The Passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in the US has spurred a huge amount of investment and progress in the renewable energy space, and at the same time, a big uptick in anti-renewables activism, especially when it comes to offshore wind projects.

In a lot of cases, the people showing up to fight wind farms, both on land and offshore, are the same people who were fighting them over a decade ago.

But there are some new groups too, and they're deploying some new tactics

Especially around conservation and the idea that wind turbines are bad for birds and whales

There's no science backing up these claims, but that hasn't stopped them from taking hold.

Still, it's a tricky situation. We're not just talking about fossil fuel-backed resistance here.

The groups opposing these projects are not just astroturf groups.

Some of them are real grassroots groups comprised of citizens who are genuinely concerned about, for example, the fate of the endangered right whale and how offshore wind farms might impact it.

Many of those groups are being co-opted and weaponized though by organizations that have spent the past 20 years working to block climate policy.

And then the whole issue is complicated even further by the fact that some of the

companies building these wind farms either are today or used to be fossil fuel

companies.

It's complicated, which is why a report out of Brown University late last year,

mapping the groups that are active on the east coast of the US was especially helpful.

That report is called Against the Wind and it digs into the people and organizations

who are actively fighting wind energy.

It looks at how they connect to each other, who's funding what, and which talking points

seem to be spreading.

To unpack it all, I've got Isaac Levin, the lead author on the report with me today.

I'm Amy Westerbelt and this is drilled. After the break, a deep dive on the fight over wind.

Stay with us.

What were you hoping to find when you set out in this research?

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