Cape Wind Associates’ plan to build a big wind-power farm off the coast of Cape Cod has been dividing enviros for years, but the disagreement got a lot more heated last month when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ran a high-profile op-ed railing against the project in The New York Times.
An excerpt:
These turbines are less than six miles from shore and would be seen from Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Hundreds of flashing lights to warn airplanes away from the turbines will steal the stars and nighttime views. The noise of the turbines will be audible onshore. A transformer substation rising 100 feet above the sound would house giant helicopter pads and 40,000 gallons of potentially hazardous oil. According to the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the project will damage the views from 16 historic sites and lighthouses on the cape and nearby islands. The Humane Society estimates the whirling turbines could every year kill thousands of migrating songbirds and sea ducks.
That didn’t sit so well with many enviros who see climate change as the big environmental issue and therefore think renewable-energy projects should be welcomed in all our backyards. More than 150 green leaders and activists this week sent a letter to Kennedy asking him to reconsider. Word is Kennedy said he’ll meet with them to discuss. We’ll keep you posted.
Meantime, here’s the letter:January 3, 2006
Mr. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Chief Prosecuting Attorney
Riverkeeper
828 South Broadway
Tarrytown, NY 10591
Dear Mr. Kennedy,
As advocates for a clean-energy future, we admire your forceful advocacy for action on global warming. We are now writing to respectfully request that you reconsider your position against the vitally important Cape Wind project.
Cape Wind would provide roughly 75 percent of the electricity for Cape Cod. It is crucial to establishing America’s economic and environmental leadership on global warming. Cape Wind would prove the viability of wind as a good source of energy to American investors, politicians and the public, and will address issues of poverty and social justice in greater Boston. The management of Cape Wind plans to use local port facilities with available capacity, as a manufacturing center for wind farms up and down the East Coast. That manufacturing facility would create hundreds of jobs for under or unemployed residents of the area.
Like the tens-of-thousands of other Americans in the growing movement to stop global warming, you know that addressing this crisis will require a dramatic transformation of America’s energy economy. Doing so will require more than simply buying hybrid cars and installing fluorescent light bulbs. It will require the development of a large-scale, alternative energy infrastructure capable of meeting the nation’s energy needs.
According to both the U.S. Department of Energy and a Massachusetts state energy agency, wind power could provide all the electricity used in the United States today. By contrast, the continuing use of coal-generated electricity (since coal is the most carbon-intensive of fuels) will hasten the day when large parts of Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket and the outer Cape are submerged by rising sea levels.
Nothing threatens the Earth’s most special places more than global warming. The changes being wrought by our warming of the atmosphere are melting the Arctic tundra, overheating the Amazon rainforest, and heating the oceans. We are, simply put, in a state of ecological emergency. Constructing windmills six miles from Cape Cod, where they will be visible as half-inch dots on the horizon is the least that we can do.
A diverse coalition of Americans, including forward-thinking CEOs, evangelical leaders, and college students, is building a hopeful future of clean-energy sources, cutting-edge technologies, and rewarding and high-paying jobs. The installation of the Cape Wind farm will be an important turning-point for this new grassroots movement.
We urge you to reconsider your opposition to Cape Wind, and to support the truly hopeful movement it represents.
Signed,
Meg Boyle
Executive Director, The Climate Campaign
Gary Braasch
Environmental Photographer, worldviewofglobalwarming.org
Michael Brune
Executive Director, Rainforest Action Network
Anthony D. Cortese, Sc.D.
President, Second Nature
Dr. Robert Costanza
Gordon Gund Professor of Ecological Economics and Director, Gund Institute of Ecological Economics, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, The University of Vermont
Jared Duval
National Director, Sierra Student Coalition
Ross Gelbspan
Author of The Heat is On and Boiling Point
Ted Glick
Project Coordinator, Climate Crisis Coalition
Eban Goodstein
Executive Director, The Green House Network
Jonathan Isham, Ph.D.
Department of Economics and Program in Environmental Studies, Middlebury College
Russell Long, Ph.D.
Founder, Bluewater Network, and Vice President, Friends of the Earth US
Father Paul Mayer,
Co-founder, The Climate Crisis Coalition
Bill McKibben
Author of The End of Nature
David Merrill
Executive Director, GlobalWarmingSolution.org
Aditya Nochur
MA State Coordinator, Climate Campaign, Tufts University
Ted Nordhaus
The Breakthrough Institute
Alfred Padula
Chair, Green Campus Consortium of Maine
Billy Parish
Coordinator, Energy Action
John Passacantando
Executive Director, Greenpeace USA
Michael Shellenberger
The Breakthrough Institute
Tom Stokes
Co-founder, The Climate Crisis Coalition
Mike Tidwell
Director, Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Anne Adler
Greenwich, CT
Ben Adler
Greenwich, CT
Richard Adler
Greenwich, CT
Robert Adler
Middlebury, VT, Sunday Night Group, Middlebury College
Corinne Almquist
Randolph, NJ, Energy Action/Middlebury College
Caroline Ballou
Burlington, VT, Students for Peace and Global Justice, University of Vermont
M. Robin Barone, Esq.
Newbury, VT
Aaron Barr
Blacksburg, VA, GE Wind Energy and Virginia Tech grad
Will Bates
Greenwich, CT, Middlebury College
Carly Berger
Princeton, NJ, Middlebury College
Christina Billingsley
Dallas, TX, University of Washington Sierra Student Coalition
Jean E. Thomson Black
Darien, CT
G. May Boeve
Sonoma, CA, The Climate Campaign/Middlebury College
Tom Brennan
Yardley, PA, Princeton Environmental Action
David Carlson
Middlebury, VT, People for Less Pollution
Bill Chaloupka, Ph.D.
Fort Collins, CO, Colorado State University,
Mary Jane Clay
Lake Bluff, IL
Ainsley Close
Mercer Island, WA, Sunday Night Group, Middlebury College
Frank Conrad
Rutland, Vermont, Principal, Business Strategy Advisors of Vermont
Sarah Coppinger
Philadelphia, PA, University of Vermont
Lindsey Corbin
Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard, MA
Laurie Cox
Ripton, VT
Spencer Lafayette Cox
Marina del Rey, CA, Middlebury College
Liz Cunningham
Burlington, VT, Vermont Campus Energy Group
Lindsay Dahl
St. Paul, MN
Jessica DeBiasio
St. Petersburg, FL, University of Vermont
Lori Del Negro, Ph.D.
Lake Forest, IL, Lake Forest College
Shannon Donegan
Seattle, WA, Co-Commodore of the Middlebury College Sailing Club who knows from experience how great the Cape winds are after starting her sailing career there
Michael K. Dorsey, Ph.D.
Dartmouth College, Environmental Studies Program
Jesse Feinberg
Newton, MA, Co-coordinator Big Red Go Green, Madison, WI
Jay Fitzgerald
Brunswick, ME, Middlebury College
Lindsey Franklin
Concord, MA, Sunday Night Group, Middlebury College
Amelia Gerlin
Shelburne, VT
Sara Granstrom
New Haven, VT, Sunday Night Group, Middlebury College
Samantha Green
Hamilton, ON, Canada, Sierra Youth Coalition
Dudley Greeley
Cumberland, ME, Sustainability Coordinator, University of Southern Maine
Catherine Gruber
Bryn Mawr, PA, University of Vermont
Elizabeth Guenard
Lunenburg, MA, University of Vermont
Carol Guest
Norwich, VT, Middlebury College
Ashley Hall
Burlington, VT, Vermont Student Environmental Program
Gordon Hamilton, PhD
Orono, ME, Climate Change Institute, University of Maine
Liz Hartman
Albany, NY, State University of New York at Albany and Kyoto Now!
Dr. Steve Hegedus
Newark, DE, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Studies
Bonnie Hemphill
Cary, NC, Sunday Night Group, Middlebury College
Jamie Henn
Cambridge, MA, Energy Action
Melissa Henry
San Pedro, CA, Environmental Consciousness Outreach of Tufts
University
Timothy Den Herder-Thomas
Jersey City, NJ, Macalester Conservation and Renewable Energy Society (MacCARES)
Tracy Himmel Isham
Cornwall, VT, Middlebury College
Connie Hogarth
The Climate Crisis Coalition
Katelyn Homeyer
Burlington, VT, University of Vermont
Anne Hoover
Middlebury, VT, People for Less Pollution
Emily Irwin
New Canaan, CT, Middlebury College
Jon Isham, Sr.
Middlebury, VT
Libby Isham
Middlebury, VT
Andrew Jacobi
New York, NY
AugustusJordan
Middlebury, VT, Middlebury College
Daniel Kane
Middlebury, VT, Middlebury College
Chris McGrory Klyza, Ph.D.
Bristol, VT, Middlebury College
Linda J. Knutson
Middlebury, VT, Middlebury College
Charles Komanoff
Economist and Environmental Activist
Rachel Korschun
Atlanta, GA, Middlebury College
Emma Kosciak
Groton, MA, Saint Michael’s College/Climate Campaign
Joseph Laur
Wendell, MA, Society for Organizational Learning Sustainability Consortium
Retta Leaphart
Helena, MT, Middlebury College
David Leighton
Ellington, CT, University of Connecticut
Austen Levihn-Coon
Austin, TX, Energy Action
Caitlin Littlefield
Andover, MA, Middlebury College
Steven Maier
State Representative, Vermont General Assembly
Trista McGetrick
Louisville, KY, Sunday Night Group, Middlebury College
Julia McKinnon
Kalispell, MT, Middlebury College
Tylor Middlestadt
San Luis Obispo, CA, President, Associated Students, Inc.
Kathleen Mikulski
Brookline, MA, SustainUS.org
Wendy Morgan
Peacham, VT
Katharine Mountcastle
New Canaan, CT, Trustee, Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation
Kenneth Mountcastle
New Canaan, CT
Noah Munro
Boston, MA, Energy Action
Suvi Neukam
Amherst, NH, Middlebury College
Johanna Nichols
Cornwall, VT, from my faith as a Unitarian Universalist
Rachel Norton
Denver, CO, Sunday Night Group, Middlebury College
Michael Olinick
Middlebury, VT
Judith Olinick
Middlebury, VT
Susan Olshuff
Lenox, MA
Clare O’Reilly
Briarcliff, NY, Student Conservation Association
Jeremy Osborn
Simsbury, CT, Energy Action
Ellen Oxfeld
Middlebury, VT (summer Cape Cod vacationer too)
Spencer Paddock
Missoula, MT
Greg Pahl
Weybridge, Vt., Author
Esther Palmer
Columbus, OH
Michael Palmer, J.D., Ph.D.
Cornwall, VT, Strategies for Good Outcomes
Michael Philbin
Bolton, MA, Middlebury College
Emily Picciotto
Middlebury College
Elizabeth Quinn
East Hampton, NY, Sunday Night Group, Middlebury College
Barry Rabe, Ph.D.
Ann Arbor, MI, University of Michigan.
Carrie Reed, Ph.D.
Middlebury, VT, Middlebury College
Ron Rink
Springboro, Ohio
Micah J. Rose
Seattle, WA, Sierra Student Coalition UW
Mike Rosen
Seattle, WA
Jean Rosenberg
Middlebury, VT
Peter Rosenau Viola
Bryn Mawr, PA, Middlebury College
Rebecca Ryals
Brodheadsville, PA, Duke University, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences
Hazel Ryerson
Cambridge, MA, University of Vermont
Carlos Rymer
Ithaca, NY, Cornell University
Jason Schaefer
Dakota Resource Council/Energy Action
Rev. Diana F. Scholl
Middlebury, VT
Amy Seif
Portsmouth, NH
Mark Stout
Fresno, CA, Renewable Energy/Air Quality Consultant
Andrea Suozzo
New York, NY, Sunday Night Group, Middlebury College
Patrick Swan
Horseheads, NY, Middlebury College
Peter Teague
New York, NY
Kim Teplitzky
Fairfax, VA, Temple University/Sierra Student Coalition
Richard Valentinetti
Moretown, VT
Erin Vaughan
Albany, NY, University of Vermont, Vermont Student Environmental Program (VSTEP)
Liz Veazey
Morganton, NC, Energy Action
John Wade
Jackson, MS
Jon Warnow
Middlebury, VT
Spencer Weart
Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, American Institute of Physics
Caroline Webster
Belmont, MA, concerned citizen
Michael Werner
Easton, PA, Lafayette Environmental Awareness and Protection
Julia West
Ipswich, MA, Middlebury College
Juliana Williams
Bellevue, WA, Sierra Student Coalition, Whitman College
Nora Williams
Minneapolis, MN, Middlebury College
Matt Wormser
Shelburne, VT
Dave Wright
Sturbridge, MA, Middlebury
