The “Green on Green” Conflict in Wind Energy Development: A Case Study of Environmentally Conscious Individuals in Oklahoma, USA
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for an interesting read. This is a highly topical topic; the green vs green "issue" is very relevant not least in terms of design and implementation of environmental policies towards sustainable development.
There are however a few things that could be improved.
Firstly, the abstract is too terse to provide a proper summary of the research. The second sentence "Wind energy, however, may not be environmentally benign..." gives the wrong impression about the study. Perhaps it is sufficient to say that wind power can come into conflict with other green interests? Also, since the results are much more interesting than the fact that the survey was online and involved x number of respondents, perhaps the limited space can be redistributed somewhat.
Secondly, introduction gives the impression of including the whole world e.g. with regard to the description of the development of wind power (lines 38-40), but since this is not the case with, for example, the development in Scandinavia, it would be more accurate to clearly state the context in question. 'The sources used in this part are (too) few and rather old. Maybe there are no newer references, which in that case could be explained. The last paragraph in the introduction states that there is a "lack of research addressing and analyzing public opinion surrounding this conflict...". While this might be true in the North American context, such research has been conducted in e.g. Denmark. This is easily solved by delimiting the statement.
Thirdly (and finally), there is some overlap/repetitive text that needs revision on p. 4. Basically the same information is provided three times on this very page.
Again, I would like to compliment the authors on an interesting study. The discussion is balanced and the conclusions have important implications for the green transformation.
Author Response
Thank you for your comments.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Originality/Novelty: There is little previous research examining the “green on green” conflict and how competing societal goals may shape attitudes toward the green transition, including attitudes toward wind energy development. The topic of the paper is highly relevant, as illustrated by the recent global assessment report by the UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES 2019) and the UN special report Climate Change and Land (IPCC 2019).
Significance of content: The introduction, which focuses on the "green on green" conflict, is generally well-written. Reference to the abovementioned reports, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN 2015), could help set the stage further.
My main concern with this paper is that while the introduction creates an impression that the paper will fill an important research gap by analyzing “green on green” conflicts in public opinion of wind energy development, I feel that this focus is not always clear in the remainder of the paper, especially when the authors later state that their focus is on respondents’ knowledge of environmental impacts (line 179). The paper does not attempt to address whether differences in awareness of impacts shape support of wind energy development. What is the main motivation for exploring awareness? The focus on trade-offs, and how attitudes toward renewable energy and biodiversity may shape respondents’ evaluations of the possible trade-offs in wind energy development, is in my view much more clearly linked to the introduction and the "green on green" conflict (not all who identify as environmentally conscious, are supportive of wind energy development).
The significance and practical and policy implications of the findings (e.g. that individuals are well-informed only on some impacts of wind energy development) should be discussed in more detail.
Quality of Presentation and Scientific Soundness: If the main focus is on awareness of the impacts of wind energy development, the paper needs a clearer motivation. Why do the authors expect attitudes toward renewable energy and biodiversity to influence awareness of the impacts of wind energy on birds and bats? The focus, and definition of independent and dependent variables, should be motivated by literature covering the relationship between attitudes on one hand and awareness/beliefs on the other.
Regarding the research design, the paper could be improved if hypotheses (backed by existing literature) were formulated. The survey was only distributed to subjects that self-identify as environmentally conscious. This is not necessarily a flaw, as any finding that even among those who self-identify as green, there are varying degrees of support of wind energy development, would serve to highlight the importance of the "green on green" conflict. But the importance and implications of this choice should be discussed in more detail. Would it not be possible to get an impression of the extent to which a respondent is environmentally conscious by including relevant questions?
It would be useful if the authors could specify how the trade-offs were determined and presented to the respondents. What do you mean by "includes public...opinion" in Table 6? Regarding the questions designed to gauge awareness/beliefs about the impacts of wind energy, given the focus on "green on green" conflicts, it would have been interesting to also test awareness about impacts on GHG emissions/climate change. You include a question on changes in local climate, but compared to the other questions, it is not entirely clear what you mean (changes in which direction? why local?). Regarding attitudes, why did you choose to ask whether respondents care, and not e.g. whether they support biodiversity conservation/renewable energy development? Did you ask about whether respondents cared about renewable energy (as table 3 suggests) or renewable energy development (as the title of table 3 suggests)? If the former is the case, why did you ask about renewable energy, and not renewable energy development, especially since you indicate a (policy) direction with regard to biodiversity? Results can be a bit difficult to interpret. Does a high degree of care for renewables indicate that the individual supports renewable energy development? Related to this, does support for renewable energy development (in general) necessarily imply support for wind energy development? Does not caring about renewables indicate resistance to further development, or indifference? These questions should be discussed.
Regarding the presentation of results, the tables summarizing your statistical analyses of demographics are difficult to read, without further elaboration on how variables were coded (e.g. gender, race, political affiliation). On lines 394-399 you discuss results, but it should be more specific. How does gender etc influence how trade-offs are valued?
The title of section 4.4 asks whether attitudes can predict trade-offs, but this is not really what you are studying. Rather, you are studying whether attitudes shape how different trade-offs are valued/support for wind energy development given different trade-offs (lines 328-330). Does Table 7 indicate that respondents who care about biodiversity support wind energy development even if it entails negative impacts on biodiversity?
In the discussion (section 5.2, line 544-546) you write that a main goal was to assess whether attitudes predict what types of trade-offs respondents are willing til accept in wind energy development. Instead of simply stating that attitudes are statistically "significant in predicting responses", it would be useful if you could describe the relationship between attitudes and the conditions under which wind energy development is supported. The same holds for the discussion of demographics (section 5.3). More generally, in the text, please describe the results in plain words rather than simply stating that independent variables predict responses to questions or similar.
Given the choice to distribute the survey to subjects that self-identify as environmentally conscious, it is perhaps not surprising that the authors find that respondents care more about environmental impacts than what is typically observed in the literature (lines 564-577).
Interest to Readers: The topic is highly relevant, but the paper could be further strengthened by including a discussion of the relevance/importance of the paper's main research questions and findings. Why is it important to understand what your subjects know about impacts? One could imagine that awareness of impacts, and how such impacts are perceived and valued, shape support for wind energy development, but this is not explored in your paper. An underlying hypothesis seems to be that attitudes shape information uptake (e.g. line 495), but I do not quite see the relevance to the "green on green" conflict, without an analysis of how different degrees of awareness shape support for wind energy. Moreover, I am missing a reference to literature which motivates such a hypothesis (and how your results contribute to that literature). Could it not be the case that awareness of impacts shape attitudes? The latter part of your analyses, where you examine how trade-offs shape acceptance of wind energy development, is in my opinion much more central to the "green on green" debate.
Overall Merit: The study has some limitations, as discussed above. The paper could be improved if more attention is paid to discussing the choices that have been made and the results you obtained.
Sections 5 and 6 could benefit from a much extended comparative analysis of the two attitudes (biodiversity conservation vs renewable energy), and how they differ in terms of awareness of impacts and how trade-offs shape acceptance of wind energy development.
In section 6 (631-633) you write that respondents support wind energy development that does not negatively impact biodiversity and oppose wind energy development that negatively impacts biodiversity. Tables 6 and 7, however, also show interesting variation between cases and also in degrees of support/opposition. A further discussion of these nuances would be useful.
Author Response
Please see attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Much improved! Well done!
