Cape Wind

This work is an acidly funny account of the battle for wind power off the coast of Nantucket. When Jim Gordon set out to build a wind farm just off the coast of Nantucket, he knew some people might object. But there was a lot of merit in creating a privately-funded, clean-energy source for this energy-starved corner of America, and he felt sure that most people would recognise it eventually. Instead, all hell broke loose and years of protest erupted, drawing the attention of media across America and beyond. Gordon hadn't accounted for the fact that some of America's richest and most politically connected people (including names such as Ted Kennedy, John Warner and several well-known industry titans), holiday on the shores of Nantucket and Cape Cod, and he certainly hadn't foreseen the lengths they'd go to in order to stop him - and the fact that they were so experienced at getting their way! And when some of the other celebrity summer people, such as Walter Cronkite and Theodore Roosevelt IV, decided that they did like the wind farm and jumped into the fray, the issue grabbed more and more attention. Cape Wind is the improbable and largely untold story of a flawed-but-admirable visionary who unwittingly ends up challenging the privileges, power and assumptions of the ultra-rich. A rollicking tale of democracy in action and plutocracy in the raw, it wrestles with environmental, energy, social, political and aesthetic issues of vast importance, as played out among colourful, glamorous characters. Incisive, character-driven and steeped in local colour, it provides a cautionary tale about the challenges of evolving beyond the reliance on fossil fuels and 'foreign oil'. The battle over Nantucket Sound is one of many coastal conflicts that have erupted in recent years in the US and many other affluent countries. There promise to be many more such controversies in the years to come.