Shocking Before-And-After Photos: How Wind Parks Are Devastating Idyllic German Countryside!

Note: Most, if not all, of the “before” photos were produced by airbrushing away the wind turbines from the real “after” photos, as some readers have pointed out. This is the most effective way of accurately showing the real extent the turbines have blighted the landscape.
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Wind energy is supposed to rescue the planet from an environmental and nature disaster. Unfortunately for many in Germany the opposite is true. It has brought on environmental ruin and destruction of natural heritage.

What follows are a series of before and after photos depicting the “success” wind turbines are having in rescuing the environment.

The photos are posted with the kind permission of Hermann Dirr of windflut-elpe.de.

1. Vogelsberg

001

002

2. Hohe Vogelsberg

003

004

3. Dirlammen

005

006

4. Lautertal

007

008

 5. Mücke

009

010

6. Ulrichstein

011

0127.  Zeilbach was beautiful…

013

014

8. Adorf0150169. Diemelsee:

017

018

10. Paderborn-Dahl

019

02011. Ostfriesland…02102212. Saxony Anhalt:023024These are just some examples how Germany’s political leaders are protecting the environment. Aren’t they wonderful!

Boy, we sure could learn a lot from these deep thinkers. Let’s not talk about the impacts on property values and the health effects from infrasound.

The original German Powerpoint presentation with the photos is here. Once again special thanks to windflut-elpe.de and the Naturpark Hoher Vogelsberg.

49 responses to “Shocking Before-And-After Photos: How Wind Parks Are Devastating Idyllic German Countryside!”

  1. More photos of German countryside and windmills | Climate Collections
  2. Jeanne Spinks

    This is appalling. The German government have no care for nature, the environment, and certainly no care for its people. My heart goes out to the people who have had these monstrosities imposed upon them.

  3. Tim Channon

    Is that an additional reason why the German government was so touchy about Google Streetview?

  4. AndyG55

    Those look photoshopped.

    1. Chris Manuell

      Yes agreed Andy, I’m hoping they have taken the photo’s of the turbines and then removed the turbines with Photoshop and not the other way round.

      1. Ian G

        Picture No 11 shows they have been photoshopped. You can just make out the images of the turbines in the ‘before’ picture. It seems at least three have not been removed.

    2. Mike Jowsey

      Yes, I thought the same. I think they have taken a photo of a particular windfarm as it currently is, then edited the photo to remove all the turbines to show how it was ‘before’. While the technique may be justified, the way it is portrayed is not honest, imo, and therefore detracts from the message.

    3. Gerard de Boer

      Yes they are and the photoshopper did a nice job! In photo 11 (Ost Friesland) you can still see traces of the removed windmills in the before-picture…

    4. Holger Bieler

      Unfortunatly it is NOT photoshoped! 🙁 Meanwhile there are people (included me) who think ’em back in the communist part of Germany during the cold war: You may only say, think and do what the gouvernment want… If you don’t they call you a Nazi!!! No joke!!!!!

      1. James

        The pictures with the turbines are not photoshoped, however the pictures without the turbines are photoshoped.

        Someone has taken a lot of time to remove the turbines, and the reason you can tell the images have been photoshoped, is look at the clouds. The chances of taking the same picture months apart with the same cloud cover is near to zero.

        Absolutely shocking what they have done to the communities. I hope one day there will be many lawsuits against the developers and Government.

  5. Brad Blake

    So many renewable energy zealots in the USA point to Denmark (with the highest electricity cost of the developed countries) and Germany with so great build out of wind sites as the example to follow. Oh, REALLY??!!! These photos show the travesty of building behemoth ugly noisy out of scale wind machines anywhere!

  6. Elisabeth

    Yes the picts are photoshopped, it’s esay to recover the previous landscape by eraising these awfull turbines

  7. gnome

    Wow. Just wow.

    If people had seen those pictures before allowing this desecration, it would never have been allowed. Even now, the operators must live a long way from some of those locations for fear of the people with pitchforks, torches and hempen ropes with nooses.

  8. John Shade

    A useful illustration of some of the harm to the environment caused by the success of CO2 Fright as a political vehicle in Germany. I daresay the cost of removing these foolish abominations will be met one day by the nearby communities, some time after the operating companies find that financial bankruptcy is a smart choice. They are already morally bankrupt in my view, and so it will not cause them much pain to abandon their machines when the time comes.

  9. Dave Ward

    What struck me was the relative height of the support columns. They seem to be nearly twice as tall (compared to the blade diameter) of most other windfarms.

    But agreed, an utter disgrace…

  10. LEE CHRISTAL

    I LIVE IN TEXAS. WE HAVE SOME LARGE WIND FARMS HERE, BUT NONE (THAT I KNOW OF) THAT ARE IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO POPULATED AREAS. WHEN I DRIVE THROUGH THESE WIND FARMS, THE NOISE IS ASTOUNDING. I CANNOT IMAGINE HAVING TO LIVE AS CLOSE TO A WINDFARM AS SHOWN IN THESE PHOTOGRAPHS.

    IT APPEARS THAT THESE PHOTOGRAPHS HAVE BEEN PHOTOSHOPPED, WITH THE “BEFORE” PHOTOGRAPHS HAVING THE WIND GENERATORS REMOVED. BUT HOW CAN THIS BE INDEPENDLY VERIFIED?

    FOR EXAMPLE, I GOOGLED PADERBORN-DAHL AND FOUND SEVERAL WIND FARMS NEARBY, BUT NONE THAT ARE IN SUCH CLOSE PROXIMITY TO HOUSES AS SHOWN IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF PADEERBORN-DAHL.

    IT WOULD BE VERY HELPFUL IF A BETTER DESCRIPTION OF THESE LOCATIONS IS INCLUDED SO SOMEONE COULD INDEPENTLY VERIFY THE VERACITY OF THE PRESENTATION.

    PLEASE PROVIDE A MORE IDENTIFIABLE LOCATION FOR SOME OR ALL OF THESE PHOTOGRAPHS SO THEY CAN BE INDEPENDLY VERIFIED.

    WITHOUT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THAT THE “ORIGINAL” PHOTOGRAPHS HAVE BEEN PHOTOSHOPPED TO DELETE THE WIND GENERATORS AND WITHOUT A MORE PRECISE LOCATION OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS, WE ARE GUILTY OF THE STANDARD PRACTICE OF GLOBAL WARMING SCARE MONGERS: TO QUOTE PHIL JONES, HEAD OF THE CRU: “Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”

    PLEASE PROVIDE THIS DATA SO THE PHOTOGRAPHS CAN BE INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIED…….

    1. AndyG55

      Agreed.. We should be more open and information rich than those committing the climate fraud.

    2. DirkH

      Here is analysis of the Paderborn Dahl photo, with other photos of the Windpark.
      http://www.westfalenwind.de/actual/presse/20150312

      The impression comes about through use of a zoom. The wind turbines are there, the photo is real, if you find the use of a zoom , shall we say, dishonest, I guess you have to discard half of all news reporting.

    3. Mary Kay Barton

      Lee, I live in Wyoming County in western New York State. The wind industry (with the assistance of complicit, energy-illiterate crony-politicians who are only interested in lining their own pockets) are siting these giant signs of ignorance and greed here in New York State (and elsewhere) only hundreds of feet from peoples’ homes (600 – 700 feet from property lines and roads, and only 1100 – 1300 feet from homes). The pictures shown in this article accurately depict what these monstrosities do to rural countrysides where people live.

      Any state that mandates “renewables” (Renewable Portfolio Standard – RPS) like New York State does, is targeted by industrial wind developers. The people who end up in the way are told they must sacrifice their quality of life, and home and property values, on the altar of ‘green’ ($$$) energy to help stop “Climate Change.” They are having their properties virtually stolen from them in the name of the lies being told by Big Wind developers. One developer here got caught using old Bethlehem Steel brownfield slag as fill in their access roads – right amongst croplands.

      If you haven’t seen the documentary, “WINDFALL,” it is definitely worth watching. It was filmed in rural New York State, and highlights the wind industry’s ongoing assault in more highly-populated rural areas across America.

      WINDFALL Trailer:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87TGW9eLAtU&feature=player_embedded

  11. Otter (ClimateOtter on Twitter)

    My problem with these images, is that it looks like nothing really Changed, save that more turbines appear. I was expecting to see acres of trees having vanished from one image to the next; mountain tops leveled; new roads ripped across farmlands. Instead, it looks more like they just walked in, stood them up, and walked away without so much as a blemish on the landscape (outside of the turbines themselves).

    1. DirkH

      I happen to drive a lot and sometimes I drive very near past 100 or 150 m high wind turbines behemoths. They are situated on hillsides, or on hilltops, surrounded by meadows, of course where there were forests those had to be cut around the construction site, otherwise how would you drive the heavy load trucks with the tower segments, the blades, and the cranes up there. The vegetation regrows, you will stop trees from regrowing at least on one strip leading to the turbine because you need an accessway for a crane in case of repairs. The 900 tonne concrete foundation stays invisible underground. If 900 tonnes still do it for the latest behemoths.

    2. DirkH

      …so you can’t see those clearcut strips on those photos, when there are still trees left and right of it… Aerial photos would be needed to show more of the damage. Well I don’t consider a few cut trees that dramatic; 99% of German surface are cultivated anyway, not wildland. Nearly all of the forest area is managed, the wood harvested anyway, though these days it’s a very natural looking boreal forest in most places. Not clearcutting it but taking out single trees as needed.

      1. AndyG55

        “but taking out single trees as needed.”

        shhhh.. don’t tell the guys at Drax in the UK !!

      2. The Indomitable Snowman, Ph.D.

        “Aerial photos would be needed to show more of the damage.”

        Dirk, recall that one was provided herein:

        https://notrickszone.com/2015/02/27/vermont-madness-how-environmentalists-go-about-saving-the-global-climate/

        1. Segue C

          NoTricksZone should definitely be a place where all is disclosed up front…

          For illustrative purposes cloning out turbines and using zoom to more closely approximate the human eye seems simply a practical way to give a good idea of what is monumental visual impact to those who have loved an area.

          Wide angle shots from the air still somewhat reduce the shocking scale of habitat destruction destruction and how heart-rending it is to live through the rapine of wild lands or a forest/wetland ecosystem.

          The run off, water-taking, and canopy reduction, change the hydrology of an area.

          Forestry roads in Northern Ontario are typically small, and tend to follow the terrain, respecting water bodies and regrowth generally commences immediately.
          Wind developments pretend to use those roads but blast off high ground and fill low areas to straighten and construct permanent highways which are huge festering wounds.

          Above it all there loom monuments to greed and gullibility or as one woman testified at an Environmental Review Tribunal hearing, “Symbols of Oppression”.

  12. David Appell

    Many of these photos are clearly photoshopped — they have the exact same clouds.

    Dirlammen, Lautertal Meiches, Mucke, Zeilbach, Ostfriesland, Saxony.

  13. Moose

    To the crazy greens: while ‘saving’ the climate, you lunatics ruined the planet.

  14. nightspore

    The pictures of wind farms bring to mind The War of the Worlds – both the novel and the 50’s movie. Somehow that seems like an apposite connection.

  15. Dr A. Cannara
    1. DirkH

      Ah, the “smart” vice chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, SPD…
      His party invented the subsidy regime for solar and wind, his first wife was a Turkish Muslim, so he must have converted to Islam to be able to marry her, he invented the Progressive Alliance as successor to the Socialist International, his party and Obama’s party are together in this PA, he and Obama both want TTIP…

      A colorful person to say the least, I skipped the part where he became lobbyist for VW, I wouldn’t trust him with anything, not for a second.

  16. Germany’s Wind Power ‘Dream’ Becomes a Living Nightmare – STOP THESE THINGS

    […] Part of what’s got Germans up in arms is what the wind industry has done to their beloved towns and country-side (for a pictorial taste of the aesthetic destruction – see this article). […]

  17. Germany Realizing the Truth, About the Wind Scam! | "Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising…

    […] Part of what’s got Germans up in arms is what the wind industry has done to their beloved towns and country-side (for a pictorial taste of the aesthetic destruction – see this article). […]

  18. Paul in Sweden

    The before and after pictures are very powerful but they do not convey the insufferable debilitating noise that is generated by the useless wind turbines nor do they show the carcases of birds & bats scattered for 100s of meters around these monstrosities.

  19. Mary Kay Barton

    These disgusting photos reveal exactly why these things are NOT “Parks,” nor are they “Farms” (terms created by the wind industry in order to create buy-in by the public). They are environmentally-destructive, sprawling “Industrial Wind Factories.”

  20. Mary Kay Barton

    Lee, I live in Wyoming County in western New York State. They are siting these giant signs of ignorance and greed here in New York State only hundreds of feet from peoples’ homes (600 – 700 feet from property lines and roads, and only 1100 – 1300 feet from homes). Any state that mandates “renewables” (Renewable Portfolio Standard – RPS) like New York State does, is targeted by industrial wind developers.

    One developer here got caught using old Bethlehem brownfield slag as fill in the access roads – right amongst croplands. Lawsuits are ongoing. People who end up stuck living within the footprints of these industrial wind factories are having their quality of life and property values stolen from them in the name of the “clean, green” lies being perpetuated by the wind industry and their proponents.

    If you haven’t seen the documentary, “WINDFALL,” it is definitely worth watching. It was filmed in rural New York State, and highlights the wind industry’s ongoing assault in more highly-populated rural areas across America:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87TGW9eLAtU&feature=player_embedded

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