The Volokh Conspiracy - Green Divides on Alternative Energy:

Earlier this week, the WSJ reported on the growing divide within the environmentalist community over various alternative energy sources, particularly wind power and ethanol. No energy source is safe, however, as even solar projects face local green opposition. As the major Washington-based groups push for a renewable portfolio mandate in federal energy legislation, local activists --even the local chapters of the same national groups that push for the mandate -- fight to block renewable energy projects.

Even as Americans become convinced they need to change the way they power their lives, the environmental community is splintering over how to do that. Does ethanol promote clean fuel or destroy the rural landscape? Is emission-free electricity worth turning mountains into wind farms? . . .

Dan Becker, a former top lobbyist at the Sierra Club, one of the leading U.S. environmental groups, concedes that local fights can undercut the group's national goals. "It doesn't help," he says. Mr. Becker says local activism is a source of the movement's strength. "I'd rather have the debate...than to have a Stalinist approach and say you cannot speak," he says.

These sorts of divisions within the environmentalist movement were inevitable. In environmental policy debates, environmentalist activists often refuse to acknowledge the ubiquity of trade-offs. That did not cause internal problems for environmentalist groups when the dominant and most conspicuous adverse consequences of their policies were economic (or at least non-environmental). In the energy context, however, there is no perfectly benign power source -- and certainly no way of powering modern civilization without significant environmental impacts of one sort or another. This requires sober consideration of the pros and cons of each energy option, recognizing that nothing approaches a true environmental ideal. There is no "perfect" environmental way to meet our energy needs -- no ecological Nirvana on the horizon. Instead, we need to focus on finding the set of energy and environmental policies that provide the greatest benefits (economic, environmental and otherwise) at an acceptable cost.

	[Jonathan Adler, December 15, 2007 at 11:28am] Trackbacks Green Divides on Alternative Energy: Earlier this week, the WSJ reported on the growing divide within the environmentalist community over various alternative energy sources, particularly wind power and ethanol. No energy source is safe, however, as even solar projects face local green opposition. As the major Washington-based groups push for a renewable portfolio mandate in federal energy legislation, local activists --even the local chapters of the same national groups that push for the mandate -- fight to block renewable energy projects. Even as Americans become convinced they need to change the way they power their lives, the environmental community is splintering over how to do that. Does ethanol promote clean fuel or destroy the rural landscape? Is emission-free electricity worth turning mountains into wind farms? . . . Dan Becker, a former top lobbyist at the Sierra Club, one of the leading U.S. environmental groups, concedes that local fights can undercut the group's national goals. "It doesn't help," he says. Mr. Becker says local activism is a source of the movement's strength. "I'd rather have the debate...than to have a Stalinist approach and say you cannot speak," he says. These sorts of divisions within the environmentalist movement were inevitable. In environmental policy debates, environmentalist activists often refuse to acknowledge the ubiquity of trade-offs. That did not cause internal problems for environmentalist groups when the dominant and most conspicuous adverse consequences of their policies were economic (or at least non-environmental). In the energy context, however, there is no perfectly benign power source -- and certainly no way of powering modern civilization without significant environmental impacts of one sort or another. This requires sober consideration of the pros and cons of each energy option, recognizing that nothing approaches a true environmental ideal. There is no "perfect" environmental way to meet our energy needs -- no ecological Nirvana on the horizon. Instead, we need to focus on finding the set of energy and environmental policies that provide the greatest benefits (economic, environmental and otherwise) at an acceptable cost.