12/6/01 - Energy, conservation, pollution and the wind

The Chapter’s conservation chair asked that the executive committee revisit our previous decision to not support power generation via wind turbines on the Reddington Pond Range and Black Nubble Mountains. Since no one came forward at the 12/5 executive committee meeting to make a case for supporting the project, the previous decision stands. Thanks to Gabrielle Kissinger for the preparation of a packet of background information, including her detailed letter of 1/7/99 explaining the Club’s position on the project, the committee had a strong knowledge base for the lively discussion.

Those present for the discussion voiced a strong concern about the assault the burning of fossil fuels is making on the environment. The atmosphere is our “frog pond” and it is indeed a curious behavior of humans to be pouring enormous amounts of pollutants into it each day via the burning of these fuels. So it is not the idea of using the wind to respond to our insatiable need for energy that the Chapter is opposed to. Our love for the beauty and uniqueness of the wilderness of Maine stands in the way of our willingness to sacrifice Reddington Ridge and Black Nubble to a plan which would do little more than “enable” the notion that the atmosphere can be saved by a little tinkering here and there. I suggest we, in the Maine Chapter, urge the Club to offer to buy these mountains and preserve their beauty unspoiled into the future as a symbol of the beginning of human kind’s intention to take the problem of energy production seriously.

The problem of energy generation is not new. The Chapter newsletter editor wrote a book twenty years ago spelling out how energy conservation in just one area could have a substantial beneficial impact on the environment. The problem is global-political. Humans have not yet figured out a way to make needed change when the change would cause massive disruption to the status quo. For example, on a smaller scale, health care financing is in desperate need of fixing yet doing so would require the disruption of tens of thousands of people currently shuffling huge mounds of paper around each day. So the human ingenuity  so well described by Diana Muir in “Reflections in Bullough’s Pond” is unavailable to solve our biggest problems. This may be part of the “social condition” of humans and therefore we must grin and bear it or it may just be a moment in the evolution of our specie that historians will some day look back on and chuckle. 

Clearly, there are many ways to solve the energy generation problem. I used to suggest to students that we simply dig a hole in the ground and let the Androscoggin River flow into it to the point where the water would turn to steam and resurface to be used to melt the snow on Maine streets. Can you imagine the environmental impact statement that would generate? More realistically, hydrogen fuel cells will probably be the most sensible solution. They will probably be deployed in small third world countries first since countries like ours are too rigidly dependent on existing energy systems to endorse decentralized power production. What would we do with the power grid? How would we employ the zillions of people displaced? Where would we find bogey men to be at war with? How would the owners of the current production capacity get by with no income? On the other hand, the people of one of the smaller states might say, wait a minute. Let’s invest in hydrogen fuel cells for each home and small business. Let’s ask the State Senate to look into how much it would cost. Let’s explore how to transition the many folks in this industry who would be displaced. Let’s make a plan to stop polluting the air we breathe. Let’s make ourselves less vulnerable to the turmoil in the Middle East. An appropriate role for government? Certainly some, maybe many, would argue against it.

In the mean time, the Maine Chapter AMC does not want to offer up Reddington Ridge or any other such site to the illusion that tinkering here or there is going to deal with the energy production problem.

12/12/01 Follow-up:

James Tierney
Maine Chapter Chair