Oh, look at this! An article in the Chrisitan Science Monitor entitled "Wind farm in the Great Lakes? Big potential meets big opposition."
A two page article about opposition to the Great Lakes wind power in West Michigan and no mention about the majority of people here who support it, the 20% unemployment and rising poverty levels, and the monied interests who have a stranglehold over developments in the region...
...in fact, no interviews at all with regular people who support it, when all you have to do is start asking random people what they think about it. Waitresses, gas station attendants, bank tellers. You'll get people who say "We should at least learn more before killing it." Fast forward to the very end and you read a single quote from a member of the Great Lakes Offshore Wind Council.
The anti-wind farm folks are LOADED and have a lobbyist and a publicist.
See what a publicist buys you? See what money buys you?
Apparently it buys an article in your favor from the Christian Science Monitor.
To get the straight dope all the CSM had to do was make a couple calls to county commissioners and they would have been told about how most of their communications against the wind farm aren't even from people who live here...
Here's a nice quote on the Anti Wind Farm group from today:
I have never been there, but my son and daughter-in-law as well as her whole family have been spending months there every summer for well over 30 years. I have seen pictures of their home there and also the lake and beaches and they are beautiful. It would be a shame to ruin the natural beauty of a place loved by so many.
HA!
HA HA...HA...see? THIS is the dominant group of people who are opposed to this wind farm. People who don't even live here. And in some cases, who have never even BEEN here......
....they just come in temporarily, enjoy the pretty sunset, get to pretend they're in some quaint, happy little town, and then leave for the rest of the year and go back to wherever the fuck it is in the United States has money or jobs...
And the CSM tells THEIR story. Tells of THEIR opposition. Screw the people who live here. Screw the unemployed. Screw the majority who live here who at least want to give this thing a chance. Screw them...
Apparently our voice doesn't have the money to deserve to be interviewed.
The article reads like the CSM got its information from the opposition's press release...
The six mile offset recommendation from the Great Lakes Offshore Wind (GLOW) Council was brought up early on in the article, and when they finally get around to getting a quote from somebody who helped create the offset recommendations...they didn't ask him why the council didn't try to make the recommendations into law.
Oh and focusing on PENTWATER? Really? Really? Not Ludington? Now that the wind farm has been reduced in size and shifted North further from the rich out of town land owners of Pentwater and closer to Ludington they're still going to focus on the people of Pentwater and not the more supportive coastal town of Ludington? Where the LUDINGTON DAILY NEWS ENDORSED...ENDORSED the frickin' proposal?
Really CSM?
Really?
Well screw you guys.
We're desperately trying to lure jobs here, and you're being a mouthpiece for people who have NO STAKE in the matter except maybe a distant view of wind mills from their multimillion dollar coastal homes.