Box Elder County has a population of 60,000 people on 4.3 million acres. I don't think we have any unpopulated counties in the US, but this is as close as you are going to get to being distant from anything that matters.
An emotion is a cognitive state resulting from various inputs, including hormones. Without abstract thinking, some emotional states would be impossible for bees to reach. So bees can experience anger, perhaps, but not pride. Plants definitely do not have emotions, since they lack any cognitive states.
The problem with America is that we don't have the space where it's needed. We have plenty of open land to build these things, but you need a distribution network, and people freak out about the towers and the "radiation." Of course, there are also the people who oppose using the wide open spaces for anything other than wide open spaces.
Where is the line between motivation and apathy is the question you should be asking. Impulses can't be neatly separated into destructive and constructive.