pute, coloring how it’s perceived by the off-island public. “It’s sort of taken the bloom off the rose,” Alcorn says. Though clearly frustrated by the issue, Baker says it’s important to take the complaints of the neighbors seriously, something echoed by other supporters of the project. Fox Islands Wind is conducting studies to characterize the nature of the complaints. Baker says he’d rather not take blanket actions like slowing the windmills every night, which would seriously affect the power generated and ratepayers savings. Instead, Baker is convinced that a more targeted solution is possible, one that would allow the turbines to be slowed at particular times of the day or in particular wind conditions that result in the greatest annoyance. Baker disputes the Maine DEP’s find-
ings that the windmills were out of compliance, saying Fox Islands Wind’s own studies show that is not the case. He believes that ambient noise, such as the wind in the trees, confounded the Maine DEP readings, since they can’t measure windmill sound by the standard practice of measuring on a quiet day with little ambient sound, since the blades wouldn’t be turning then. Since the amount by which they were found to be out of compliance is two decibels, on the threshold of human hearing, quieting the windmills by that amount wouldn’t provide much relief, Baker says. “What’s going on is these things make a little bit of sound, they just do,” Baker says. “We’ve been working with the National Renewable Energy Lab, not to worry about decibels, but to figure out
when people are bothered by it and what it is about the sound that bothers people and see if there’s something we could do with targeted curtailment during times when it’s most bothersome.” Baker has addressed the noise issue with his students as well, telling them that those complaining today are not people who had been out to kill the project all along. Instead, they had been among its supporters but found something about the noise deeply objectionable. Those residents feel as if they were misled about the noise issue and, though Baker doesn’t feel anyone was misled, he says if he had to do it again, he’d handle the noise issue differently. If there’s a lesson to be learned, he says, it’s that all energy sources have impacts. Though the islanders enjoyed quiet en-
FA C U LT Y P R O F I L E
Emma Rothschild Emma Rothschild’s first book, Paradise Lost: The Decline of the Auto-Industrial Age (1973), was borne of a trio of influences: an interest in the politics of Michigan and the auto industry, a fascination with the decline of one of the country’s leading economic sectors, and a blossoming interest in the environmental challenges posed by automobiles. Those early days of the environmental movement—as it was beginning its ascent into the public consciousness—were heady times, says the Knowles professor of history, recalling her involvement in environmental issues while attending MIT in the late 1960s. "It was a change in perspective in the world. It was tremendously exciting." Rothschild shares a similar enthusiasm about the recent rise of environmental concerns in her field of study, which today focuses on eighteenth and nineteenth century history. "Environmental history has become much more established in the last ten years, and is connecting to central parts of historical scholarship, political history, and social history," she says. "It’s part of the mainstream." An example of particular interest to Rothschild is the recently launched Energy History Project, a research collaboration between Harvard’s Joint Center for History and Economics and the MIT Research Group on History, Energy, and Environment. Her interactions with other scholars on the
project have been revelatory. While writing her most recent book, The Inner Life of Empires, which examines eighteenth century Scotland through the well-documented exploits of one of its political families, she says she began to think about the family’s reliance on wind and rivers for transport and the effects of climate and environment on their health and character. "It is by talking about energy history that I had the idea that one could re-evaluate eighteenth century economic history by incorporating an energy accounting. And I expect that other really quite important issues in world history—like the economics of the slave trade—will be illuminated by adding an energy perspective." This kind of historical work has modern applications. Rothschild notes that one of her Energy History Project colleagues, Paul Warde of the University of East Anglia, is studying historical periods of energy transition—from wood to coal and coal to oil—and all of the economic, social, and spatial transformations that came with those changes. "I think there is a real possibility there of contributing to a relatively new part of the historical discipline—one that has huge implications for how we think about important public policy choices," she
says—"in particular, how we deal with energy transitions. That is… extremely important for people to think about as the world contemplates an even larger scale transition from the use of fossil fuels to renewables." Practicing historical research that has contemporary utility is exactly what Rothschild sees as the ultimate goal of the Energy History Project: "We want to understand how our societies got to where they are now— with respect to energy use and the ensuing patterns of land use and social organization," she says. This kind of information will "help us to think about the enormous choices that lie ahead—in the not-verydistant-future." — Dan Morrell
Harvard University Center for the Environment
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