Tilting at Windmills

Bill McKibben has an op-ed in today’s New York Times that’s spot on, in my opinion: the objections to wind power turbines raised by local environmental groups are misguided and fail to consider the big picture.The example with which I’m most familiar is the opposition by the Appalachian Trail Conference (of which I’m a member) to the proposed wind towers on Redington Ridge, Maine.

Groups like the ATC worry openly about the deleterious effects of global warming on the one hand, but oppose wind turbines for aesthetic reasons. I don’t understand how they think they can have it both ways. The solution to global warming, in the long-run, is clearly green, sustainable energy. That’s a thing of beauty in its own right.

We – and local environmental groups – need to come to the point where we find these technologies beautiful for their functionality, for the way they enable us to exist the energy-intensive world we all want to live in. Nothing less will work.