essay by Robert P. Barsanti
There is nothing quite so heartening and thrilling than for the world to turn around and demonstrate that you were right all along. Your faith and your intellect enjoys a well-deserved trip around the Olympic stadium, shaking hands and waving flags. Most enjoyable, you run past your critics with their heads down and eyes averted. Life does not always validate your parking, but when it does, you take your trot with a spring in your step and a glint in your eye.
So it must feel to those who opposed the wind turbines. The machines remain out in the water, hammered into the seabed, and blinking in the Madaket night. However, one blade blew off, broke apart, and sprinkled the South Shore beaches with “all natural fiberglass.” During the hottest week of the year (in the coolest summer of the upcoming century) the beaches were off-limits for a day and under close eye for a few more, as the hunks of a progressive and ecological future washed up in hazardous and indigestible green chunks.
Truth be told, the wonderful liquid lunch of Schadenfreude has been available to many of us, no matter the political stripe. Environmentalists watch the shark feeding frenzy, point at the global warming signs, and tap the German keg. Slow growth proponents, who stood on a (temporary) rotary at the end of Fairgrounds Road and who shouted at town meeting, have a nice red cup of that tasty German liquid as the truck traffic on Nobadeer and Old South Road come together in one long traffic jam of landscapers, plumbers, and selectpeople. Pump the tap and keep the red cups coming. Plenty for everybody.
Pessimism wins points. If you figure that whatever we do is bound to fail, when it does fail, you get to be right. The old man who yells at clouds enjoys watching the sharks circle, the traffic back up, and the fiberglass tumble in. Now, he might not be right for long, but he doesn’t have to be. If the sharks swim away to chummier shores next year, he still has the victory on his record. He is safe.
Now, pessimists (and I am one) live in the privileged past. Things were better then because we were younger and stupider. We didn’t think about the consequences of cigarettes, beach fires, or removing the miniature golf course and replacing it with housing. Now, as I sit on my porch and consider the sassy and misbehaving clouds, I can drift back to those halcyon Madequecham Jams of my youth and ignore the slow roll to the Milestone Rotary.
Pessimists, at core, want things to stop changing. We want the climate to stay cooler, the ice caps to remain solid for Santa and the Polar Bears, and that the housing developments to stop. Now, because we doze on our porch and drift back into a sunny world without consequences, that brilliant and clear future still has high paying jobs, astronomical summer rental checks, and cheap gas. Then, the wind shifts and we wake to a world of contrary and insubordinate clouds.
The beauty of the stupid past was that each day passed in isolation from the ones before and after. Nothing changed because we didn’t notice it changing. But the consequences of our decisions build. Everything we do and have done have led us to the present we have today. We wanted to sell our land for top dollar, and those top-dollar-bidders brought a car for the nanny, need the pool cleaned, and have to pick up some Spanish potato chips for the kids. Had we been optimists in the golden age of Walter Beinecke and Ted Kennedy, we would have voted to make Nantucket a part of National Seashore, and we could drive anywhere we wanted. But we would miss the real estate sales, the rent checks, and the truffle potato chips.
Pessimists can trust that humans are selfish and stupid: optimists hope that humans can be selfless and smart. Pessimists win points, but optimists win championships. In a short time frame, the pessimists are going to be right: Daddy won’t give up smoking this weekend. But, over the course of years and decades, the optimists win the long game: Daddy will trade in his Newports for Reese’s Cups.
As stunning as it may be to realize, optimistic Nantucket has won the long game. Walter Beinecke saw a future for the island that involved yachts, tourists, and $1000 bottles of French Champagne. A little over forty years ago, the town established the Land Bank to insure that the islanders would always have access to the water and would always have open land. My fellow pessimists had a glorious time in the newspapers back then, but those optimistic acts made Nantucket different and successful. Up and down the coasts of the country, you can find residents of island after island who will happily trade our problems for theirs.
But optimism demands something that lonely old men won’t do as they rock away in the sun and drink bourbon by the batch. Optimists require trust and faith. Pessimism is a short-lived and solitary pleasure, while optimism offers longer and permanent joys. The sky does not stand still, but blows storm after storm overhead. In the future, perhaps we can find a use for those naughty and disobedient clouds.
Schadenfreude, no matter how cold, is a bitter draught. All of my pessimist friends who celebrated the collapse of the Westmoor purchase and the limits on automobiles have to tip their caps to their friends with the red cups. Maybe they were right after all and our Tomorrows won’t be copies of my bright and brilliant Yesterday.
The optimist looks forward while the pessimist closes his eyes. Our forty-year future on this island will have less gas, less diesel, and a lot more wind and solar power. I have to work on having faith and trust. Those who work on these turbines will have to figure out what shredded the vane before one of the whirling ladies of the Caribbean comes for a visit and takes the fiberglass like so many pieces of silverware. I hope they can. But that Hope isn’t easy.
EDITORS NOTE: The Town of Nantucket reminds the public:
- DO NOT put any debris from the Vineyard Wind turbine in your home garbage.
- DO NOT bring debris from the Vineyard Wind turbine to the landfill.
