ecoRI News: Poorly Planned Green Energy Grows in Rhode Island

April 06, 2018

The solution is to site projects in places that make sense environmentally and societally. The current policy, though, is nothing more than a collective shrug and the repeated claim that it's cheaper to cut down trees than redevelop disturbed areas.

By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI News staff

PROVIDENCE — Both climate solutions are identified as “green” — in fact, one literally is — but the Mother Nature-created one is being destroyed to make room for the manmade one.

Some proponents of the latter say chunks of the former need to be sacrificed if society is to kick its dirty fossil-fuel habitat. Their well-intentioned argument goes something like this: we can't say no to everything and we need renewable energy.

While renewable energy is a must, it shouldn't be given carte blanche to be sited anywhere and everywhere. If that's the development practice Rhode Island embraces, environmental degradation will continue. Public health will suffer.

Rhode Island could lead the way, and the best place to start would be to stop bulldozing trees, covering open space and marginalizing farmland in the name of green energy. This effort would require some universal sacrifice, diversified leadership, a touch of political will, National Grid mapping Rhode Island's grid capacity, accounting that includes environmental and public-health costs, plenty of carrots, and at least one stick (disincentivize).

“Grow Smart strongly endorses the governor's renewable-energy goals (1,000 megawatts by 2020), but how we achieve that goal is as important as how that goal is reached,” said Scott Millar, community technical assistance manager for Grow Smart Rhode Island. “We need to concentrate as much growth as possible in the urban developed core.”

To view the complete article, visit ecoRI News

Courtesy of ecoRI News