Abstract

Tyson-Lord Gray discusses the landscape effects of windfarms. Gray begins his chapter by looking at declining wind turbine sales during the years 2007-2010. In an attempt to locate a reason for this decline, he evaluates two claims: (1) that windfarms reduce property value and (2) that windfarms ruin the beauty of nature. For the first claim, he looks at three studies conducted on residential property sales located near wind farms. For the second claim, he engages in a comparison of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment which defends purely emotional aesthetic evaluations and John Dewey’s Art as Experience which provides an understanding that views beauty as an integration of both emotional and cognitive judgments. According to Gray, Dewey’s aesthetic can help to push the conversation beyond the purely emotional response of many windfarm opponents.

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