Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics and the Battle for Our Energy Future

from AlterNet:



Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics and the Battle for Our Energy Future

By Wendy Williams and Robert Whitcomb, Public Affairs Books. Posted June 8, 2007.



A new book, "Cape Wind," tells the controversial story of what happens when a wind farm is proposed for the backyard of some of America's most wealthy, famous and politically powerful people. Tools

Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from Wendy Williams and Robert Whitcomb's new book, "Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound" (Public Affairs, 2007).

Prologue

December 6, 2004

Martha's Vineyard Island, Mass.

David McCullough's face contorted with anger. "It's outrageous!" he yelled. He sounded like anyone but the mellow, well-measured man of letters who narrated tales of American history on national television. Indeed, the popular author sounded quite overwrought. Nantucket Sound, he shouted, is "hallowed ground."

He had uttered that phrase before, as the narrator of Ken Burns' famous Civil War documentary aired on public television. This time, however, he was sounding his own battle cry, crowing his promotion to general in the seaside civil war, a war that had become an internationally watched conflict over the future of energy and of America's air, coasts and oceans.

On this late-fall evening, as the sky spit a chilly mixture of snow and sleet, McCullough's big voice filled the high school auditorium lobby on Martha's Vineyard, an island favored by movie stars, politicians, the international jet set, authors and other glitterati. He continued his mini oration, "This is a preservation issue. It's not an environmental issue."

McCullough, surrounded by a small circle of admirers, had just walked out of the first of a group of four public hearings called by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regarding a proposal to build a large electrical-generation project in the middle of a body of water known as Nantucket Sound. Cape Wind Associates, a limited liability company, wanted to place a vast field of wind turbines out in the salt water. The turbines would, said the developers, produce enough clean electricity to satisfy a considerable proportion of Cape Cod's needs. Indeed, on rare occasions, the project would supply all the necessary electricity, obviating the consumption of fossil fuels.

Over the three years the battle had raged, McCullough's opposition to the project had become common knowledge around Cape Cod and the wealthy islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, in part because of a highly emotional radio advertisement he had recorded that excoriated the project. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/environment/53210/

Even the guillotine is too good for these types.