News from a Changing Planet -- This Week on Earth #32
The fight to build clean energy transmission lines continues, overfishing for the aquaculture industry, and Biden's big LNG decision.
Sometimes it seems like I’m writing about the same things over and over again here, but I think that speaks to the ongoing issues in the clean energy transition, the fight for climate action, and the various crises of environmental degradation around the world. Or at least I hope!
With that out of the way…
SLOWDOWNS ON THE ROAD TO CLEAN ENERGY: Farmers’ opposing views of a new transmission line remind us that no group is monolithic. (New Yorker)
I liked this story in The New Yorker about the Grain Belt Express, a planned 800-mile long transmission line in Kansas that, if ever completed, will bring wind electricity from rural southwestern Kansas to points East. The author spoke with farmers who oppose the project, citing concerns about the damage wind turbines might do: to their property values, their ability to continue farming their land, their health. And he also spoke to farmers and others who support the construction: lease payments can help some farmers retire; new tax dollars have gone to build new schools; “wind turbine-service technician” is one of the fastest growing jobs in the country, offering new opportunities to people here.
The story also notes that building these lines is, relatively speaking, easy, when compared with the permitting process, especially if the transmission lines travel across state lines, which in a lot of cases is exactly the point. Of the 36 high-capacity lines planned across the country which could increase wind and solar generation by 87 percent, only 10 have broken ground.
On the surface, I know where my loyalties lie. My immediate thought is something like, “How could this farmer in Kansas think that a pipeline across his land is better than a new wind turbine? Doesn’t he know the risks associated with natural gas and oil pipelines and that we need this transmission line?! That the damage from climate change to his ability to farm will be much greater than turbine construction?” A lot of the opposition is based on misinformation about clean energy, the harm to landowners, and the necessity of such projects. But upon further reflection, though part of me does think that way (because those things are true), it’s also just really easy for me to think that.
What’s harder for me to consider, as a city person who pretty much only sees the benefits of these kinds of developments, is that change can be hard and that there are limits to logic when the people who live and work in these places are made to feel like they are being taken advantage of (even if they aren’t!) for the benefit of people like me, who tell them they’re wrong and what to think and feel instead. There are limits to efforts in empathy and efforts in logic both, and not everyone will be persuaded - not that I could persuade them - but I think it’s always worth the energy to try to imagine why people feel the way they do, and find out what, if anything, is making them feel that way and what would change their mind. This story was a good reminder of that.
FARMED SALMON BUT EMPTY OCEANS: The global aquaculture industry is precipitating a nutrition and ecological crisis in West Africa. (Financial Times)
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