We all have different priorities in life. But how many of us are moved to consider that the right to drive off the tee with an unencumbered sea view is the real challenge humanity faces?

News that Donald Trump was to fund the campaign against renewable energy in Scotland will provoke mixed emotions. An America tycoon, Trump has been objecting since September 2011 to plans to build an offshore windfarm near his luxury golf resort close to Aberdeen.

A planning application for an 11-turbine windfarm off Aberdeen Bay was submitted to Marine Scotland that year. The Donald, as he is known, described the wind turbines, planned for a mile from his golf course, as "disastrous and environmentally irresponsible". Trump's £750m development on the Menie estate on the coast is at the centre of a storm about land ownership, democracy and the power of the filthy-rich. But now Trump is on the warpath. He's moved from the sort of fury only a hooked two-iron can provoke, to a positively toupee-raising apoplexy.

His executive vice-president and legal counsel, George Sorial, acknowledged:

"We have agreed to provide financial support to Cats (Communities Against Turbines Scotland). We have agreed to assist them with marketing and PR. We have agreed to provide them with staff, with some of our team at our New York office working with them on a daily basis."

I'm tempted to suggest that the first thing that Trump gets his people to sort out is that logo. What's with that black cat? Are they suggesting that big cats are roaming near the Menie estate and might get, you know, entangled in the turbines? The Donald has form on this fantasy-conspiracy stuff, for years he backed the hate-filled campaign against Obama as part of the Birther Movement, accusing the liberal press in America of being complicit in what may be the "greatest scam in the history of our country" before this devastating public put-down.

Individuals like The Donald don't feel the need to conceal their business interests. But the Trump golf fiasco is a potentially defining point for what sort of Scotland might emerge from the independence process.

At one point first minister Alex Salmond seemed to be courting Donald Trump and his ilk, with rhetoric that "Scotland was open for business". The lure of investment in tough times seemed overwhelming. But earlier this month in a letter to Salmond, Trump blasted: "You will single-handedly have done more damage to Scotland than any event in Scottish history."

But the idea of Trump as good business versus loony-greens hellbent on no-jobs is nonsense. Bloomberg New Energy Finance recently suggested onshore wind will be cost competitive with gas and coal generation by 2016.

Niall Stuart, the chief executive of industry body Scottish Renewables, said: "Who is Donald Trump to tell Scotland what is good for our economy and environment? Offshore wind is already attracting billions of pounds of investment and supporting hundreds of jobs across Scotland, including in his mother's hometown of Stornoway."

But as the Trump jokes and controversy intensify – another much more positive wind-energy story has emerged further south. By Edinburgh, the UK's first community-controlled urban turbine is to be erected. Depending on the size of the turbine, it could save between 400 and 2000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent each year, powering up to 1,300 homes and generating significant revenue for each community including Portobello, Craigentinny and Leith. The proposed turbine will have a capacity of between 500 and 2,300kW.

Thankfully there's no absentee billionaire lurking to derail the process. Instead the community has reacted with remarkable consensus and energy to make the project a reality. This is a likely new trend: reverse-nimbyism, where communities demand to take control of their energy needs against the spiralling profiteering of the private utilities. Like Fintry and the island of Gigha where the "Dancing Ladies" – Creideas, Dòchas, and Carthannas (faith, hope and charity) – tap into an abundant local resource and supply island residents with 100% renewable electricity. There are plenty of models emerging where communities control and define their energy mix, and fall in love with wind. The Portobello project shows not just that onshore urban turbines can work, but that if they are community-owned it shifts the whole debate. As Justin Kenrick of Pedal puts it: "The question becomes not, 'are you for or against wind', but 'are you for or against society'?"

The reality is that Trump has helped shape the alter-Scottish movement, whether it be from spawning film or tributes in poetry the cross-thatched business guru has created a useful iconic and defining focus. He will have alienated any misguided allies in the Scottish government and put the emphasis back on the need for Scotland to realise its massive renewables potential.

As writer and broadcaster Lesley Riddoch recently noted: "The longer we postpone a concerted shift towards renewable research, design, testing and deployment, the bigger the burden we leave to our children, grandchildren or whichever generation is unlucky enough to be alive when fossil fuels and prevarication finally run out."

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