Nov
9
A five-minute clip of The Daily Show from two years ago (and still no progress) via Mother Jones quoting a blog at the Economist about the ridiculous opposition to the Cape Wind project:
There’s a modestly sympathetic way to read this kind of resistance, and it has to do with the way that environmentalism straddles different strands of American romanticism, which can sometimes conflict with each other. Historical preservationism and the romantic mythologising of indigenous cultures have both played valuable roles in American culture, and they grow from the same “On Walden Pond” roots as environmentalism itself. And that’s all fine and good; but CO2 is at 370 ppm and rising. Enough is enough. If we are to have any hope of reducing carbon emissions, we are going to have to change our energy infrastructure. That requires some modicum of willingness to tolerate public action that affects one’s own lifestyle. If we can’t even get an offshore wind-farm project running, after eight years, because of a bunch of wealthy, self-indulgent whiners, there is absolutely no hope for reducing carbon emissions, and the heirs of those privileged preservationists will be able to watch the sun rise over the pristine Atlantic waters covering what used to be Nantucket Island.
