At the risk of pushing everyone’s buttons, you’d think the disastrous BP oil spill, the din over drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Gas Shale, a couple of recent nuclear power issues, and the energy bill stalled in Congress, would galvanize the local press and the public to seriously consider wind power for some of our energy needs. (Check here for the above stories: Rochester Environmental News ). But the New York State Power Authority’s Great Lakes Offshore Wind Project (GLOW) isn’t getting much attention.
Why not? These off-shore wind farms in Lake Ontario have the potential to produce 120 to 500 MW of power--nothing to sneeze at. Wind power doesn’t pollute the atmosphere, doesn’t warm the planet, doesn’t use up our natural resources, nor does it run the potential of befouling all the land and water near it. Is wind power perfect? No, but it does not at all deserve the bad press it gets either: Myths vs facts.
I know it’s naïve to think that we might inconvenience ourselves just to buck the system that is wrecking our environment. There so much money and power in the oil industry. There are so many people ready to say nasty things if you question a fossil-fuel based economy. And there’s so much other stuff going on. Despite the carnage, it’s so much easier to just drill for oil and keep doing what we are doing.
That sounds naïve too. In the real world, where the laws of physics are at play, there are consequences to all our actions. We are not innocent by-standers to the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or the contentious move to begin drilling for natural gas near-by. Every time we turn the key in the ignition or heat our homes with fossil fuels, we are part of the problem. We are legitimatizing an energy system that isn’t in the long-term interest of our lives.
The oil continues to spill into the Gulf. Ice in the Arctic and Antarctic melts. The planet warms. Political pundits argue whether Obama should have made his case for his energy bill from the Oval Office. Groups gather and protest when wind farms threaten their view. We drive our vehicles unmindful of the price to our planet. Landowners want the chance to make a quick buck on drilling on their property. The public when polled say they want renewable energy. The media cannot or will not connect the dots because they want to remain “objective”, as if they and their high-tech equipment wouldn’t be lost if our environment collapsed.
If we don’t begin to connect the dots and appreciate how the complicated and convoluted route from the switch on our lamp befouls and warms the planet, then we are not a serious people. We are like children who think magic is running the place.
Comments