Articles by Erik Hoffner

Coal industry insider tapped to kill Cape Wind

Those trying to stop what would be the nation's first offshore wind farm, Cape Wind, have just hired (another!) coal industry insider to lead the charge. Glenn Wattley is the new director of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, and as Wendy Williams details in her blog, he's a longtime coal and coal-gasification proponent. She says that this fits with her past reporting: Big Coal is behind many anti-wind efforts.

In a news report on Wattley's new role (rich reading), a spokesman for Cape Wind said that "Wattley is another example of an Alliance CEO connected to coal and oil interests ... Is this really the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound or the alliance to protect coal and oil?" I wonder.

Janisse Ray says that greens need to ‘be the change’ in moving toward sustainability

The wonderful southern environmental writer Janisse Ray (Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, and others) has a new piece in Orion magazine of interest to Gristmillers, called "Altar Call for True Believers," where she wonders why even the so-called choir seems to be failing at making great strides toward sustainability. It starts out with this startling vignette about greens and air travel:

Are cougars coming back to the Northeast?

I just returned from a glorious week in Maine in time to see another cougar sighting reported in the local paper. Though mountain lions are listed as extinct in Massachusetts and all of the other Northeast states, this sports writer makes a habit of collecting and regularly publishing accounts like this one in his weekly outdoors column. The state's biodiversity is on the rise, with all manner of previously extirpated critters reentering its borders, from moose to bears and fishers, so it makes sense that they're here. But don't tell a state biologist that. Though the grassroots group Eastern Cougar Network has recorded 11 confirmed sightings in the east in recent years, state agencies steadfastly refuse to admit they're here.

Watch a video outlining the conflict over this wind farm

"Nantucket Sound, blessed with a vast diversity of native life ... "

Update, 11 Sep 2007: The video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Viacom International Inc., unfortunately.