Wind Energy

I'm always disgusted at people who claim to be acting on principle but show no consistency in their principles other than selfishness. Think of those rich people on Martha's Vineyard (or was it Nantucket?). They're really, really in favor of alternative energy sources -- until someone proposes them in their back yards. They strongly favor federal control of matters when they think the states will not do the "right" thing. But they decry the loss of "local control" when their own interests may be affected.

Such is the case with an activist in our area, who rallies and organizes support for the state to declare a portion of the Housatonic as a protected ACEC, whether the affected towns want that or not, but then rallies and organizes opposition to the state deciding where and how wind energy equipment will be located, bemoaning the loss of local control. This is just pure NIMBYism, and the only justification for NIMBYism is selfishness (or worse, imperialism). And collective selfishness is still selfishness, no matter how you rationalize it.

Governments learned long ago that when local opposition is inevitable to some program deemed of great public interest, local control must be squelched. For example, at the federal level, the need for nationwide cell phone service led Congress to strip localities of jurisdiction to stop cell towers (not that the law has stopped south Berkshire Luddites from opposing them). At the state level, the need for affordable housing led the legislature to strip local boards of their jurisdiction to cobble up spurious reasons to keep poor people out of their neighborhoods (same comment). Now the legislature understandably is going to strip local boards of jurisdiction over wind energy equipment. Can anyone doubt why?

This could be a good test for our planning board. So far, the PB has simply "questioned" the wisdom of the legislation. Let's await a more definitive position to see where the PB's stripes really are.