Apparently western Indiana and eastern Illinois are full of wind farms. I've seen wind turbines before, of course, some on this trip, but I've never seen so many in one place or from so close. As an environmentalist the hundreds of wind turbines that I saw in the span of ten or so miles really made me happy. Plus, at the time that I passed the wind farms the wind was really strong, letting me see the turbines spin at a speed I didn't know possible for them. But what a great sight to see that many wind turbines in the middle of some giant agricultural farms: wind and agricultural farms coming together and working together.
One of the greatest obstacles facing environmentally sound improvements in our societies is the NIMBY factor: Not In My Back-Yard. For aesthetic and economic reasons no one wants to personally or communally make environmentally-friendly changes to the scenery or to their homes. The trick, then, is making sure that environmentally-friendly changes are too practical to ignore, especially economically.
Similarly, we can't simply fight evil and injustice with moral righteousness. We can't run into the problem of slavery telling people, "This is wrong," and think everything is going to end up ok. Instead we need to find creative ways to fight the problem because human trafficking is unfortunately extremely economically feasible for those who operate it. I don't know what that looks like, but we need to approach this injustice knowing that human trafficking does actually make sense. It is highly economically feasible. Sweeping changes to the way we live personally and together need to be made. Simply putting people behind bars will not work. Much more needs to be done.
Again, I don't know what that looks like. But there are lots of brilliant people out there who write policies for a living. Again, write to your representatives and ask that they do more than increase the regulations against human trafficking. Just a few minutes here and there can go a long way.
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