue) was way too light on the negative impacts that wind turbines have on wildlife and humans. There is plenty of well-done science on the significant impacts to those living close who actually have to hear the drone 24/7 (which can interfere with sleep and bring on noise-induced chronic stress). Why don't you see how many days you can camp near one? And only a puny "thousands" of birds killed? Really?

Did you jump on that terrible biodiesel bandwagon as well? The one where it wasn't hip or cool for enviros to point out the obvious flaws in turning the earth into a cornfield for cars?

It is fine to be pro-wind power, but don't prop it up by distorted optimism.

John Wilson, via e-mail

What is it about people who think they're sophisticated that compels them to use fatuous stereotypes about farmers instead of going out and meeting a few? I refer in particular to the professor quoted in your article who, instead of going ten miles off campus and talking with people, sits in her office and speculates that maybe they are simple-minded enough to be impressed by the "high-tech" appearance of turbines in their cornfields.

Modern farmers deal with more technology than this professor is ever likely to, and probably know more about turbines than she will ever know about anything outside her specialty. They are much too down to earth to be impressed by the mere sight of a machine. Those in my family are painfully aware of what they have lost in the beauty of the landscape; some took pictures before the turbines were built in their area to have a record of what once was.

But they are highly practical people. You have to be able to survive in farming, and therein, I suspect, lies the explanation for the success of wind energy in Iowa. Corn prices had been low for a long time and tanked in the late nineties. If you drove into a town with a grain elevator, you were likely to see a couple of vast...