Are Environmentalists Killing the Environment?

  • Published on July 27th, 2009

//www.flickr.com/photos/waders/How badly do we want to make progress on climate change? According to today’s Boston Globe, the answer for some in New England is: not badly enough.

Beth Daley writes about the “hard look” that proposed biomass facilities – and biomass technology itself – are getting from area environmentalists and regulators. Add that to the “hard look” many regulators, environmental groups and local NIMBY opponents are giving wind (especially commercial-scale) and transmission lines (needed to interconnect any new renewable capacity) and you are left with: business as usual. Now that is a goal Americans, our politicians and business interests can all get behind – just look at health care reform.

On biomass, they don’t like the traffic from wood fuel delivery and they don’t like the emissions. There is also concern that the greenhouse gas benefits are elusive – or at least attenuated by the time it takes the trees to grow in again.

With wind, its bird and bat kills; noise and visual pollution; even ice throw and aviation impact.

Solar faces its own problems in the southwest, mostly from the space it demands and the wildlife that it might displace. And then there are the two great “green” demons: nuclear power and large-scale hydro.

All worthy points and we DEFINITELY should take a look at the long-term impacts of all of these technologies, but why delay now? Whatever the relative merits and drawbacks of biomass are, they are preferable to continuing to mine and burn coal. Large-scale wind, solar and biomass are not the perfect long-term solutions that many envision broader use of distributed generation and demand-side management to be. But, the relevant comparison is not the ideal scenario; it is the business as usual scenario. Until we start to bring large-scale base loading renewable capacity online, we continue inexorably on the same BAU curve.

I love birds and bats too, but there is no time to waste. Environmentalists need to let go of the process so that we can all get a hold of climate change.

About the Author

An award-winning energy and environmental law scholar, Joe combines professional experience in utility sector government, community and regulatory affairs with a background in security clearance-required military intelligence and offers unique insight and complex analysis of energy infrastructure, technology and policy in national security, international trade and climate change and carbon-restrained economics contexts. Joe was awarded the Suffolk University Jurisprudence Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Environmental Law for his work analyzing the pathways and obstacles to adoption of renewable energy in state, federal and international energy policy. ”Home Rule on the Ropes,” his paper on renewable energy zoning in Massachusetts is on SSRN’s Top Ten lists for the Journal on Urban Economics & Public Policy and the Journal of Public Policy. And, he was awarded Suffolk Law's 2009-2010 McCormack Scholarhship in recognition of excellence in research and writing, including his paper - "Coming up ACES?" - on the NAFTA and WTO implications of the national renewable portfolio standard limitation proposed in the Waxman-Markey energy bill. A research assistant on Westlaw’s definitive energy regulation reference, ”The Law of Independent Power,” Joe is also a former state legislative aide and US Army linguist who tested at professional profiency in Russian and Spanish. His writing on law, politics and policy is also featured on the blog at www.RedGreenandBlue.org and he runs a series on land use and zoning for energy infrastructure - entitled "Powering Past NIMBY" - for Renewable Energy World Magazine. Joe lives in Boston with his wife and two young children. In his spare time, Joe is the founder and curator of the corporate social responsibility network on LinkedIn, and is an avid runner who recently posted a personal best in in the Walt Disney World Half-Marathon in Orlando.