We need wind power to fight
global warming


Wind power has become a vexing issue in Maine, as it has elsewhere in the country.
Last week, voters in Freedom who were in favor of building a three-tower wind energy project on Beaver Ridge outnumbered opponents two to one. While the vote was not binding, wind power developers Competitive Energy Company of Portland had said they would not build their project in a town whose residents did not want them.
The tide was decidedly in the opposite direction when a day earlier, the Land Use Regulation Commission allowed a number of organizations opposed to a western Maine wind farm to intervene in their consideration of a permit for that project. The groups include Maine Audubon, the Appalachian Mountain Club and other environmental organizations; they say the region's ridgelands are the wrong place for the development, where they claim it poses threats to rare plants and animals as well as to the scenic quality of the landscape.
The conflicts over wind power development here mirror similar conflicts over construction of a large wind farm in Nantucket Sound as well as other projects in Vermont and Maryland. In many of these cases, the battles resemble internecine warfare as one group of environmentalists is pitted against another. One camp says, "These projects will kill important species, make too much noise and scar the view," while the other side says, "There won't be any animals left for you to defend if we don't do something to stop global warming."
There is a difference between a project like Freedom's and a project like the one in the Western Mountains of Maine. Freedom's development includes three turbines; the other one calls for 30 turbines. One is virtually a backyard development; the other is an industrial-level project that will affect an entire region.
We believe both are necessary. The evidence is mounting that global warming poses a critical threat to our planet's wellbeing and that its effects are likely already being felt. The migration routes of animals have been altered, which may affect their survival; glaciers are melting; our weather is changing. We need to take measures now to stem global warming's progress; wind power offers a way to do that.
In the best of all possible worlds, this country would conserve its way out of our addiction to burning fossil fuels, which is the largest human contribution to global warming. We would discourage consumption and heavily subsidize the development of alternative, non-polluting energy sources. We'd have a president who set an example for all of us, who wore sweaters instead of turning up the heat and whose motorcade consisted entirely of hybrid cars and not gas guzzling SUVs.
Yet we must act long before that dream becomes a reality.
Wind power must be a significant element in our fight to counter the effects of global warming. We cannot and should not fight every development, in a war of attrition that will ultimately discourage the use of this important alternative energy source. We understand the feelings of those who lament the loss of a beautiful view, the potential damage to wildlife species and the industrialization of a largely untouched landscape. But not developing wind power carries an even higher price, a price we should not be forced to pay while we argue over the one place in this state where we might be willing to place a turbine.
Home DeliverySubscribe to the Kennebec Journal or Morning Sentinel for just $2.49 a week for 12 weeks