More: Oil Billionaire Weighs in on Wind Turbines: ‘Once They’re There, They Haunt You’

Shale oil billionaire Harold Hamm said in an interview this week that clean energy doesn’t deserve federal subsidies in part because windmills are haunting to look at.

“I frankly don’t like to see a wind turbine,” Hamm told National Journal. “Once they’re there, they haunt you. That’s your viewshed. That’s what you look at. All those things standing out in the distance, we have them all over Oklahoma. And it doesn’t look very good. I frankly don’t like it.”

While arguing against wind energy tax credits, Hamm cast special treatment for oil giants as fair, because they help propel his company’s earnings. “The industry doesn’t like to put ourselves in a situation of us against them,” he said for why tax breaks should be kept for the top corporations. “Because we need them. I need them to refine our oil.” He claims even the giants, ExxonMobil and Chevron, don’t necessarily earn “obscene profits” (which were $71 billion in 2012).

Asked then about what role he sees renewables playing in confronting climate change, the top Republican donor and adviser pivoted to a much more controversial answer: Maybe, “we” should “provide rules” in the Middle East and Africa similar to China’s one-child policy.

“Overpopulation—that probably hurts the environment more than anything,” Hamm said. “Are we going to provide rules to stop overpopulating areas in Africa? Middle Eastern countries? Probably should. China did. Stop overpopulating areas with people. Should we in the U.S.? Maybe we should think about that, if we’re truly concerned about that.”

More at Think Progress.

Wind turbines near Chatham, Ontario, Canada:

Hauntingly beautiful.