Tumult at the Beach [UPDATE]

==this is an update from a story first posted here on 30 June 2003 ==
It is a pretty rare thing in life when you take a look around and everything adds up.  Yet 'roundabout Cape Cod way these days, guess what?  It all adds up:

Old Liberal Wealth + the New Liberal Fight Against Global Warming +  the Old Leftist Contempt for New Business + the New Liberal God of Regulation + the Timeless Liberal Fight to Preserve Nature ================================================== a very Instructive NIMBY Battle Amongst Massachusetts' Wealthiest

To wit:

It reads like a summer novel. The location is one of the nation's prized resort areas, comprising Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket -- playgrounds for the wealthy and powerful.

Jim Gordon has an idea that's shaking things up in these New England communities. He's a developer who wants to use wind power to replace electric power plants and the pollution they cause.

"Wind mills are an icon on the Cape and islands," he says. "So, what we're doing is kind of going back to the future and addressing the present day problems that we have now, such as global warming and climate change, by building a clean, green, renewable energy project."

But the idea has raised a storm among some residents, because Gordon wants to build his windmills in the middle of Nantucket sound.

It really is classic.  Some want more regulation, zoning the water, in effect.  Some want to harvest wind to save the Earth.  Some want to preserve the "treasure" of their oceanside views.  Some think it will hurt fish.  Some object to the fact that the developer might make money.  One guy says if we don't stop global
warming, we'll lose the Cape to rising waters anyway.

My favorite parts are where the politicos and Leftist icon heavyweights chime in:

State Sen. Rob O'Leary represents the Cape Cod region. He points to a 200-foot weather tower that Gordon built in the middle of the proposed wind farm. It's half as tall as the wind turbines. O'Leary says he support wind power in principle, just not at that location.

The campaign to stop the wind farms was started by Cape Cod merchants and wealthy landowners. It's also opposed by almost every town government. Sen. Ted Kennedy, who has a home overlooking the proposed wind farm, also opposes the project. So does one of Martha's Vineyard most famous residents, former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite.

"Our natural treasures should be off limits to industrialization, and Nantucket is one of those treasures," says Cronkite.

Read all about it: CBS News

Read as much as you want: Google: "Cape Wind"

 

And, now, this, today: uberNIMBY - American Leftist Style

"I'm not against wind turbines," said McCullough, who has been a full-time resident of Martha's Vineyard for 30 years. "I'm against 130 of them over 400 feet tall right smack in the middle of one of the most beautiful places in America. That's a hundred feet taller than the Capitol dome in Washington."

I don't know what I can add to that.

Celebrities Protest Massachusetts Wind Farm