This man could go to jail over his home wind turbine

(Image credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

In 2010, a Minnesota man named Jay Nygard built four wind turbines on his property, seeking to make his lifestyle more environmentally friendly. He put one in his front yard and was promptly sued by local authorities, kicking off a legal battle that continues to this day.

Now, though a previous court ruling went in his favor, Nygard and his wife face six months of jail time if he does not remove the windmill by February 19. This is ostensibly because the turbine's lights and sound are obnoxious to neighbors, but Nygard says it has no lights and can't be making any sound, since it has been turned off for a year.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.