Earth Equity News

Walking the Talk on Congestion Pricing and Wind Power. Posted by Charles Komanoff, Grist, March 31, 2008. "It's High Noon for congestion pricing in New York City. If by week's end the City Council and State Legislature haven't enacted a fee to drive into Manhattan's central business district, the city will forfeit a substantial federal mass-transit grant and congestion pricing will probably be a dead issue for the remainder of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's second and final term. Coincidentally, this month also brings a deadline of sorts for... Cape Wind... The... Minerals Management Service is accepting comments on its [draft EIS]... through April 21. What do a wind farm for Nantucket Sound and congestion pricing for Manhattan have in common, and why are both so significant?... Both... demand... citizens... make connections which are not obvious yet are quite real: that windmills keep fossil fuels elsewhere in the ground, and that congestion pricing is the only sure way for drivers to compensate for the harms they inflict on the city. At the dawn of... Cape Wind... in 2002, M.I.T Professor William Shutkin wrote: '[It's] not about wind turbines, or fisheries, or pristine seascapes. It is about the capacity of environmentalists -- of citizens -- to match their public positions with the private choices necessary to move toward a more environmentally and economically sustainable way of life.' Cape Wind objectors are, more often than not, people whose private choices don't match their public positions -- who tout their environmental credentials and proclaim their support for windmills, 'just not here.' Their language finds an uncanny echo in the carping against congestion pricing."