Such developments reflect, too, a generational change in Brazil's highly professional foreign service: older diplomats, who worked during the cold war and Brazil's 1964-85 dictatorship, are giving way to younger ones, who feel that the world's ninth-largest economy should be less shy of flexing its democratic muscles.

ECONOMIST: Brazil��s foreign policy

In practice, the way people feel about windmills may have as much to do with financial effects as with physical ones.

ECONOMIST: Wind energy and politics: Not on my beach, please | The