NIMBY

I'll be honest and say I truly do not understand people who think that we aren't adversely affecting the world we live in. The earth wasn't meant to have it's forests cut down, it's water polluted, it's air contaminated, and it's balance disrupted. And I really don't understand why people are so afraid of harnessing the wind to create electricity. Nine out of every 10 tons of coal mined in the United States today is used to generate electricity, and more than half of the electricity used in this country is coal-generated electricity (teachcoal.org)

And what do coal burning electricity power plants produce? Let me tell you

• Generation of hundreds of millions of tons of waste products, including fly ash, bottom ash, flue gas desulfurization sludge, that contain mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic
  
• Acid rain from high sulfur coal
• Interference with groundwater and water table levels
• Contamination of land and waterways and destruction of homes from fly ash spills
• Impact of water use on flows of rivers and consequential impact on other land-uses
• Dust nuisance
• Subsidence above tunnels, sometimes damaging infrastructure
• · Coal-fired power plants without effective fly ash capture are one of the largest sources of human-caused radiation exposure Coal-fired power plants shorten nearly 24,000 lives a year in the United States, including 2,800 from lung cancer
• Coal-fired power plants emit mercury, selenium, and arsenic which are harmful to human health and the environment
• Release of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, which causes climate change according to the IPCC. Coal is the largest contributor to the human-made increase of CO₂ in the air

I, for one, am pretty happy that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is expected to give Cape Wind a green light today.

Oh, and Wampanoag's? You might want to let the whole tribe know about your plan before you make up fictional "ancient rituals". Your story may actually be credible if you do.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/20/cape.cod.wind.farm/index.html?iref=allsearch

And to the people who are crying it will ruin their views? Most places on the cape and islands will NOT be able to see the turbines. And those who will (and yes, some will see it), they will appear to be a half inch tall.
"The project is about five miles off Cape Cod at its closest proximity to land and 14 miles off Nantucket at the greatest distance. According to visual simulations done for Cape Wind, on a clear day the turbines would be about a half inch tall on the horizon at the nearest point and appear as "specks" from Nantucket" (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/6979480.html)

A HALF INCH.

SPECKS

Or we could just keep burning coal and see where that leads us. Personally, I will not be in favor of nuclear power until there is a good solution surrounding what to do with all the nuclear waste (and no, trucking it into Nevada isn't a good idea. Dingbats.)

Even George "I hate the environment" Bush gave this project a green light before he left office.

www.capewind.org.

Read it.

Love it.