Unlike, apparently, 150 other environmentalists, I don't know enough about the proposed Cape Cod wind farm to venture an opinion on it.
Bill McKibben says "when [other environmental] efforts come into conflict with the imperative need to act urgently on global warming, they have to take second place." It's a common sentiment these days, but I'll be honest that it makes me a bit nervous.
My inclination, of course, is to support wind farms. But they are industrial development, and as such deserve reasonable regulation, smart siting decisions, and community involvement.
I like to think I "get" global warming, but I don't necessarily accept that it's the One and True Problem, the overwhelming existential threat before which all other considerations must go overboard -- any more than I believe the same of terrorism.
The clean coal and nuclear power lobbies would love to use global warming as a trump card. GE would be all over it. So would the ANWR-hungry Republican Congress.
But even in light of global warming, we still owe ourselves honest debate about other issues. Biodiversity matters. Wilderness matters. Human culture, democracy and rule of law matter. The economy matters. If you go far enough down the matters scale, eventually you find the pastoral ocean views of American aristocracy on Nantucket, and hell, even they matter a little bit.
Giving any issue the status of get-out-of-jail-free card is an invitation to abuse. Not abuse by Bill McKibben -- a veritable secular saint -- but by hangers-on. Everybody with a project to fund, political favor to call in, tax break to push, or axe to grind.
Of course, this discussion is a bit moot in light of the fact that global warming receives nothing near the attention it deserves in most contexts. I just don't want to end up saying, "You're with us or you're with the global warmists," to batter down all local or countervailing concerns. That kind of Manicheanism is for the other side.
‘Heretic’ battles straw man
The Wind Kids: How high school students helped bring a wind farm to Milford, Utah
Comments
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Bart Anderson Posted 7:28 am
16 Jan 2006
As you point out, wind farms are industrial development. The underlying assumption is that they are a magic solution and anyone who opposes them is, if not evil, hypocritical at least.
Truth is, the construction and maintentance of windfarms generates greenhouse gases and they feed our addiction to cheap, centralized energy. They are part of the solution, but they are NOT exempt from criticism.
The same tactics to silence criticism of windfarms is being used with nuclear energy and other questionable technologies.
The only magic solution is to reduce demand, through conservation and increased efficiency.
A big problem with the attack on Kennedy is organizational. It's typical sectarianism -- a struggling movement finds it difficult to confront its real opponents, so it vents its anger on allies. Ally X is not pure enough; ally Y does not have the correct line on coal sequestration. When you get started in-fighting, there's no place to stop. And your opponents love it.
I respect Bill McKibben, but I think he's wrong on this issue.
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amazingdrx Posted 7:59 am
16 Jan 2006
We all know why this was a false dilemna now. No WMDs in Iraq.
Either nuclear power or global climate disaster.
Renewable energy can stave off global climate disaster without nuclear.
Either Cape Wind or global climate disaster.
Other less controversial sites are available for wind farms. Just becaue wind power advocates give up on this project or modify it by moving further offshore does not mean the general movement towards wind power is defeated.
But is it possible to come up with a true dilemna on energy policy? Yes it is.
Either solar, wind, wave, water power, geothermal heat pumps, and electric vehicles..or all the problems (including global climate disaster, massive pollution, envitonmental devestation, safety problems, and health effects of mining,economic disaster,nuclear weapons proliferation, nuclear waste and safety issues, and endless oil wars) , that go along with oil, fossil fuel, and nuclear power.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:17 pm
16 Jan 2006
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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fiddleheadfarm Posted 8:41 am
17 Jan 2006
And I love the sight of wind turbines! I have seen land-based wind farms in the Canary Islands. I thought they were beautiful, and have the photos to prove it. The island of El Hierro has a goal of more energy self-sufficiency and knows that wind power will increase their tourist appeal while decreasing their need to import diesel fuel.
What matters even more than how we generate our megawatts is the idea of NEGAwatts--the electricity we don't use. I worked very hard to stop the Hydro-Quebec project a decade or so ago. We claimed Quebec didn't need to flood the James Bay area because energy conservation could save more negawatts than the massive project would generate. But in an economy literally fueled by growth, using less of anything is anathema. So we are still trying to generate more electricity. I would love to see the fuel plant on the Canal GONE. Replace it with as many renewable alternatives as possible (including negawatts from conservation and mini-generators such as solar).
My Upstate New York town turned down a small-scale hydropower plant some years ago because the redirected water flow would "reduce the falls' appeal to tourists." Even the most vocal greens became NIMBYs. The falls have always waxed and waned with rainfall, but they virtually disappeared for three months last summer due to a prolonged local drought presumably caused by Global Warming. So a hydroelectric plant based on what the weather USED to be like may have had limited value. Perhaps if we had all been YIMBYs for the last 25 years, our weather wouldn't be so weird. We certainly all need to become YIMBYS now.
I looked into having a wind tower installed on my two acre rural lot. Zoning and economics nixed that, so I pay a premium to receive wind-generated electricity. While I know my electricity really comes from a grid that gets almost all its electricity from burning coal, I'm hoping this premium will eventually increase wind generation in my area. I would love to have some wind towers in the middle of my viewscape. My neighbor across the road bought a defunct dairy farm, and those fallow fields would be a great site for a small-scale wind farm. In the meantime, I've been weatherizing my house and turning off those lights.
fiddlehead farmer
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kduble Posted 9:47 pm
17 Jan 2006
Perhaps wind energy is like Churchill's perception of democracy -- the worst possible system save for all the others.
Ken Duble
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