Tilting at Windmills

Environmentalists are squaring off against each other in a contentious dispute over a proposed wind project in Cape Cod's Nantucket Sound, six miles offshore. The most notable opponent of the plan is clean-water campaigner and environmental attorney, Robert Kennedy, Jr., who argues that the turbines will mar ocean views and put fishermen out of work. On the other side of the issue are folks like writer Bill McKibben and journalist Ross Gelbspan who argue that wind, as a carbon-free power source, is well worth the trade-offs in the age of climate change. Some critics have even blasted Kennedy for what they say is patrician NIMBY-ism, plain and simple (the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port overlooks Nantucket Sound). Gelbspan respectfully submits to Grist's Amanda Griscom Little that Kennedy's position, "bespeaks a lack of understanding of the consequences of escalating climate change." It's a charge Kennedy takes exception to.