sigh Trump supporters…
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Around here we have them on the roofs of hospitals, council buildings, barns and stadiums. We also have one along the edge of fields next to a road, an area which isn’t cultivated.
We even have new builds which have single slope roofs to facilitate fitting them.
And we are years behind Germany and Spain.
Anyway - I want to know - is she a retired science teacher or a “took early retirement” science teacher?
“I don’t care if Ben Carson says Darwin was inspired by the Devil, you still have to teach the textbook.”
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I did. Apparently they toil not, neither do they spin, but Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of them.
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Just repeating to myself, “not The Onion, not The Onion, not The Onion…”
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I’m from a area like that unfortunately (full of frightened old people that’s afraid of a new wind project). Sorry to break it to them but it’s people who think like that scares away young people & businesses, not the solar panels lol
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I don’t think “rather than” really works here. We need to promote the technology that delivers best bang-for-buck. In the context of PV solar, that is usually the commercial sized farms like they’re building in the California desert. Using free space on otherwise unutilised city rooftops will only get us so far. We need vast areas for solar energy farming. Rooftops alone won’t do it.
By “denatured”, you are likely talking about 80% of the planet. 100% is affected by human occupation, of course. Steep mountainous areas and deserts are pretty much the only non-built/farmed/logged areas left in US if you exclude the small % that is National and Sate parkland.
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I get what you’re saying. But that’s not how it generally works. These things are usually going to placed on land that’s already zoned and slated for development. The choice isn’t between solar/wind power and green spaces (though hydro can have that problem). Its between solar/wind and non-green power plants (because a new plant is typically needed), as well as whether that chunk of property becomes a solar/wind farm or strip malls, housing developments, industrial parks or whatever else the owner of the property or developers think they can make a buck with. We’ve got a small solar facility around here now. It used to be a farm. And there was no lamentations about “oh no we lost another farm” (big issue around here). For two reasons. First it used to be a sod farm; perhaps the most wasteful, pointless, and environmentally damaging form of agriculture anyone could think of. Second the land was being sold. Other things that typically go up here when a farm sells are McMansions and golf courses (nearly as bad as the sod farms). And yet we still need to increase our power production and improve our infrastructure. Brief power outages happen on a monthly (sometimes weekly) basis. And our rates are some of the highest in the nation. Solar and wind would have brought our rates down before the recent reductions in costs and tax credits.
As for beautiful views mattering. No. What I think is a beautiful view is not what you think is a beautiful view. I for one (and most of the year round residents) argued that a visible wind farm off shore would improve the view. Some people even campaigned for them to increase the size of the turbines, and there was a small thing going on where CT and Long Island were arguing over who’s shore the wind farm would be closer too. Because proximity to shore increased the presence of the turbines on the skyline. Some people wanted it closer to them so they could get that AWESOME new view. Others wanted them pushed away from them so their view wouldn’t be RUINED!!!
Its a NIMBY canard. The same arguments about preserving/improving views have been used here to justify the cutting down of woodlands so wealthier residents could have a “better” view of the shoreline. And its been used as part of attempts to develop or otherwise change regulations around protected wet lands. Or to justify removing commercially important dockage (fishing fleets etc) in favor of prettier pleasure marinas, restaurants and hotels. Private beach clubs are also considered much better for “the view” than municipally run publicly accessible beach infrastructure. And coincidentally these private clubs lack the sort of protection, staff, and planning that mitigate erosion and protect important bird and sea turtle breeding grounds.
That’s because protecting your views isn’t anything to do with the environment or proper urban/municipal planning. Its a crass, nostalgic way of repackaging concerns about property values. And while concerns about property values are/can be valid. They’re most often used as a scare tactic to fire up the wealthiest, most connected part of a community or tax base in favor of all the things the wealthy find most advantageous or pleasant. At the cost of people who actually have to live or work in a given area.
Meanwhile our housing costs and property values are so high that I can never in my life expect to be able to buy a house in the town where I was raised. And can’t currently afford to rent here either. But hey I hear our property values and views are about to be improved by another air taxi station (read: helipad placed on protected sand dunes so the Wall Street set can bypass traffic by flying 50 miles instead of driving or taking a train like pleb). And they might even improve our views and property values yet again but shutting down shellfish farming! Its only a huge piece of our wetlands recovery project and major new driver of economic development for hard pressed fishing communities. But its looks ugly (ie invisible), and it means I can’t pleasure boat in that one part of the bay that’s generally inaccessible to pleasure boats. So lets make sure waterfront luxury housing doesn’t lose (or gain who knows!) .2% of its potential value growth over the next 4 decades!
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You need to move to another place to live or get a job as an investment banker.
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I did. Repeatedly. That 2008 thing happened (as well as similar smaller events before hand). This is where my family is, so in dire straits its where I have to go. Not planning on staying. Even if it was affordable its fucking weird here. Nicest place on the planet 8 months out of the year. Bleak wasteland for the rest. Also they don’t so much have those “job” things here anymore. Been replaced by something called a “tourist”.
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Hey, all those solar farms surrounded by desert. Y’all ever wonder just why they turned to desert? Gotta admit it’s a risk, that’s all I’m sayin’.
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I’ve said it before, and (sadly) I’ll (likely) say it again:
You can’t fix stupid.
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Wait, who was the contractor for this project? Did they already have a vested concern in the local nuclear plant?
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Oh, he’s havin’ a go at the flowers now…
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Yes, I agree, but I also see that as meaning enough’s enough, we can’t* keep going as we have been. We’re chewing our way across the landscape like never before, leaving strip malls and convenience store gas stations and big box stores as excreta behind us. (Tibet is getting its first KFC, isn’t that awesome?) There are now too many of us and we’re now too good at extracting natural resources, too good at converting natural areas into something manufactured and constructed, too good at consuming energy and emitting wastes (and atmospheric carbon!).
(* Translation: “I don’t want us to.” I’m prepared for disappointment.)
Of course there are degrees of natural. Farmland used to be untouched ecosystem before humans touched it, but it still does a much better job of supporting a variety of species than a showroom floor does, or than a solar power facility where the out-of-state shareholder-owners see plants and animal as a mere annoyance.
Solar’s incredibly great, but that’s not the only important thing.
“The Struggle of Our Time: Human Nature vs. Mother Nature”
Anyway, I did say “if there were an already-built-on site”. I’d be perfectly fine with a zoning board saying, “how about you build over there instead.”
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Being a pedant here, but this is technically true in a very small way. 
because it’ll suck up sunlight and kill the plants
It will indeed potentially kill any plants directly underneath the solar panels by blocking their light*. But that is a truly negligible amount and not at all an issue 
*(‘sucking up the light’ as a term is utter rubbish though)
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I don’t think that’s the case anymore given how efficient the panels are.
Yea, the roof of the Safeway won’t power the whole Safeway, but it’s a lot or power into the grid.
Further, just about any residential home in the Southwest if covered would generate considerably more than it would use on an annual basis.
Even if it was a little bit more, you’re still talking about the ability to power every single home from within the confines of the metro area in which they lie.
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I grew up in North Carolina. I escaped as soon as I possibly could due to … well a number of reasons, really, but idiocy like this was certainly on the list. Yes, I’ve found “thinking” like everywhere I’ve lived on the past 28 years, but it’s just so depressingly common in some places.
I sure as hell didn’t leave because NC was installing solar power. As @mr_raccoon explains, I left largely due to the people that would oppose such things. (That and they kept re-electing Jesse Helms.)
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