Brian Henry owns the Sea View Inn and other local businesses. He produces Palmetto Cheese, which is sold in the store Get Carried Away, also located in Pawleys Island. Brian and his wife Sassy have also served with local governments in Georgetown County as the Chair of the Zoning and Planning Commission and the tourism board in Pawleys Island, respectively. The Sea View Inn is very much in line with the social perspective and tradition of the area. It’s “rustic”; access to modern electronics is discouraged; meals are at set times of day; and peace and quiet are respected and valued. The view out of the windows, free of any air conditioning, spans for miles and miles across the Atlantic Ocean. It’s free of everything really -- no ships, no drilling platforms, no wind turbines. It’s quite different from the view that Brian was used to back home in Louisiana.

I don’t know how you feel about it but I don’t want to look out there and see these large turbines either. It’s not natural. That’s the thing that makes this place beautiful. And I’ve said it before, it’s the natural beauty of the South Carolina coast that people come for.”

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And who can argue with him? I can’t. It’s easy standing in a classroom, looking at economic and scientific data, wondering why people are so stubborn or misinformed and don’t want to see a wind farm from their windows. Standing on this patio, over this beach, it’s a different narrative. There’s a quality of life aspect in play.

There are areas on the Grand Strand that Brian admits where viewing a wind farm off the coast won’t be as big of a deal. More commercialized municipalities, such as Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, and Surfside, might not be negatively impacted in the tourism sector by wind farms offshore.

“For them, it’s a different audience. I don’t know if it would have as much of an impact there. I think it would deter some people but Myrtle Beach is what it is.”

Energy production isn’t always on people’s minds either, even well -established, intelligent home and business owners like the Henrys. I think part of the battle of bringing awareness to energy choices and climate change is all the other noise in life that can get in the way. The politicization of the issues doesn’t help either. These are issues that affect all of us, and party lines are barriers that need to be transcended.

“If you go down towards Charleston and you get to just shy of McClellanville and you take a right, you can see these huge stacks that go up, and I’m pretty sure it’s coal, coal and gypsum that they burn there. Does that mean a lot to me? Does it affect me? I don’t...I think your generation is going to have to look a lot more closely at it because there’s people on one side that say there’s global warming, look at it, there’s some people that say it’s weather patterns, it’s going to change every 50 or 100 years. But I think there’s something to it.”

If you were to imagine the Henrys as the normal, forward-thinking Pawleys Island citizens that they are, and to understand their perspective as similar to many other residents in the area, then the idea of offshore drilling or wind farms isn’t so much a political, economic, or environmental issue; it’s a happiness question. While they agree that climate change² is a major concern and that future generations need to look at this and fix it, they feel that though things may not be the best the way they are, change can be troublesome. However, Mr. Henry agrees that there are significant causes for concern. At this point, there is little doubt that climate change is occurring and what is responsible for it, so our concerns should be shifting to addressing the problem.³

“I’m concerned about it, I want my kids and my grandchildren to have this place...but who stands in the gap? And who’s the hero, the champion to make it happen?”