Ocean Book of the Month Each month in 2007, The Ocean Project will highlight a book focused on our blue planet or environmental sustainability. Books for all age groups will be covered, non-fiction and fiction, prose and poetry. If you have a suggestion, please let us know.
Renewable energy is being thrust more onto the front burner as the world faces dwindling oil supplies and the grim reality of global climate change. Solar and wind energy have been particularly popular on the global scene as clean energy alternatives. Solar energy is being utilized in many developing and developed countries and huge wind farms can be seen across Europe, but these projects do not always materialize as easily and eagerly as one might hope. The battle for renewable energy often gets wrapped up in politics, aesthetics, and property values, the old "not in my backyard" (NIMBY) syndrome, and even concerns over environmental impacts. What in theory seems like an obvious step in our continued development (and, indeed, survival as a resource-intensive species) often ends up the topic of intense and emotional debate in practice - this is the story of Cape Wind, a proposed wind farm project off the shore of Cape Cod, a scenic, largely upscale, popular vacation spot. While the Cape Wind project would provide a source of green energy for energy-hungry New England and bring other benefits such as reduced energy bills and improved air quality, this was not nearly enough to sell the idea to some wealthy and powerful citizens of the area who do not like the idea of having a wind farm in the distant horizon, or in the middle of "their" Nantucket Sound sailing grounds. The ongoing battle over the Cape Wind project has put the relatively small peninsula of Cape Cod in the national spotlight and in many ways at the center of the debate over wind and other alternative energy forms in the United States. Cape Wind is a detailed account of the Cape Wind project, from its birth in 2001, through the roller coaster ride of politics, wealth, and influence that has surrounded it, and to its uncertain future today. Told through the eyes of Wendy Williams, a Cape Cod journalist, and Robert Whitcomb, vice president and editorial page editor of The Providence Journal, Cape Wind is "steeped in American history and local color", and is an entertaining page turner filled with drama and a dose of humor that delivers an important lesson in how concentrated money and power can compromise the greater interest, even in a matter as important as the future of energy and the environment. Cape Wind officially described as "a cautionary tale about how money can hijack democracy while America lags behind the rest of the developed world in adopting clean energy" has received countless rave reviews and is a must read for anyone concerned with the future of renewable energy in America, and ultimately the future of our planet.
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Images: © 2007 Wolcott Henry