the new big lie has started, on wind turbines ...

[zbdent]

a Faux, er, Fox reporter on a Clear Channel station was reporting on a large site in Kansas, with a large number of windmills.

So, the reporter tries to make it look like the "liberals" are the ones opposed to this.

"... which some environmentalists are against because they're unsightly ..."

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Actually, That's Exactly The Case For The Proposed WIndmill Farm Off Cape Cod

Even Ted Kennedy - who I otherwise worship - is against the windmill farm because it'll spoil his view.

[zbdent]

3. link, please ...

so I don't look like a fool ...

[MannyGoldstein]

5. For Example...

http://www.bluemassgroup.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2057
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/opinion/16kennedy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[zbdent]

9. okay ...

from the first link - the link to the article, where Kennedy is backing the amendment which will give the state the right to veto it:

"Kennedy rejected suggestions that he doesn't like the wind farm because it would be near his Cape home, and said the project probably wouldn't be visible from the Kennedy compound. He said he's against the project because it would create a range of environmental and navigational problems and would hurt tourism, one of the area's key industries.

The Cape Wind developers, he said, want to erect a sprawling, for-profit field of giant windmills on public, state-owned territory. Kennedy noted that the project was the beneficiary of more lenient regulations included in last year's energy bill, which could have put it on a faster track to construction; therefore, a special deal was warranted to stop it.

Ultimately, Kennedy said, Massachusetts and its governor should get to decide yes or no on the site for the farm, Kennedy said.

''We had an opportunity to right a wrong," he said of the provision in the Coast Guard bill. ''The people who ought to be irate ought to be the citizens of Massachusetts. I don't shrink from my advocacy for them. I welcome it. I'm going to continue to make sure that . . . a wealthy developer is not going to ride roughshod over the state's interests."

Kennedy said the effort to block the wind farm started in the House, where Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young, another Alaska Republican, originally inserted it in the House version of the Coast Guard bill. Young and Stevens maintain that states should have a say in energy projects off their coastlines."

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The second one, by Robert Kennedy Jr., points out "According to the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the project will damage the views from 16 historic sites and lighthouses on the cape and nearby islands."

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Not exactly a quote from Teddy Kennedy saying that it would block his view (8 miles from his home, unlikely to be seen from his place). However, he doesn't want a private (re: unregulated) developer to block the navigational waterways.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not looking for a fight. But is there a quote from Ted Kennedy which has him saying it would spoil his view?

[One_Life_To_Give]

11. Block Naigational waterways, sure

The shipping channel is well clear of any place that those towers would be built. And typically no commercial captain would go near those waters for fear of going aground. Which won't change because the towers are there except, his radars would be able to see them from further away.

[MannyGoldstein]

14. You're Expecting Him To *Say* It Would Spoil His View?

I'd expect him to say just what he's saying. Realistically, there's no other significant reason for The Kennedys to fight this other than their view being blocked.

[zbdent]

15. you're the one who made the claim

that Ted said that, and you didn't provide the proof ...

[MannyGoldstein]

21. Hmmmm....

Would you be expecting Bush to say that we went to war with Iraq for oil and to show his daddy he's a *real* man?

[zbdent]

23. You supplied the article as proof ... yet in the article, it was an interviewer/questioner

who posed the idea that Teddy's view would be hampered.

Now, you're changing the burden of proof to me, that Teddy didn't say it ...

So, if a Faux reporter asks me if I killed my first wife, and I said I am still married to my only wife, is that proof in your eyes that I killed my first wife??? Amusing, even for Faux Snooze standards ...

[MannyGoldstein]

24. So Bush Really Did Go To War Because He Was Fed Flawed Intelligence n/t

[hedgehog]

20. An excellent review of the entire process can be found in

Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound by Robert Whitcomb.


The Kennedy Family doesn't come off well in this fight, but then no one is perfect!



As for the notion that "the project will damage the views from 16 historic sites and lighthouses on the cape and nearby islands.", there is some question as to how visible the wind farm would be in the first place, and in the second place while the view would change, who is to say that the view will be damaged?

The wind farm would replace an oil fired steam generating station in a working class section of Nanatucket.

[JohnWxy]

19. getting back to the Fox news statement : "... which some environmentalists are against because

.."they are unsightly." This is typical right wing gobblediegook. I have never heard an environmentalist raise the issue of aesthetics with regard to wind-mills unless a facility (of any sort) was going to be sited in a pristine wilderness area (which being within site of land the case you cited is not). However, almost always those who do raise an aesthetic argument against wind farms are almost always individuals who live near the proposed wind farm site - which is exactly the case in the matter you bring up. It's not environmentalists but nearby residents who raise an aesthetic argument against a proposed wind farm.

[Nihil]

26. Totally agree!

> However, almost always those who do raise an aesthetic argument against
> wind farms are almost always individuals who live near the proposed wind
> farm site - which is exactly the case in the matter you bring up. It's not
> environmentalists but nearby residents who raise an aesthetic argument
> against a proposed wind farm.

Not surprisingly, the Fox news slant is to slander environmentalists while
attacking wind farms - two for the price of one in their eyes.

[kristopher]

22. Most funding for the opposition comes from Republican mining and oil people

Go Wendy Williams blog or buy her book. I'm pissed at both Ted and Robert K about this, it feeds the Republican slime machine like few other incidents have.

http://capewindbook.typepad.com/

[DS1]

30. Yeah, fuck him on that one

He REALLY disappoints me there

[Historic NY]

2. We could get lots of wind from GOP hot air.......yup they're windbags.

[madokie]

4. or more like gasbags

and toxic gasbags no doubt :hi:

[billyoc]

6. That's not new, big, or a lie.

[Nihil]

27. You argued your point so coherently ...

... that I've only just stopped laughing.

[billyoc]

28. It's not new, big, or a lie.

See you tomorrow.

[panader0]

7. If I had one

I'd think it was beautiful.

[zbdent]

17. I haven't heard anyone say that about a coal plant

or a nuclear power plant ...

[Resuscitated Ethics]

8. Tough issue: they shred birds and bats too

Especially on rural mountaintops. I don't think this can be dismissed with the old snail darter chestnuts either
http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2005/10/69177

but the most heinous aspects may well be mitigated when unfettered scientists are allowed to do their job

http://www.enn.com/press_releases/2486

When emotion rules the day the politicians will roughshod

http://www.alternet.org/environment/50494

[zbdent]

10. Robert Kennedy Jr. pointed that out ...

but the point on the radio bit was that environmentalists opposed it because it was unsightly, not because of the environmental impact on wildlife or navigable waterways, nor were they pointing out that it would make public waterways privatized for development by private interests (and thus, the Army Corps of Engineers would have to make sure the waterway was safe for the private interests, just like the Katrina levees and the clearing of the Mississippi River, which never comes up for "privatization")

Only the emphasis that it was opposed because it's "ugly".

I never hear any RWers saying that they'd be happy to have a new oil refinery or nuclear power plant (or pig farm for that matter) upstream and/or upwind of them and their water table ...

[Nihil]

25. That's another RW anti-environmentalist talking point.

> Tough issue: they shred birds and bats too

:eyes:

[Resuscitated Ethics]

32. Not so easily dismissed especially in Appalachia

Granted the knee-jerk reaction I suffered is related to the old-style and supposedly anomalous Altamont Pass. There is much greed to be sorted through and the ecologists remain uncertain. But mountaintop wind farms are still fucking things up.

Fairly even handed treatment of issues here
http://magazine.audubon.org/features0609/energy.html

"But the research on wind power and wildlife remains spotty at best, and the unknowns concern scientists and conservationists alike. Even when sites are regularly surveyed for bird kills, for instance, there’s always the possibility that predators have snatched up bird carcasses, in effect removing the evidence..."

[ElectricGrid]

12. Here is what is going on in KS...

I know because I live here.

The state legislature (pub controlled) tied wind power transmission line approval to a bill that included the construction of 2 new coal fired power plants. Our Gov (Dem) vetoed it because of the coal plants and thier emmissions. The pubs will not introduce a grid only version. End of story.

[Nederland]

13. I wouldn't call them "Environmentalists"

However, fact is that a large number of people don't like the look of wind farms. Since standing up at a review board and saying "I think they are ugly" doesn't really fly, these people will then go off in search of anything they can find to use as a more substantial reason for opposing construction. Often enough, they find some environmental argument that can support their cause, even if they themselves aren't what you would call "environmentalists".

[zbdent]

16. I wonder how many of those "environmentalists" who oppose it because it's ugly

are from the oil industry ...

[hedgehog]

18. There is a lot of opposition to wind turbines that's mostly NIMBY -

Not in My Backyard.

The concern about bird kills dates back to the old style turbines of 30 years ago which were smaller but faster. My understanding is that birds avoid the newer style with large slow blades.

For some reason, a lot of people "read" the wind turbines as "industrial" and therefore out of place in a suburban or rural setting. Somehow a generating device is ugly, but having access to electricity to run dishwashers, water pumps, televisions, computers, A/c etc is not.

[End Of The Road]

29. Let's compare the ugliness of wind turbines

to that of oil refineries, tank yards, power substations...

I know which one I'd rather see when I look out my window.

[ElectricGrid]

31. OR cell towers or radio towers or sludge ponds..