ED. NOTE: According to Cindy Zipf, executive director, Clean Ocean Action, the organization “has no affiliation with the Caesar Rodney Institute, nor is it funded by the fossil fuel industry, nor did USA Today make such a claim.”
To the Editor:
The Cape May County commissioners recently passed a resolution condemning the offshore wind farm, Ocean Wind I.
The resolution makes points about the impact of the wind farm’s construction on marine life, all of which have been denied by a host of marine scientists. And, of course, the claim about how it will negatively affect our fishing industries without mentioning that studies have mostly shown a positive impact on the recreational fishing industry and a small negative impact on the tiny commercial catch (not landings) on the coastal waters affected.
But the two biggest flawed arguments are: First, they claim that wind turbines actually increase global warming based on a set of Harvard studies mostly headed by one man, a Dr. Keith. It is a favorite ploy of climate change deniers to quote one scientist who supports their position without mentioning any of the others. In this case, at least one, Dr. Jacobson, prefaced a different study by saying, “Those (Keith’s) results are 100% wrong and should not be used to affect public policy in any way.”
Another study from Harvard says “(Ocean 1) that was simulated generated health and climate benefits of about $690 million in over the course of a year.”
It is wrong to rely on one man without surveying the corpus of the relevant literature.
Second is their claim that Orsted itself said that tourism may (not probably will, but may) drop off by 15% based on a study by Elsiver et al. But actually, the Elsiver study says no such thing. What it says is “wind power projects will affect recreational beach use in negative and positive ways. The nearer a wind power project is located to shore, the larger the negative effect. At 2.5-miles offshore, 53% of the respondents report that their beach experience would be made somewhat worse or worse.” Note the “somewhat worse” at 2.5 miles; Ocean Wind I would be about five to six times that far off Ocean City.
Furthermore, Orsted points out that the only major study using actual data was conducted by the University of Rhode Island and concluded that the Block Island wind farm increased tourist reservations.
Most of the points in the commissioners’ resolution could be taken off the “fact sheet” of the Clean Ocean Action group, which masquerades as a virtuous citizen’s group, but USA Today says has its funds managed by the Caesar Rodney Institute, which has received funding from the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which is a part of the Interstate Policy Alliance that is mostly a front group for “Dr. Evil,” the extreme right-winger, Rick Berman. In short, it looks suspiciously like our commissioners and Clean Ocean Action are handmaidens of big fossil.
BRUCE ALLEN
Del Haven
