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Today, House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi presented a major renewable energy bill today that will be debated next week. According to the Globe,
The wide-ranging bill would require the state by 2020 to quintuple - to 20 percent - the percentage of electricity it generates from renewable sources such as wind, hydroelectric, and crop-based fuels while cutting emissions of climate-affecting greenhouse gases by 20 percent.
Right after DiMasi's announcement and also in the State House, authors Wendy Williams and Robert Whitcomb gave a presentation to legislators about a specific way to achieve that goal--investment in wind energy. The two wrote Cape Wind, about the struggle to bring wind turbines to Nantucket Sound despite the opposition of monied interest groups, not to mention Senator Ted Kennedy.
Wendy Williams said that she neither supports or opposes Cape Wind, but she supports wind energy. Whitcomb, editorial-page editor of the Providence Journal, said that the Journal has endorsed Cape Wind. But both agreed that there's a problem. The energy grid is under stress, as Williams demonstrated by reading the book's chapter "Cold Snap:"
Excerpt and more about the talk after the jump! Book cover image from Amazon.
[Engineer Matt Palmer] did understand that the proposed wind project wouldn't depend on a vulnerable energy-delivery train, one that could be easily disrupted by terrorists or could otherwise be interfered with. Relying on fuels that had to be transported long distances, sometimes from different continents, he thought, was absurd.
While the State House's fresh focus on renewable energy is nice, the problem is urgent, and it's going to take more than rhetoric to get past the not-in-my-backyard attitude toward wind turbines. Yet that attitude popped up right before Williams' and Whitcomb's talk in the form of a letter from Barnstable state representative Demetrius Atsalis.
Atsalis sent a letter to various committees that stated his opposition on the grounds that the book focused on the "lifestyles of celebrities" rather than debating the pros and cons of the project. Williams responded on the Cape Wind Book blog, "Bob and Wendy suspect that Atsalis has not read the book." (Bostonist would agree--Kitty Kelley it ain't. We have no idea what Atsalis is talking about.)
Cape Wind remains a symbolic battleground. A victory for Cape Wind would mean wind energy would be taken more seriously in general. When asked about other wind projects, Whitcomb said, "The general reaction is 'put it over there someplace'--for anything."
Even with a big announcement about an energy bill, the plans won't move forward unless a major political force and a promotional push of the advantages of wind power can defeat NIMBY-ism and the money of wind-turbine opponents.
As of right now, 3rd Barnstable Representative Matt Patrick, who supported the project and imperiled his own re-election by doing so, has offered to face one opponent the old-school way. He declared at the end of the talk that he wanted to debate Atsalius, and he said, "I am fully confident that I can defend myself."
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We sure wish Representative Atsalis had had the courage to come to us in person to tell us why he doesn't like our book.
Too bad, that's the way he does business -- behind other people's backs.
It's OK if people don't like our book. We won't die.
It's not OK if they try dirty tricks to keep people from hearing what we have to say -- especially if, like Representative Atsalis, they've never even had the courtesy to listen to us.
It's heartening to know, though, that those people who have read the book have found it worthwhile, even if they haven't agreed with the ideas expressed in it.
For others though, like Rep. Atsalis, it's just easier to badmouth a book they've never read than to confront facts which may not be to their liking.
Bob and Wendy would like, once again, to challenge Representative Atsalis to come to a talk and voice his complaints publicly, rather than behave like a coward and stay behind closed doors.