Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound [Hardcover]

I love, love, loved this book. Cape Wind is a local issue for me and my eyes widened as I read the story behind the story as described by Cape Cod resident Wendy Williams. We citizens who are sympathetic to wind energy stood by in stunned silence as the opponents of the project slandered the project and its developer Jim Gordon. Even when we knew the assertions weren't true (like New England having a power glut), they raised doubts.

From afar, the coverage of the proposed windfarm on Nantucket Sound might seem balanced. In Massachusetts, however, it's apparent that the coverage is hysterical and a little irrational. When the windfarm was first proposed and an opposition group was created, this didn't seem different from any other large project. However, the opposition to the Cape Wind project combines money and emotion in an unprecedented way.

Cape Wind, the book, is the back-story of the opposition and the web that connects privileged property owners with one another, with elected officials, and with the flaks for the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. In the middle of the web is Senator Edward Kennedy, with a great track record on every environmental issue except Cape Wind. It also provides previously unreported insight into the motivation of the project's developer Jim Gordon. Gordon's motivation for persevering with the project is more than a businessman's greed. The book describes him as being incredibly dogged, and genuinely environmentally aware, as well as being an entrepreneur.

Don't come to the book expecting a textbook on windfarm development, or much specific scientific or technical detail about the project. This is a story about one stubborn guy opposed by a stubborn group.

The characters are broadly portrayed in black and white. The portrayal of developer Gordon is generous, perhaps to a fault. Jim Gordon is a smart businessperson who has a huge stake in the project's success. If the project is built and makes energy, he will, quite fairly, profit. However, to have succeeded in business as he has, and being a human being as he is, he must have a less appealing side that the author did either not uncover, or did not report on. Similarly, the opposition members are easy to dislike. Who doesn't love to hate a bunch of isolated, get-off-of-my-beach bunch of rich people? But they probably have a lighter side that also was not portrayed.

This book is recommended for anyone wanting to know more about the ins and outs of the Cape Wind project. It also puts the microscope on the seamier side of "how a bill becomes law".

Cape Wind is a marvelous story of political hypocrisy on parade. When an energy entrepreneur proposed to build a wind farm to generate energy in Nantucket Sound, he did not bargain for the opposition of some of the rich and powerful who live and play in the vicinity. A small but powerful group of people, which include not only the Kennedy family but Mitt Romney, former governor and current candidate for President, are bound and determined not to have their view of the "pristine" waters around they summer mansions. Cape Wind would be a comedy, with its spectacle of Lear Jet liberals, who say they support clean energy in the abstract, twisting themselves into knot trying to justify opposition to clean energy just because it is in their back yard. But the book is all too true and mores the pity.

If you ever wondered why our elected reps in Washington either can't get things done or only do silly things, this book will explain much. It's the story of an entrepreneur who wanted to build a wind farm off Cape Cod to supply lower cost energy to New England. Unfortunately, his wind farm, which should have been a natural for so-called progressive politicians, ran afoul of some big shots like Ted Kennedy and the Mellon family because it would interfere with their sailing in Nantucket Sound. Cape Wind is the story of how the money people created obstacles and red herring issues to block the construction of the wind farm, and how the saga continues even after the rich folks were exposed by multiple journalists and more honest pols.

Former Mass governor Mitt Romney comes off badly, as does venerable ol' Teddy Kennedy, and I fervently hope that many, many voters read this book before the presidential primaries next spring. I always knew that money called the shots in our "democracy" but this book truly made me ill by offering one rather small example of how very true that really is.

I highly recommend Cape Wind to all readers who are interested in good government, and especially to Massachusetts residents who wonder why their electric bills are so high, their skies are so dirty, and their senior senator is so powerful.

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