Posted on February 19, 2024
Although opponents of offshore wind have a few valid concerns, you need to ask yourself why they rely so heavily on creating a fog of distortions and disinformation. The answer is that their concerns pale in comparison to the absolute certainty that doing nothing will cause ocean temperatures to rise and push marine habitats to the breaking point.
Yet doing nothing is the goal of opponents, whose strategy can be summed up as Doubt + Delay = the Demise of offshore wind. So they rely on shock, anger, and fear to exaggerate the danger of taking positive action.
Let’s start with two misleading photos that appear on the website of Green Oceans, a Rhode Island-based citizens group that is leading the fight against offshore wind. The first shows the carcass of a dead whale floating near the turbines of the South Fork wind project. The clear implication is that the wind turbines killed the whale. The Heartland Institute, another opponent of offshore wind, claims that “the evidence seems clear that offshore wind development is killing whales by the hundreds.”
Yet marine scientists state that there is zero scientific evidence that wind turbines have killed a single whale. They say the majority of recent deaths are caused by collisions with ships and entanglement with fishing gear.
Yet the flood of disinformation keeps coming.
The second photo shows a surfer paddling in the waves off Nantucket with a wall of wind turbines looming ominously out of the ocean. They appear startlingly close. This seems odd since the turbines will be 15 to 26 miles offshore. What Green Oceans fails to mention is that the image is a regulatory agency simulation, which they heavily cropped and blew up, creating a telephoto effect that makes the turbines look far closer and more densely packed. In the original BOEM simulation, the turbines appear as matchsticks on the horizon.
Dead whales, looming towers — shock, fear, outrage. But very little truth.
Photos are not the only distortions. Green Oceans makes the absurd claim that federal regulators have authorized developers to kill hundreds of whales during the construction of the turbines. As proof, they distort the meaning of the word “take” in the regulatory documents, implying that it means “kill.” The true meaning is “bother.” It’s true that noise during construction is likely to bother whales. My neighbor’s lawn mower bothers me, but it doesn’t kill me — and when he turns it off, I’m fine.
Green Oceans ignores the fact that NOAA emphatically states that the federal government “does not anticipate and has not authorized mortality or serious injury of whales for any wind-related action.”
To fuel public fear, opponents refer to “carpet bombing” the ocean floor, “extinction” of endangered species, and “industrializing” the continental shelf. They demonize developers as “foreign energy giants” with “ties to the fossil fuel industry.” No one is carpet bombing the ocean, and there is no evidence the turbines will cause the extinction of whales. And shouldn’t we be applauding energy companies that make the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy?
Green Oceans also claims the government concedes that offshore wind is pointless because it will have “no collective impact on global warming.” But that six-word quote is taken out of context from a 600-page report. Read in context, that phrase is saying offshore wind will not ADD to global warming. On the same page, the report states carbon emissions from the project would be “minuscule” and that it “may beneficially contribute to a broader combination of actions to reduce future impacts from climate change.”
There are many who believe opponents are driven entirely by self-interest — wealthy seaside property owners who want to protect their view and fossil fuel companies mounting a sophisticated disinformation campaign.
While there may be an element of truth to this, it’s too cynical for me. I believe that some opponents are genuinely concerned about the marine habitat. They are right that there are some unanswered questions — but there will always be unanswered questions because the marine ecosystem is far too complex to ever understand completely.
The takeaway is that killing alternative energy projects is the surest way to destroy the marine environment. When it comes to climate change, we are falling backward over a cliff — and that is no time to ask for additional studies on the quality of the rope being thrown to us.
