I’ve taken pretty much every opportunity possible this summer to rave about the motherland (Massachusetts for those new to my blog). And so, in the interest of fairness (and with a big, melodramatic sigh), I feel like I have to acknowledge this piece in Grist (which, as a caveat, says some kind of dumb things) and call out the Bay State on the Cape Wind project.
The Cape Wind project is a proposal to build some wind turbines off the shore of Cape Cod, in the Nantucket Sound. The distance of the turbines from shore varies from 4 to 11 miles, depending on where you’re talking about. Now, it appears as if this project will go forward. So, I suppose my forthcoming rant (consider this fair warning) is somewhat unnecessary. But the project has met with opposition and has just barely survived a number of attempts to block it over the years, from people all over the political spectrum. “Not in my backyard” seems to be the prevailing sentiment, though no one will put it in quite those terms. And I think that’s a crappy attitude to have.
Take, for example, my boy Ted Kennedy: arguably one of the most progressive people in the Senate, and someone who has generally supported renewable energy. Yet strangely enough, he is not a big fan of Cape Wind, located near-ish the Kennedy family compound. Ditto on his nephew Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who works as an environmental advocate and often talks about the social justice issues that will be exacerbated by climate change. But let’s not be stingy with credit where credit is due; Republicans have also tried to block the project. Former Governor Mitt Romney was against it, as was his Lt. Gov./aspiring heir Kerry Healey.
So, you might be wondering, how does a project with apparently bipartisan opposition get through? Well, maybe because over 80% of Massachusetts residents support the project, including 58% of those who live in Cape Cod. So while the Cape Wind project had the potential to be a fascinating case study in NIMBY-ism, it is actually more illustrative of environmental justice issues.
Oh yeah, The Daily Show did a segment on this last summer (as a caveat, some Massachusetts residents in this clip say some kind of dumb things).
For all of my idealistic cooing about how, “we’re all in this together,” we finally have a project that in many ways seems to reflect that. More than 80% support. That’s a lot. It’s like those Trident gum commercials that talk about 4 in 5 doctors recommend Trident, and then suggest various scenarios in which the fifth doctor accidentally incapacitated himself. You could hardly do better than that if the question was: do you support the general existence of weekends? Or, do you want fries with that?
The Grist piece uses Cape Wind to illustrate how corporate behavior is out of control. There is perhaps some truth to this, though the cynicism of the conclusion was a little sensational, as was the suggestion that not driving one day would fix it all.
But is there a takeaway point about corporate control, special interests, and all those other buzzwords that have been riling up anarchists for generations? I choose to be comforted by the Cape Wind project’s success. Eighty percent support proved to be something not easily overcome by the boogie men of big corporations and the like. If anything, I think this teaches us that there is value in education – and that establishing consensus is truly powerful.
Well, I guess this ended up being a “Yea Massachusetts!” post after all. But the Red Sox have fallen out of first place as their road woes continue, so we’re really only breaking even. No need to get too jealous.
-Diana
P.S. Some of the details about the Cape Wind project came from the Wikipedia entry.
P.P.S. Today, a TV crew came to our office to film a statement from our executive director about offshore drilling. Go into energy policy, get famous.
