Historic Stewardship and Clean Energy
March 24th, 2009Actually the quote from President Obama is about clean, green energy.. “…we have to balance economic growth with good stewardship of the land God gave us.”
(Courier-Journal.com, “Obama chides Republicans, President says party needs to offer ideas,” by James R. Carroll, March 24, 2009.)
I’m still wondering about the idea of how to balance clean, green energy (huge, out of scale wind-turbines) with a residential community, much less an historic, beautiful one.
Yup, there were large smokestacks spewing horrible stuff into the air in Newburyport, MA earlier in the 20th century, and the wind from wind turbines is clean and green. But because we (at least a lot of us) are mighty excited about clean, green energy, does that mean that it might not be a good idea to give some serious thought to balancing economic growth and clean energy growth with the stewardship of the historic land, Newburyport, MA in which we live?
And again, I come back to scale. I think the existing wind turbine could give us the opportunity to have that kind of dialogue. And I don’t know the answer.
I do, however, think that David Hall struck a balance between clean and green energy and our residential and historic Newburyport, New England city. The solar panels on the restored Tannery are not at odds with the historic nature of our Newburyport historic district.
We are a city that fought two large towers that would have spanned the Merrimac River, because, among other things, they were completely out of scale with the environment in which they would have existed (on either side, both rural and residential). The alternative was to put the wires underneath the river.
For a residential and historic area, an emphasis on solar energy for long term clean and green might be more appropriate than more out of scale wind turbines– the Industrial Park which they are zoned for, is mighty close to the residential areas of Newburyport, MA. Not exactly a new conflict.
Such are my politically incorrect thoughts.