Tilting At Windmills 651
GreedyCapitalist writes "Anne Applebaum writes in the Washington Post about environmentalists who are opposing renewable energy sources." From the article: "Already, activists and real estate developers have stalled projects across Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York. In Western Maryland, a proposal to build wind turbines alongside a coal mine, on a heavily logged mountaintop next to a transmission line, has just been nixed by state officials who called it too environmentally damaging. Along the coast of Nantucket, Mass. -- the only sufficiently shallow spot on the New England coast -- a coalition of anti-wind groups and summer homeowners, among them the Kennedy family, also seems set to block Cape Wind, a planned offshore wind farm. Their well-funded lobbying last month won them the attentions of Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), who, though normally an advocate of a state's right to its own resources, has made an exception for Massachusetts and helped pass an amendment designed to kill the project altogether."
Too True (Score:5, Insightful)
If it wasn't so true, it would be hilarious. Instead, we're currently faced with a no-win scenario. Don't want Power Plant technology X in your back yard? Fine, we'll move it to the middle of the desert. You don't like that because there's a fault there that *might* cause a teeny Earthquake 500 years from now? Fine, we'll move it to the swamp land. What's that? We'd be destroying the natural habitat of mosquitoes? Why do you want to keep mosquitoes around? FINE! Then we'll move it to the ocean where we can... what? You don't want it there, EITHER? Why the hell not? Because it might damage a coral reef? What if we build an artifical one? That will change the ocean currents?
NNNGNGGNNGGGG!! HUMANS #$!@@!# CHANGE #@$!#!@! THINGS !@#!#!!!! IT'S !@#!@# WHAT @!#@!# WE @#$!@#$ DO!
Call us when you don't have power and really, really want some. Good-bye!
There's two kinds of green in politics... (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
I object... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unfucking possible. (Score:1, Insightful)
Well, see, the trick is, the people listed in this article aren't liberals or environmental groups. They're democrats. Fox news wants you to think democrats are liberals. They're not.
Bridge to somewhere (Score:3, Insightful)
Why's that Don? Are you going to help us build a 35-mile bridge from Hyannis to Nantucket instead?
Re:Too True (Score:4, Insightful)
Except it doesn't work that way. The 10 people that bitched about the environment stop the millions from getting power. Those 10 people probably moved somewhere where there was power - so they could bitch about it again, leaving the millions to suffer.
If they don't want wind power ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:An example (Score:4, Insightful)
This may come as a shock, but the left does not have a monopoly on overly wealthy hypocritical asshats who will be the death of us all.
--Ryvar
More Republican Fair-Weather Federalism (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Unfucking possible. (Score:5, Insightful)
liberal != environmentalist
A good environemntalist is a conservative - they conserve their energy use by being conservative with their power needs.
Life is never black & white.
Mod parent up (Score:3, Insightful)
Calling these people environmentalists is an smear attack against actual environmentalists.
NIMBY, Externalities, Fairness (Score:5, Insightful)
Folks are in denial of the seriousness of the energy crisis, and the realities of energy production. They assume that some miracle, somehow, will provide them with the energy to drive out and live in in their beautiful second homes, free of any aesthetic and environmental problems. They want to be close to some idyllic nature, free of stress. And the reason they can be in denial is that energy production - through the magic of long distance ac/dc wires - shifts production burdens to some poor sap somewhere else.
Consider the opposition to wind: why build a wind farm near some lovely guest home on the Cape when you can build a coal plant in West Virginia? The poor folks (and WV is a very poor state), will take the coal plant and see their homes turn grey, their mountains cut to shreds, their lungs turn black. And Cape Cod will be sunny, pretty, free from harm, at the cost of someone else's life.
I realize this sounds extreme, but look at the coal / oil / hydrocarbon executives who lobby Congress for tax breaks for gas and coal production, freedom from pollution controls, etc. and then spend the weekends in Bozeman, Montana. They don't see the effects of the damage they're doing, as, well - they get to live in an idyllic mountain valley.
Until we can develop fusion, energy production will be ugly. Sad, but true. Windmills are not at all perfect, but are hell of a lot better, IMHO, than some coal plant choking the lungs of those folks who cannot afford a second home in luxury land. I wish those who always say NIMBY! would accept some responsibility for their own choices, and recognize the need to share the burden of energy production.
This is an economic case of externalities being allocated to those with the least political power, the least influence, the least chance of fighting back. Putting the plant on the cheapest land may be accounting wise efficient, but may be bad policy. We either have the windmills, or the coal plant, or the nuke, but somewhere power must be generated.
Re:Too True (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a downside to everything... which is something people seem to miss. Joe Sixpack and Sarah Soccermom want a perfect solution that never needs fixing, looks cute and emits only rainbows and pine scented goodness.
There is no perfect solution. Until people accept that, and agree on what the "least bad" solution is, we'll likely be stuck with deadlock. Lets hope it doesn't take electricity rationing and $20 per gallon gasoline to drag people to that point.
Windmills along the PA Turnpike (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a bank of windmills visible from the PA Turnpike, somewhere in the western half of the state. I would suggest that such areas - those adjacent to major traffic arteries - would be excellent locations for wind-based power generation. Quite often the land surrounding the turnpikes and interstates isn't exactly prime residential land, so the NIMBYism might be kept to a minimum.
From The Fine Article: They are right to note that wind will not soon replace coal or gas, that wind isn't always as effective as supporters claim
I find this viewpoint frustrating: "it won't solve all of our problems at once so it is not worth pursuing". We might actually need a combination of solutions to the energy problem - imagine that.
Re:Too True (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, there is a small but significant subset of environmentalists that literally wouldn't be happy until humans are extinct. We need to ignore those people and try to inject some common sense into our environmental discussions.
Inability to compromise at all is what defines a zealot.
Enviornmentalists Are Harming The Enviornment (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean consider this from the perspective of a company, or even country thinking of implementing some measures to minimize the enviornmental harm of their actions. If they know that they will still get bad press from the enviornmental lobby for the damage/harm they are still doing rather than praise for improving their act they have little incentive to improve. In fact making small steps which will be met with criticisms that they don't go far enough can actually make for worse publicity than doing nothing at all.
This is part of a greater refusal on the part of enviornmentalists to prioritize and to admit that enviornmental values, while important, need to trade off with human values. For instance by refusing to even consider (maybe it won't turn out to be worth it but it should be considered) nuclear power enviornmentalists guarantee that we will continue to use coal fired power plants and risk global warming. Sure it might be possible in theory to acheive this goal by all using our own solar panels and other solutions in practice this has a great deal of problems and people are resistant to this level of change. Only by favoring comprimise and slight improvement where politically possible can we get real progress.
Worse, by refusing to prioritize the enviornmental movement makes sure many people don't take them seriously. Go look at the pages of major enviornmental groups or read their newsletters. You see articles about the extinction of some fuzzy forest creature written in the same alarmist tone and message of impending disastor as the warnings about global warming. No wonder people don't take global warming as seriously as they should when implicitly the enviornmental groups put it at the same level as the sort of species extinction that has been occuring for years with limited impact.
If we want to get anything done the enviornmentalists groups need to buckle down and make some hard choices. They need to stop appearing to favor the enviornment over people and instead tell people why saving the enviornment is in people's best interest. Also they need to clearly prioritize and tell us that globabl warming is far more serious than threats to habitate and wildlife and praise projects that help prevent global warming EVEN IF THEY DESTROY HABITAT OR HARM SOME ANIMALS.
Re:Environmental realism (Score:1, Insightful)
In exactly what way? Given the absurd nature of your statement, I think a little more proof than your unfounded assertion is required. How does removing this energy from the environment make a meaningful different?
Re:Too True (Score:2, Insightful)
When you get done with your ridiculous rant, you might stop and look at the ACTUAL benefits of wind power, which are underwhelming:
http://www.aweo.org/lowbenefit.html [aweo.org]
biofuel is bad too??? (Score:1, Insightful)
Wealthy elites make bad environmentalists. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, NIMBY rich people might claim that what they want is to save the environment, but really, all they want is to maintain their property values.
Re:NIMBY, Externalities, Fairness (Score:1, Insightful)
While I concur with what you've said, the "eye pollution" argument seems totally unfounded to me even if it were valid that aesthetics somehow trump solutions to the energy crisis.
I was up at the Melancthon Grey Wind Project on my way to Tobermory a few years back. It's spectacular. I imagine that offshore wind turbines would be nothing short of awe inspiring, frankly.
Fuck the Kennedys. Seriously.
Absolute stupidity (Score:4, Insightful)
I've seen no end of moronic arguments about this stuff. Some of the "better examples":
I hate this crap. They're terrified of their property values dropping, so they are desperately trying to fight it any way they can, digging up any idea they can come up with for why this is stupid. Wind power works great in a lot of european countries, without any nasty "ecological impacts".
Maybe they'd like a nuclear power plant on Nantucket instead? How about a coal-fired electric plant? Maybe they'd like their electric bill to quadruple to pay for solar panels that won't last more than 15 years?
Re:Too True (Score:5, Insightful)
Use less energy can mean:
Stop buying vehicles that are wasteful.
Stop driving 5 extra miles to save 8 cents on a loaf of bread.
Maybe investigate how to make 18-wheelers get 5mpg more than they do now.
Build a bike lane once in a while.
Don't give subsidies to companies that pollute when there are cleaner alternatives.
There are thousands of ways to reduce energy use. Many involve technology.
We can consume what we do now, and watch the population grow so that the total amount of energy consumed increases.
Or, we can reduce what we consume now and be more efficient. As the growth in the population occurs, energy use increases at a slower rate.
How hard would it be for us to tell energy companies, no subsidies for you. That money is going to buy insulation, and CF bulbs for every house in the country? Total electricity (therefore coal/gas) usage declines.
Re:Supersonic Windmill (Score:2, Insightful)
People will complain about anything, I promise.
Also, the pipeline idea's not bad, but not particularly economical. Long pipelines are expensive and break a lot, and for the amount of power generated, wouldn't work out very well. Windmills are cheaper and easier to maintain.
Really, what we need to do is build nuclear powerplants, but people get all freaked out because "OH NOES! NUCULAR!" Just because the Soviets couldn't build a proper power plant (the last set of Soviet MIGs were made of ALUMINUM and PLYWOOD, what do you expect?!) doesn't mean it's a bad idea. Three Mile Island was perfectly contained and is still in operation, despite almost every failsafe going wrong at once. If you build the plant properly, they work great. There's something like 20 in operation currently around the world (mostly in Europe) and they work great.
Re:Too True (Score:5, Insightful)
The "actual benefits of wind power" are neither here nor there.
Re:Too True (Score:5, Insightful)
These groups take on an environmental mantle because it sounds a lot better than the other arguments they'd be making - namely, "My million dollar estate will lose 10% of its value", "Uck, something white that spins!", and "Wind farms cause women to have five periods a month and give them brain cancer." Real environmental groups (for example, the Sierra Club) love wind farms [sierraclub.org].
It's annoying to see people on sites like slashdot buy into the "oooh, all those nutty environmentalists keep contradicting themselves! They must just want to destroy society!" arguments.
Re:I object... (Score:4, Insightful)
So I open the comments expecting to see all of them basically repeating same, but instead I had to scroll all the way down here to find your comment.
Re:Tourism & fishing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:More Republican Fair-Weather Federalism (Score:2, Insightful)
Nothing is being forced down anyone's throat.
Re:Too True (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is, avoiding technology does nothing to move it forward. All you're doing is making sparing use of something like a lightbulb when what you really need is a good, old-fashioned problem for the market to deal with. That problem is that your energy costs are too high because your energy usage is high. Companies will then invest billions of dollars in trying to fix that problem in hopes of making money.
We may need to add more power generation capacity, but it would be nice to see some conservation happen first.
These two options cannot occur independently. Technology moves forward at an overall slow pace. (Even if individual innovations may appear to be breakneck.) If you simply start cutting off the usage of the current infrastructure, you're not going to get anywhere.
For example, the Motorola phone I use today can sit on standby for a good week or so before it needs to be recharged. Talk time is up in the area of hours. The old analog phones I used to have to deal with needed to be charged every other day. Yet my new phone does a lot more than my old phone. What changed?
Well, yes. For one the powerpack in my Motorola is better than the old one. It does store more energy. But nowhere near enough energy to make the difference seen. The real difference is that the technology got better. Instead of a powerful analog signal, my phone broadcasts a light digital communications channel. Thanks to the abilities of the built in microprocessor, that digital communications channel simply doesn't require the same amount of power to trasmit a clearer signal. The phone can even manage power to use only what is necessary to ensure a low rate of errors in the transmission. In comparison, the analog phones were spewing power, but often would still fail to keep a clear signal. Many of the lower powered phone were junk.
So the point is, keep technology moving. Certainly, we should be responsible with it. But stopping progress is far more irresponsible.
Re:Too True (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Too True (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the term was used loosely here, IMHO. these were animal lovers, and not in my backyard, very wealthy people.
In my book, if you got a swimming pool, more bedrooms, and bathrooms than people living in the house, and own a vehicle that ways over 3000#'s you are not a environmentalist.
now don't interperit that as saying I find anything wrong with living that way, I do what I can to get thier myself. But I realize thats I am not good for the environment, and try not to claim to be able to tell others their not entitled to do anyhting less damaging than I do myself. (well I would if it were land I owened, but if you want to do it on land you plan to own/buy.)
Re:Absolute stupidity (Score:3, Insightful)
Yea. Good job. Do you realize how small a number 6,000 is?
It's a hell of a lot less than the number of *people* who die each year because coal power is used instead of wind power.
Re:Unfucking possible. (Score:2, Insightful)
Vote against all incumbants. Elect someone who has actually held a real job and done productive work. Someone that knows what it is to struggle to pay a mortgage or just survive at todays wage scale. I make more than my parents did 40 years ago, but it only buys 1/3 of what they could.
Ted Kennedy, the poster boy of what's wrong with Washington: Never has held a real job - has lived on the taxpayers dime for over 40 years. Born rich, never earned a penny of it himself (of course if money laundering laws were retroactive to prohibition he could be broke since Joe made more than half the family fortune as a rum runner). Supposed champion of the poor - the only poor people he has ever known are his underpaid servants.
Re:Aren't these windmills.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:3, Insightful)
Ummm, calm it there, tiger. I think you're confusing demographics. If anything, environmentalist types come from educated, intellectual backgrounds, who, statistically, get married later in life, have less children, and are more likely to use birth control. The reality is that it's middle-america... mid-western catholic or fundy protestant types, or the low-income, uneducated, and uninformed that have the largest number of rugrats. A lot of the people I know are environmentalists, and I tend to consider myself one, and if they have any children at all, it's usually just one or two.
The very demographic you're refering to is one of the only ones who actually understands what a vasectomy is. I think you're more refering to the suberban soccer-mom demographic, which though may be full of educated professionals, is quite far from environmentalism. In fact, they're almost soully responsible for the rise in popularity of SUVs and are the ultimate consumers/poluters. Go to church on Sunday, hear about how everyone else is going to hell but you, drag 6 kids in a Ford Explorer to hockey practice and marching band, go to the NASCAR racetrack on Saturday, watch Fox News, and vote for Bush, think you're doing the world a favor, and then piss on everyone else. I think that's the demographic you're refering to.
oh hell yes mod way way up (Score:1, Insightful)
Here let me try:
Evolution is proven fact. +5 Insightful.
There are no bad elements in the environmental movement. +5 Interesting.
Windows doesn't scale. +5 Informative.
Walmart is poopy. +5 Funny.
Yep, it's easy to play the mindless majority here.
There will always be someone to oppose (Score:3, Insightful)
Too many times those opposing any development live no where near it. They travel to the sites to protest or wage dissent from afar.
What it comes down to is that there are groups that feel as if they are above us. They think it is their place to tell others what is good for them and that these "others" must do without because it is for "the best".
Power is a valuable resource. With it we can bring the standards of living up for those it is provided too. With renewable resources we can accomplish this with very little impact on future generations except for perhaps a better environment. Keeping development of alternative and renewable resources only furthers the negative impact currently "dirty" methods cause.
What is ever so appalling is that many of these elites are politically connected, well off, and imposing on those who cannot afford alternatives to live a lesser life. They would rather sacrifice the comfort of others just so they can feel righteous in their position. Sure some are truly out to help the environment but they are misguided as nothing will ever meet their standards. As soon as their standard is met they will update it or another group will step in with more stringent requirements.
We have to face one thing, whether or not we do something to free our dependance on dirty sources of power and dependance on others for power, other countries will move forward. They will do what is necessary to improve their lives while we forever come up with excuses to sit back and do nothing.
Civilizations do not advance by sitting still. They do not advance by listening to every naysayer who pops out of the woodwork. But they do decline when they do sit still and become hamstrung by the naysayers into doing nothing. It is no different on the political front in the world as it is in the environmental front. Both will go from bad to worse if we reason ourself into a corner.
Re:Unfucking possible. (Score:3, Insightful)
Political conservatism has nothing to do with conservation of resources.
The core tenet of political conservatism is small government and personal freedom. That means _less_ government regulation on everything, _including_ environmental issues.
That's nice in "theory", like how communism is all about bettering the lives of all people, not just a few.
In practice, conservative does not equate to small government and more personal freedom. With "conservatives" in charge of the government for last 6 years, the government has grown larger and (even more frightening) personal freedom has taken severe cutbacks.
Generally, conservatives want other people to live by "their" values - i.e. they don't want to pay taxes (but still want all the benefits and more from the government), they want theocracy, they want to watch and control everything you say (you shouldn't mind if you have nothing to hide), and absolute corporate freedom (not the same thing as "personal freedom").
This message brought to you buy Real Life 101.
Re:Desert Windmills (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Too True (Score:5, Insightful)
Being rich doesn't imply owning a house with more bathrooms than people. Being rich doesn't imply owning a car that weighs more than 1.5 tons. Being an environmentalist (and actually practicing what you preach) does imply purchasing a fuel-efficient vehicle unless you have a serious need for one which is not, and does otherwise imply not wasting scarce or non-renewable resources.
Heating or cooling a 6,000 square foot house uses scarce resources. Moving a 1.5 ton vehicle around the road uses scarce resources. An individual who is serious about protecting the environment, even if they are able to afford the 6,000 square foot house or the 1.5 ton vehicle, will not purchase such items unless they have a legitimate need.
Understand?
Read into it and see why (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that most the time it comes down to property values; having seen how people react where I live to low income housing, white castle, or when the black family moved in down the street -- property values can bring out the worst in people. More amazing is how they try to cling to any reason except the actual one.
Re:Too True (Score:5, Insightful)
The "enviromentalists" that are against wind and solar power on account of asthetics piss me off. If we can't get energy from wind or solar because they don't look pretty and we can't get energy from fossil fuels because of CO2 and other emissions and nuclear power makes baby Jesus cry, then where the hell DO we get it from?
Re:Unfucking possible. (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. Low taxes requires low government consumption. Low energy bills in your home requires low energy usage.
The guy who calculates that each use of a single pair of $400 shoes plus 2 new sets of soles ($50 a shot) is 21 cents per day over a decade vesus 40 cents per day for a pair of $100 shoes that last a year -- thus buys the single pair of shoes.
Reduce and Reuse are both far more important than Recycling but it takes an awfully frugle person to make significant headway on them.
Live well beneth your means and you will be an exceptional environmentalist and have a ton of cash in the bank.
Re:More Republican Fair-Weather Federalism (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree 100%, except it is rich Cape Cod Democrats protesting the wind farms.
Re:Too True (Score:5, Insightful)
Freeways weren't designed to be places to "enjoy nature". They were designed for transportation. If you want to enjoy nature, go to a national park.
So instead of generating some invisible CO2 which plants need to generate oxygen, we instead use "clean" alternatives that destroy thousands of acres from a visual, natural, and ecosystem standpoint. Which is really worse on the environment?
The air pollution is worse. Nature doesn't care about how things look, only about how they effect the lives of the plants and animals nearby. Windmills have much less of an effect on the environment than their conventional equivalent does, and that's not even counting the environmental effect of the various wars that are being fought (and will be fought in the future) to control the remaining fossil fuels. If we built renewable energy infrastructure now, we can avoid those later.
Re:Too True (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Too True (Score:5, Insightful)
At least that's what those particular kinds of environmentalists believe -- personally, I think wind (and solar, and tidal, and nuclear) power is great.
Limousine Liberals (Score:1, Insightful)
Rich liberals don't care about you and me. They don't care about taxes. They like to vote like they care, but they don't. They made their money. They inherited their money. They don't pay taxes because they don't earn anything, so there's nothing to tax. For the most part, they're immune to every crazy law they create.
How many times have you seen Ted Kennedy driving a Prius? How about any of these knuckleheads that claim they can't stand oil? They all are chauffered around in private limousines, private jets. They have little or no idea how the rest of the world lives. They want to be able to say that they did something, that they showed some concern for the environment, so they voted some tax credit for renewable energy... then profited from it in some way.
Why doesn't the media start carrying this story about Teddy Kennedy and his hatred for Windmills in his backyard? Where's Dan Rather, Katie Couric and the rest of the treehugging liberal newsmedia?
Re:Too True (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Too True (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too True (Score:3, Insightful)