Climate Change and the Greenies

Trendy to be Green and a WIlderness Advocate

It’s trendy to be green these days, but is eco-marketing good for the planet?

Why Ioppose wilderness areas and parks. It’s not that I’m an environment hater!

We are cooking our planet with Climate Change

I worry about a lot about overly-aggressive Climate Change Action, and some thoughts on state Climate Action Plan. I think we should all admit we are Addicted to Fossil Fuels. I do like SuperDuty. It’s a guilty pleasure. What’s worse, heroin or oil?

These days, urban recycling has become a joke, when it’s still an option at all. It’s better to just buy less shit and avoid thealure of Costcos. I really don’t like how aging radicals have become industrial solar salespeople.

Hot summer day? Why dewpoint dictates comfort.

Big bucks are coming to state-designated disadvantaged communities under the CLCP. Which counties and political districts are in line for the the most pork? Interactive map.

Trying to see through the wildfire smoke in June 2023!

Farmers, the Original Stewart of Earth

I’m a big of farmers who are essentially Living Off the Earth and think Rednecks are Noble Savages. Dairy Farming are key to our rural landscape. I’d trust a farmer or a hunter in a pile of guts he’s butchered over any ivory-tower scientist.

Coal Power Plants and Industrial Solar 🌞 🏭

I visited the Mount Storm Coal Plant and Corridor H in West Virginia.

I am skeptical about roof-top solar, especially in rural areas. It’s much more practical and safer to mount panels on the ground, even if the mounting hardware is more expensive.

Hundreds of multi-acre industrial solar farms are being built in our state. How bad is solar for the environment? It definitely is changing the face of landscape. I didn’t whole-heartingly embrace solar farms, but now I’m starting to see them as a friendly rural neighbor, unlike a suburban housing development which might not look kindly on your pigs, junk cars or trash fires.

I think a solar farm makes a great neighbor! It’s a rural land use? Not a lot of people. So, yes! Maybe they’re a bit ugly, especially from the roadside or the aerial view or from a hillside. But they don’t complain, don’t make a lot of noise – maybe a bit of sixty-hertz hum up close – don’t really smell like a CAFO dairy/hog barn, or manure storage facility. And they don’t call the cops or the town on you. They just soak up the sun, and send kilowatts down the line. I’m not against farms, but I am not sure if I want the flies or tanginess of cow poop to hit me each morning!

And I am not calling for a rubber stamping of utility-scale, industrial solar. We should ask tough questions. But note that our leaders have already asked many of those questions. Virtually all solar farms come with decomissing plans and are built around 30-year farmer leases, where the farmer gets back their land, restored for farming purposes at the end of the lease.

But to be clear, nobody is proposing solar farms on state land. That would likely be an illegal alienation of state land.

Interactive of recently built solar farms, proposed facilities. List of proposed industrial solar facilities. See how the Greenville Solar Farm changed the landscape.