Sometimes you just don’t want to go there. That is where Sam White of the local Sierra Club made his mistake in last week’s letters to the editor.
While White implies in his letter last week that he speaks for the entire Sierra Club opposing wind projects, as a card-carrying member since 2003, in fact, I am in the majority of the club’s 1.3 million members when it comes to support for wind turbines. Like vast majorities in the country, nearly every poll taken shows large majorities favor wind as a means to advance clean energy and reduce global warming. In Maryland alone, the two largest and most influential environment groups – the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and Environment Maryland – support wind overall as well as responsible case-by-case project development on public lands. Just because a loud few in western Maryland oppose much-needed projects in their community, it doesn’t make their rhetoric, loose facts, and rude, irrational attacks acceptable or right.
The Sierra Club has long advocated support for cleaner technologies and renewable energy like wind power. While I respect Garrett County residents’ right to oppose wind turbines, your facts are wrong, your case is poor, and your concerns are selfish. Public lands belong to all Maryland residents, and as our political leaders consider this week upping the renewable energy the state must use to 20%, it seems like we ought to responsibly develop renewable projects – whereever possible.
By the way, I’m for them off the coast of Ocean City, too.
Sincerely,
Frank Maisano
The writer is a spokesman for wind developers in Maryland
14 February 2008
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2008/02/14/spokesman-for-developers-card-carrying-member-of-sierra-club/