One reason is that is it cheaper to strip mine with big machines with less workers. In the US more than half of all oil and gas production jobs were lost between 1980 and 1999.
Wind power is more labor intensive than fossil fuel or nuclear source of energy.
Wind power can be competitive with the usual sources of energy by requiring less capital investment and by being much more efficient as a producer of power. Dams are shaping up to be environmental and human disasters. China s Three Gorges Dam will require the forcible relocation of nearly 2 million people. It is becoming the way to go to consider tearing down dams these days. Some dams produce more global warming gases than a coal-fired power plant with an equivalent energy production.