“Environmentalists” for climate change
By 
One of the many American pathologies that prevent us from having nice things are environmental groups that prioritize a self-interested aesthetic pastoralism over, you know, the environment:
New York City is among the most progressive and climate-conscious municipalities in the United States. It is legally obligated to bring its greenhouse emissions to 40 percent below their 2005 peak by the end of the decade. And yet over the past year, NYC has dramatically expanded its reliance on fossil fuels – thanks, in no small part, to the efforts of Empire State environmentalists.
In 2019, when the city put its ambitious climate goals into law, the Indian Point nuclear power plant provided the bulk of its carbon-free electricity and 25 percent of its overall power. The plant was profitable and met the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s exacting safety standards. Nevertheless, environmental groups had been fighting to close it for decades, arguing that its proximity to both New York City and the Stamford-Peekskill fault line created an unacceptably high risk of a nuclear disaster. The catastrophe at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011 bolstered their cause. In 2021, New York closed down Indian Point. At the time, the conservationist organization Riverkeeper argued that Indian Point’s electricity could be fully replaced by renewables.
Alas, wind and solar power are neither sufficiently abundant in New York nor sufficiently reliable to replace the emissions-free energy that Indian Point once produced. In May 2021, the first full month after the plant’s closure, carbon emissions from electricity generation in New York State shot up by 37 percent. In New York City, fossil-fuel producers’ share of the electric grid rose to 90 percent.
Fortunately, the state has a plan to reverse this baleful trend. Last fall, Governor Kathy Hochul announced plans for constructing a pair of new transmission lines, one bringing wind- and solar-generated electricity from upstate into NYC, the other transporting hydroelectric power from Quebec. Together, the two transmission lines are projected to yield a 51 percent reduction in downstate fossil-fuel generation by 2030.
But a motley coalition, comprised of natural-gas producers and environmental organizations like Riverkeeper and the Sierra Club, has a good chance of killing that plan.
Essentially, the game here is to evaluate new (or nuclear) projects based on whether they have any downsides at all, rather than comparing them to the power sources that will used if they’re not built or allowed to remain in service:
It is doubtlessly true that the transmission line will impose real costs on ecosystems along its path. But such costs are an inherent feature of the green transition. Transforming the entire energy system that undergirds industrial capitalism and minimizing disruptions to the natural environment are irreconcilable objectives. And this is especially true if one is committed to ratcheting down nuclear energy and relying overwhelmingly on wind and solar for power generation, as renewables are among the most land-intensive forms of electricity generation in existence.
Killing the hyrdo transmission lines would be a disaster, but I’m not at all optimistic.