I have immense respect for Robert F Kennedy Jr, and have been frequently moved by his outstanding speeches on big-picture environmental topics. I’m not alone, however, in continuing to be surprised and baffled at the Kennedy tradition of steadfastly opposing the Cape Wind turbine project, the first major offshore wind energy project in the US, slated for Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts. But this post isn’t about the Kennedy family opposition, it’s about another surprising and confusing source of opposition to the project.

According to the New York Times, a Native American group has now raised its voice over the potential project on the grounds that the massive turbine farm “would thwart their spiritual ritual of greeting the sunrise, which requires unobstructed views across the sound, and disturb ancestral burial grounds”.