Look north; look south; look east and west. All over the place we glance, we see one threatening environmental disaster after one other. Species extinctions, PFAS contamination of soil and water, microplastics in human breast milk, ocean acidification and, in fact, international warming and local weather change.
Sears Island, on proper in a 1997 aerial {photograph}, stays undeveloped, and its ecological range has been referred to as “distinctive” and “unusual” by federal companies. David A. Rodgers/Employees Photographer, File
Conservation and renewable-energy growth straight tackle an excellent portion of those environmental threats, offering cause for optimism. However, as outlined by the 1987 World Fee on Atmosphere and Growth (now referred to as the Brundtland Report), really sustainable renewable-energy growth should “meet the wants of the current with out compromising the power of future generations to fulfill their very own wants.”
The long run – our kids and grandchildren – ought to not face, on account of our actions in the present day, a significantly decreased vary of choices and selections, as they attempt to adapt to the setting they face.
As a way to keep choices sooner or later, and for a plethora of different good causes, pure locations, issues and processes have to be preserved. For at the very least the previous 75 years, we now have been degrading and eliminating the pure techniques on which people and all life rely. Future financial and social alternatives are beneath menace from persevering with environmental destruction, reducing biodiversity and local weather change. The economics of local weather change, and our response to local weather change, can’t be divorced from issues of intergenerational justice and ethics.
This dilemma of development and growth – the will to keep up financial stability and the necessity to stay inside ecological limits – is nowhere higher highlighted than in discussions about Maine’s formidable offshore wind hopes.
Offshore wind affords extremely fascinating renewable-energy growth. As a way to pursue analysis and growth of offshore wind vitality within the Gulf of Maine, nonetheless, the 800-foot-tall and massively heavy wind generators want a spot to be manufactured, assembled and launched. Underneath the route of the Maine Division of Transportation, a number of potential places for such a facility are beneath assessment, chief amongst them Mack Level and Sears Island in Penobscot Bay and Estes Head Port of Eastport.
Consultants to Maine DOT concede that any one of many three places talked about above might accommodate the offshore wind facility. But Maine DOT actions and inner paperwork present a powerful choice for growing Sears Island. In the meantime, port operators at Mack Level and Eastport are wanting to host such a facility and details about each of these websites signifies that the mandatory standards – acreage, deep water, unobstructed entry to the Gulf of Maine – for supporting the ability are current.
Even a cursory appreciation of those three websites will shortly discover that Sears Island stays undeveloped, offering a wide selection of ecological companies nearly too quite a few to rely, whereas Mack Level and Eastport are already developed.
Sears Island’s ecological range, referred to as “distinctive” and “unusual” by federal companies, contributes to the productiveness, economic system and delight of Penobscot Bay. The working ports at Mack Level and Estes Head have the potential and need to broaden.
Maine can (1) make sure that the least environmentally damaging plan for an offshore wind facility is pursued; (2) favor adapting outdated, underutilized places, and (3) keep away from damaging intact, undeveloped and ecologically vital places.
The sustainable growth selection is obvious. Creating a considerable offshore wind facility at Mack Level or Eastport would get rid of nearly no or only a few pure capabilities and largely repurpose these ports with out limiting present makes use of. Creating such a facility at Sears Island would trigger environmental destruction, lower biodiversity and exacerbate local weather change.
Now we have a selection. Let’s make the appropriate selection, the sustainable selection, for in the present day and for the longer term.
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