r/UpliftingNews • u/ArgentineBeauty • 4h ago

Two Minnesota solar farms planted native grasses and wildflowers beneath their panels. Five years later, flowering plant species had increased sevenfold, native bee numbers more than 20 fold and total insect numbers had tripled, while more bees were also visiting nearby soybean fields.

https://www.ecoticias.com/en/two-minnesota-solar-farms-turned-the-ground-beneath-their-panels-into-habitat-and-native-bee-abundance-rose-more-than-20-fold/36680/
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u/MyCoffeeIsCold 3h ago

Solar is great and has a place in our energy portfolio in the right locations.

We have had proposals to clear cut 60-70 acres of FOREST for solar projects here in New York. One of the dumbest things I have ever heard.

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u/NorthHollywoodHank 2h ago edited 2h ago

In most of upstate New York that seems perfectly reasonable?

There are large parts of upstate New York, New England, Northern Michigan, Minnesota, Canada, etc. where there is a ton of forest and clearing a fairly small bit of it for a major industrial development or, especially, clean energy seems utterly and entirely reasonable and making it hard to do so would be a bad thing.

Like, go look at a zoomed out google maps satellite view of upstate New York and tell me with a straight face that clearing 70 acres of forest for solar panels (which will help with global warming, which is supposed to be really important) is some sort of big problem.

63% of the entire state of New York is forest. It is fine to cut a tiny part of that forest for a clean energy development.

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u/MyCoffeeIsCold 2h ago

You are exactly who big solar wants advocating for them. You make a seemingly good, argument and fight on climate change.

There is no way that clear cutting a whole forest for industrial devoplement for climate change. Look into how much infrastructure is required to connect to the grid and you permanent erase an ecosystem. The only winners in NY are solar if placed on undeveloped land.

You sound well informed but please look at this more closely.

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u/NorthHollywoodHank 2h ago edited 1h ago

"You are exactly who big solar wants advocating for them. You make a seemingly good, argument and fight on climate change."

Look, good public policy will often be good for some company or another. Making it easier to build houses and apartment buildings will be good for homebuilders. It's also good policy for people. Lowering tariffs on foreign steel is good for car manufacturers. It's also good for US consumers.

"The only winners in NY are solar if placed on undeveloped land."

We should want to make it easy to build solar, wind power, and battery systems and part of that is not making the perfect the enemy of the good. That means making it easy to develop those projects where it is economical to do so. In that part of the country that is often going to mean forested land, and that's fine. That this is also good for solar companies isn't actually a minus here: we should want solar companies to be doing well and having an easy time growing!

A new report from the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University identified more than a dozen solar projects that encountered opposition from local conservation groups and environmentalists. Many projects were ultimately delayed, canceled or significantly reduced in size as a result.

This sort of thing is bad!

A state that is 63% forest with ~22 million acres of forest is not a state that needs to be worried about cutting 70 acres of forest. New York had millions fewer acres of forest just a few decades ago. That was fine. Cutting 70 acres after millions of acres of forest regrowth is fine too.

There is a very substantial wing of the environmentalist movement that has realized this btw. You sound poorly informed. Please look at this more closely.