Whose Backyard? Siting and Fighting Over Wind

Controversies rage over the siting of industrial wind turbines. Beyond the caricature of Not in My Backyard (NIMBY) opponents are serious arguments made by critics of industrial wind as well as its defenders. Who, exactly, are these critics? What is their gravamen? Is the legal and regulatory deck stacked against them? At which level of government should siting decisions be made? Site-specific debates are also examined, such as that regarding Cape Wind, a proposed offshore wind development that roused the Kennedy family and others on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket to vigorous protest. The pro-wind movement seems determined to cast all opposition as fundamentally irrational, superstitious, fact-free, and entirely subjective. It is as if this was a good-versus-evil struggle between the forces of science and rationalism versus ignorance and savagery. No common ground exists; no compromise is possible—all that can be done is to roll over the recusants. The NIMBY smear has proven remarkably effective in rebutting critics and fostering widespread elite disapprobation toward those who would rather not have large, usually government-subsidized projects shattering the nature of their places.