Meeting the challenge of producing clean energy comes with some environmental costs that cannot be avoided. Power plants and installations, be it a solar farm or a nuclear reactor, have to be sited somewhere in order to exist. An important consideration is that once an undeveloped space is altered for energy production it is invariably changed for the long term. In the case of wind power there is an alteration of the surrounding physical and biological landscape.

Neighbors and advocates to wild spaces often fall into the “not-in-my-backyard’ (or NIMBY) argument that is legend in miring the gears of utility developments. However, apart from the commonly heard asthetic complaints over wind turbines, there are some environmental tradeoffs that are difficult to swallow. When so many alternatives exist for producing clean energy, it is hard to sacrifice scarce open spaces and natural beauty to technology that may be outdated or rapidly improved upon by the fast-moving CleanTech market.

This forum aids in highlighting many concerns on both sides of the debate over developing wind power in New England’s wilderness areas.

Forum speakers are:

Michael J. Kellet – RESTORE: The North Woods

Steven Terry – Green Mountain Power – Vermont

Eleanor Tillinghast – Green Berkshires, Inc

Bill McKibben – author, “The End Of Nature”, “The Age of Missing Information”