# Rich Liberals OPPOSE Cape Cod Windmills-Why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 9, 2003, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215 "2003-07-09T12:47:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/1 "2003-07-09T12:47:45Z")
WEll, here we have one of the most progressive proposals to harness the wind…and save the earth! A company (Cape Cod Windfarms) wants to place windmills in the nantucket Shoals area, off cape Cod. These giant windmills will generate almost 75% of the area electricity consumption…ansd help stave off: (1) air pollution-currently the electricity is generated by burning dirty oil (2) global warming: the wind-derived electricity will not cause the generation of any carbon dioxide, which causes global warming Great idea! In fact, DENMARK now gets 21% of its electricity from similar windmills…yet we find: -Rich liberals like Walter Cronkite and the loathsome Kennedy clan don’t want their “view” of Nantucket Sound “spoiled”! If this doesn’t scream hypocrisy I don’t know what does…liberals, yeah, gotta love em! ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/2 "2003-07-09T13:35:19Z")
There was an article about this in the _New York Times_ magazine a few weeks ago. At least one of the people opposing the windwills–i think it might have been Walter Cronkite–conceded that much of the opposition was simple NIMBYism. This, of course, doesn’t make the hypocrisy any more acceptable, but at least he had to honesty to admit it. One thing i’d like to point out is that, despite your and the _Times_’s characterization of these people as hypocritical liberals, there are also conservatives living in the Cape Cod area. Also, hypocrisy is not an exclusively liberal trait; it can be found just about anywhere people gather. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/3 "2003-07-09T13:45:22Z")
Of course the devil is in the details. Perhaps they oppose the way the windmills will be constructed or how they will be paid for or what company will get the contract. They probably don’t oppose clean power. Do you have any sort of site? ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Bruce\_Daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Daddy)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/4 "2003-07-09T13:50:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by mhendo \* > \*\*. . . much of the opposition was simple NIMBYism. . . \*\* Hey **mhendo** , que es NIMBYism? ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/5 "2003-07-09T13:51:17Z")
Not In My Back Yard ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/6 "2003-07-09T14:16:20Z")
**Zebra** , i don’t have a web link, but i’ve managed to dredge up the _NYT Magazine_ article. Here are a few relevant quotations: > [@](#): > > But like residents of dozens of communities where other wind-farm projects have been proposed, many Cape Codders have put aside their larger environmental sensitivities and are demanding that their homes be exempt from such projects. As Cronkite puts it, “Our national treasures should be off limits to industrialization.” and > [@](#): > > Soon [after the project was proposed], the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound was filing lawsuits, mounting political pressure in Boston and Washington and, to bolster its legal case and maximize public anxiety, generating volumes of doomsaying critiques: The turbines will break up and the oil inside will spill into the sound, in a repeat of the Exxon Valdez disaster. Birds will be torn apart in “pole-mounted Cuisinarts.” Whales will bump their heads. The annual Figawi race, the Memorial Day weekend Hyannis-to-Nantucket regatta, will have to be canceled. The pristine sound will become the world’s 11th largest skyline, flashing 520 red and amber lights and > [@](#): > > Environmentalists across the country chafe at what they see as the hypocrisy of those supposed Greens on the Cape who oppose the windmills. “The opponents of Cape Wind say they support renewable energy, but exactly what do they supprt?” asks Seth Kaplan of the Conservation Law Foundation, who admits he is more comfortable suing corporations than siding with them. “One or two turbines at town landfills? That’s not going to solve global warming.” > > Kaplan. like many other environmental advocates, also challenges the alliance’s penchant for overstatement: whales will not be harmed, because their sonar allows them to avoid large objects; birds might be killed in the turbines, but at the rate of one or two per year; the turbines contain little oil, so a Valdez replay is impossible. > > But nowhere has the alliance been more bitterly accused of peddling half-truths than in local environmental circles. “The sound is not pristine,” says Matt Patrick, a member of the State Legislature whose support for the plan greatly compromised his re-election campaign. "You can’t get to shore because it is lined with memorials to bad taste. Motorboats race around it, and if you go offshore in the summer, you look back and see yellow brown haze hanging over the mainland. And they make it sound like Nantucket Sound will look like downtown New York, but the wind farm will be only a thumbnail on the horizon. > > Dick Elrick, a Barnstable councilman who has been a ferryboat captain for two decades, is even angrier. “It’s tough to listen to the same fishermen who have hurt the habitat by overdragging the bottom of the sound waving the flag of envornmentalism,” he says. “This isn’t environmentalism; it’s not-in-my-backyard syndrome.” And here’s the Walter Cronkite quote i referred to above: > [@](#): > > “The problem really is Nimbyism,” he admitted when i reached him by phone not long ago, “and it bothers me a great deal that i find myself in this position. I’m all for these factories, but there must be areas that are far less valuable than this place is.” The author then runs through a list of other sites in the US where wind farms have been opposed, and says: > [@](#): > > No matter how baseless the fears, everywhere the polemic is identical: we’re not opposed to wind power, but this is not the right place. All quotes from: Elinor Burkett, “A Mighty Wind,” _New York Times Magazine_, 15 June 2003, pp. 48-51. Note to mods: the quotations here make up about 10% of the article in question. Hopefully this constitutes fair use. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/7 "2003-07-09T14:22:04Z")
In reaction to NIMBYism so concils over here have taken up BANANA **B** uild **a** bsolutly **n** othing **a** nywhere **n** ear **a** nybody Coming soon to a town near you. ---
**Author:** ![Spiff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiff/32/9852_2.png) [@Spiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiff)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/8 "2003-07-09T14:25:10Z")
Windmills are ugly. Don’t put 'em in pristine locations. Kansas? OK :: ducks and runs :: Cape Cod? Not OK. I also agree that the OP’s swipe on liberals was uncalled for. ---
**Author:** ![lachesis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@lachesis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lachesis)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/9 "2003-07-09T14:31:42Z")
smokestacks are prettier??? most modern windmills i’ve ever seen pictures of are sort of visually-neutral, AFAI can see… neither strikingly ugly nor wildly attractive. they’re… utilitarian. simplistic. _useful._ ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/10 "2003-07-09T14:31:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Spiff \* > \*\*Kansas? OK :: ducks and runs :: > > Cape Cod? Not OK. > \*\* More from the article: > [@](#): > > In Rosalia, Kan., residents pleaded the potential damage to native tall grass and the possible harm to the nesting grounds of prairie chickens. In Maine, hikers hikers feared turbines would be within sight of a stretch of the Appalachian Trail. In rural Illinois, one farmer complained that it was “very annoying, seeing all this spinning around.” ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/11 "2003-07-09T14:37:06Z")
**Spiff** , you’re actually right, as far as I’ve heard about it through the local news. They don’t want them because they’ll “ruin the aesthetic look” of the Cape. Which I find funny, since of all the coastal areas I’ve seen, the Cape is one of the least pretty. If all the run-down little businesses dotting the cape don’t ruin the aesthetic, I don’t see how brand new windmills will. As for swiping at liberals, if the Kennedys and so on really are opponents of the idea(are they?), than it’s not really uncalled for- they claim they want what’s best for the environment, but not if it might spoil their view. May be we can find some hypocritical conservative opponents too(although, that’d be more if they claimed that they wanted new businesses and this would be considered one, wouldn’t it?), but it wouldn’t mean that there aren’t hypocritical liberals. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/12 "2003-07-09T14:47:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elfkin477 \* > \*\*As for swiping at liberals, if the Kennedys and so on really are opponents of the idea(are they?), than it’s not really uncalled for- they claim they want what’s best for the environment, but not if it might spoil their view. May be we can find some hypocritical conservative opponents too(although, that’d be more if they claimed that they wanted new businesses and this would be considered one, wouldn’t it?), but it wouldn’t mean that there aren’t hypocritical liberals. \*\* Sure there are hypocritical liberals. I’m even willing to concede that, on this issue, the majority of the hypocrites probably are liberals. What i found annoying was the OP’s final dig: “liberals, yeah, gotta love em!” This implied, to me at least, that there is something particularly hypocritical about liberals, in comparison to other groups. And, as i said, i think you’ll find hypocrisy in just about every political group. ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Bruce\_Daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Daddy)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/13 "2003-07-09T14:59:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by FairyChatMom \* > \*\*Not > In > My > Back > Yard \*\* Gracias. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/14 "2003-07-09T15:10:20Z")
Not in my backyard, put it somebody’s backyard not as important as me. _ **I** _ live on Cape Cod. No cite, but I wonder if these are the same people who oppose drilling in the Arctic WIldlife Refuge by driving to protests in their SUVs?? Use heating oil on The Cape much?? Whatever…I drive by a 80 Megawatt windfarm a few times a week and I think it’s mesmerizing. Of course I don’t live on The Cape, so I guess it’s OK for my backyard to be cluttered. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/15 "2003-07-09T15:12:07Z")
Thanks for info **mehendo**. Was there anything in the article about the Kennedys opposing the wind farm? Sure they are residents of the Cape and some residents of the Cape are opposed to the wind farms but does that mean the Kennedys are opposed to the wind farm? Oh and is Walter Cronkite a liberal? I never knew if he leaned one way or the other. Also my understanding is that the wind mills would be pretty far out to sea so I really don’t get the spoiled view opposition. Of course some environmental groups would oppose just about any new building. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/16 "2003-07-09T15:17:59Z")
Not in my backyard, put it somebody’s backyard not as important as me. _ **I** _ live on Cape Cod. No cite, but I wonder if these are the same people who oppose drilling in the Arctic WIldlife Refuge by driving to protests in their SUVs?? Use heating oil on The Cape much?? Whatever…I drive by a 80 Megawatt windfarm a few times a week and I think it’s mesmerizing. Of course I don’t live on The Cape, so I guess it’s OK for my backyard to be cluttered. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/17 "2003-07-09T15:36:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zebra \* > \*\*Thanks for info **mhendo**. > > Was there anything in the article about the Kennedys opposing the wind farm? > > Sure they are residents of the Cape and some residents of the Cape are opposed to the wind farms but does that mean the Kennedys are opposed to the wind farm? > > Oh and is Walter Cronkite a liberal? I never knew if he leaned one way or the other. > Also my understanding is that the wind mills would be pretty far out to sea so I really don’t get the spoiled view opposition. > > Of course some environmental groups would oppose just about any new building. \*\* The main Kennedy support seems to be coming from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who > [@](#): > > offered his name and voice to the struggle, despite that fact that the National Resources Defense Council, the environmental organization for which he is a senior attorney, is a strong advocate of offshore wind development. Apparently the alliance against the project really wants Ted Kennedy in its corner, but so far he “has made only halting efforts on its behalf.” Of course, the groups supporting the wind farm hope that Teddy will not dive in to support the alliance, because his voice would really add weight in Massachusetts. I don’t really know about Cronkite’s politics. One activist, Kent Davies, put it this way: > [@](#): > > “It feels strange for Greenpeace to be fighting a grass-roots group,” he says. “And it’s sad for me to be arguing against the Kennedys, the only liberals left, and Cronkite, who is everybody’s grandfather. But we, as environmental advocates, have to be consistent, and that includes the Kennedys and Cronkite.” ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/18 "2003-07-09T17:00:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ralph124c \* > \*\*-Rich liberals like Walter Cronkite and the loathsome Kennedy clan don’t want their “view” of Nantucket Sound “spoiled”! > If this doesn’t scream hypocrisy I don’t know what does…liberals, yeah, gotta love em! \*\* Consider that property owners paid a lot of money for their view of Nantucket Sound. Liberal or not, if large windmills were erected, possibly hurting property values, the affected homeowners are likely to get upset. It’s really no different than suburban Republicans shouting NIMBY at a wireless monopole within eyeshot of their neighborhoods. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/19 "2003-07-09T17:09:02Z")
I forgot to mention that there is growing recognition of visual pollution as a problem in the built environment. Increasingly, there’s more and more crap towering overhead – billboards and 120 foot tall motel and gas station signs along Interstate highways in the South and Texas, high tension power line towers, cellular towers, speculative communications towers, and now the prospect of tall windmills and very tall HDTV transmitter towers. I don’t have a problem with windmills, but will their return – a little bit of electricity – be worth the additional visual pollution? ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2003, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215/20 "2003-07-09T17:17:19Z")
They’re 5-7 miles off shore. The little bit of visual pollution removes a bunch of carbon pollution. Take your pick. The distress seems to be that the pristine view will be ruined. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rich-liberals-oppose-cape-cod-windmills-why/187215.md?page=2)