Now we are all learning what it’s like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged. Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and--now--Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children.
You would think from the above passage that Sir Robert would be in favor of alternatives to fossil fuels, like wind power. You would be right - as long as it isn't in his backyard:
Similar complaints, coming from prominent environmentalists like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have stalled installation of the nation's first off-shore wind farm, proposed for the waters of Nantucket Sound off Cape Cod. And they have forced the Long Island Power Authority to scrap its plan for wind turbines off the eastern tip of Long Island. But the utility has now proposed putting up to 50 turbines, each 488 feet high, off Long Island's south shore between Fire Island and Jones Beach, two immensely popular summer resort areas.
Mr. Kennedy, for one, said he found "zero" irony in the fact that he had devoted himself to environmental advocacy and yet opposed the wind project on Cape Cod, his Kennedy grandparents' summer home.
"There are appropriate places for everything," he said in a telephone interview. "You would not want a wind farm in Yosemite, and you wouldn't want one in Central Park."
The problem is that there don't seem to be any appropriate places to put the wind farms. Just ask Vincent Collins:
Vincent Collins, a lawyer from nearby Morgantown, has been vacationing in this scenic area for 35 years. A few years ago, he bought a 1.2-acre lot near here and planned to build a house on it. But once he saw the windmills, and learned of plans for more, he scrapped that dream.
... Charles Komanoff, a longtime economic consultant to environmental groups, said the opposition by "well-heeled environmentalists," stoked the preconception that they were more concerned about their own backyards than about the common good.
"They want to have it all and they won't brook any trade-off, especially a trade-off that sacrifices their own comfort," said Mr. Komanoff, who is based in New York.
Bottom line: Liberals like Kennedy are really good at offering criticism, but they never offer any real solutions to problems. In this case, things are even worse - liberal environmentalists are blocking a proposed solution.
Finally, I can't let this gem by Kennedy go by unchallenged:
In 1998, Republican icon Pat Robertson warned that hurricanes were likely to hit communities that offended God. Perhaps it was Barbour’s memo that caused Katrina, at the last moment, to spare New Orleans and save its worst flailings for the Mississippi coast.
New Orleans, it turns out, wasn't spared. But I'm sure that payback against Barbour in the media means more to Kennedy than the lives of the people who were effected by Katrina.
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