In The Same Room

In The Same RoomClimate change was on just about everyone’s radar last week, especially with the news that the oceans are warming so much, and so quickly, that seafood supplies are threatened, extreme weather patterns are intensifying, and coastal communities are in serious danger.Not surprisingly, the topic also came up at last week’s “Press Session” at Rowdy Hall in East Hampton, titled “Winds of Change: The Future of Renewable Energy on the East End.” The inaugural event in East Hampton just happened to fall during a week when the need to pivot from fossil fuels to clean energy seemed especially acute.

Here are some takeaways from the session:Not one person on the six-member panel, or who spoke from the audience, denied the urgency of acting “big, bold and fast” in pursuing renewable energy to try to at least slow the heating of this planet, as Gordian Raacke, one panelist, put it. Bonnie Brady, a candidate for East Hampton Town Board who also represents the interests of commercial fishermen, did, however, advocate for tapping the brakes in order to study the potential effects on the fishing industry before moving forward with the South Fork Wind Farm, one of a number of offshore wind energy projects that are on the horizon, thanks to an aggressive push by New York State to accelerate the use of renewable energy.

One might argue that fishermen have little to gain by stonewalling in the face of a warming ocean — and that “do no harm” may be too high a bar at this point in moving forward. But it is also hard to argue against Ms. Brady’s point that, as stakeholders, fishermen should be guaranteed certain rights by state legislation when it comes to offshore wind farm development, as they have been in Rhode Island.

State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., another panelist, was quick to point to the need to study the effects of land-based infrastructure, as well as that of the offshore turbines themselves. He bemoaned the fact that the South Fork Wind Farm’s earlier investors and the state have ham-handedly split East Hampton residents into those who want the wind farm’s cable to land in Wainscott and those who want it in Montauk.

Mr. Thiele was right to criticize the Long Island Power Authority — which, along with PSEG Long Island, declined to send a representative to last week’s Press Session — on this count, as well as for refusing to disclose the terms of the state’s contract with Ørsted Wind Energy to purchase electricity generated by the South Fork Wind Farm. Mr. Thiele, justifiably, also took issue with the state’s Public Service Commission for scheduling Article VII settlement hearings in Albany instead of on Long Island, where the stakeholders actually live.One of the virtues of a “session” format like the one at Rowdy Hall last Thursday, September 26, in fact, is that it allows such stakeholders to share a variety of perspectives, and it requires that they do so face to face. When one person in the crowd asked a question about the size of Montauk’s fishing fleet, which Ms. Brady answered, the question could as easily been passed like a basket of bread to a fisherman sitting at a nearby table in the audience. That fisherman, in turn, was able to ask one of the panelists why the solar component of a renewable energy portfolio seemed to be getting such short shrift compared to the state’s overall investment in wind energy. And so on.With a bit of civility and honesty, panelists and other participants can dispel myths and misunderstandings and bring issues into focus — even if not resolve them entirely. No good will come of pitting Wainscott against Montauk over where the wind farm’s cable will come ashore, not any more than it will come of pitting commercial fishermen against conservationists against state agencies and project developers.

It helps to try to put them all in the same room. The pot is boiling. Surely, we can find some compromise.