"Wind farms creating an environmental divide; Advocates fear voices opposing wind projects from within the movement will derail efforts to slow climate change and establish renewable energy sources" by Erin Ailworth | Globe Staff, August 11, 2013
FLORIDA — These men, whose lifestyles embrace the environmental ethic, have found themselves at odds with environmental leaders who say that wind power is good for them — clean, sustainable energy that reduces dependence on fossil fuels and lowers greenhouse gas emissions.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: U.S. Military Saving Endangered Species
Are tho$e the environmental leaders the Globe is referring?
After watching bulldozers create access roads and clearings into 75 acres of wilderness, and living with the low roar of the industrial-sized turbines erected on ridges above their homes, Timothy Danyliw, Larry Lorusso, and some of their neighbors have other ways to describe wind energy.
“It’s similar to smoking,” Danyliw said. “Smoking used to be advertised as good for your health.”
“Carbon footprint, big time,” added Lorusso.
Such descriptions echo the rhetoric long used by the green establishment to fight power plants and other development, and it’s causing consternation among environmental and political leaders who have embraced wind power as a key component of renewable energy agendas. In November, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin warned in a speech that attacks on wind projects from within the environmental movement threaten efforts to slow climate change and achieve energy independence.
The climate is going to change no matter what we do. It is changing all the time. Of course, the implication is it is our fault, readers.
Honestly, I don't know the answer. Sun and wind would seem to be the cleanest, but are rather weak sources. What I do know is I do not trust an agenda-pu$hing corporate pre$$ to provide the solutions anymore. They -- and the intere$ts they repre$ent are the cause of the problem.
“If we let those voices that are our own divide us, we will continue to be the [energy] laggards rather than the leaders,” Shumlin said at an event hosted by the New England Clean Energy Council, a trade group. “The stakes have never been higher.”
Many environmental leaders say their support for renewable energy projects depends on proper planning and construction, but their arguments for industrial-scale wind power can sound similar to those used by companies drilling for natural gas....
Related: Shale is Fool's Gold
In this case it's fool's fart.
The projects have stirred opposition from Western Massachusetts to the Boston suburbs to Cape Cod, where residents have long fought the offshore Cape Wind project, which they say will mar views of Nantucket Sound and damage marine habitats. In Scituate, Falmouth, and Kingston, residents have complained that noisy turbines close to their homes cause headaches and dizzy spells, and interrupt sleep.
Research is still ongoing into the health effects of living near wind turbines.
As we have $een with shale, it mu$t be something else.
In response, the state has undertaken noise studies while developing regulations, including acoustic policies, siting guidelines, and monitoring practices, to help communities decide whether wind energy is right for them....
Lorusso, who guides visitors on river rafting trips, said he recognizes that wind power proponents are puzzled by opposition to projects like Hoosac, which they view as a clean, renewable, and endless resource. But Lorusso sees the turbines as interlopers in a wilderness landscape where “the sounds of civilization are few and far between” and the moon lights up a “cosmic sky at night.”
“It doesn’t make sense to me to wreck nature in order to save nature,” Lorusso added. “It was a natural place. It was beautiful, and it has been wrecked now.”
It's the old Vietnam analogy: we had to destroy the village to save it.
Environmental advocates say they remain frustrated by what they see as a “not in my backyard mentality,” despite a widely recognized need to reduce the use of fossil fuels. But even the environmental establishment has struggled to balance benefits against risks, particularly when renewable technologies threaten other priorities, such protecting birds or marine life, said Salo Zelermyer, an environmental attorney at the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani LLP and former senior counsel for the Department of Energy.
“What you’ve seen is that a lot of environmentalists, while talking a good game about wind and solar, have often times opposed large-scale wind turbine development,” Zelermyer said. “What you have left is actually a very small sliver of sources for energy to turn your lights on.”
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How much greenhouse gas is measured in hypocrisy?
Lorusso’s friend, Danyliw, a semi-retired photographer, moved to the Berkshires five years ago, seeking a quieter life. But soon after the wind turbines started operating, he said, he began experiencing headaches and ringing in his ears.
Danyliw, who originally favored the Hoosac project, said he was once a big supporter of wind power. He pointed to his T-shirt depicting men raising a wind turbine, a la Marines raising the American flag at Iwo Jima. Today, he says, he wears the shirt ironically.
“I still believe that renewables are a great idea, but you can’t destroy people’s lives,” he said. “This is like a highway came down and my house is stuck in the median. I chose to live in a quiet place, a healthy place and [Hoosac wind farm] took that away from me.”
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I'm feeling woozy.
