[Newsbot]

Title: North Carolina citizenry defeat pernicious Big Solar plan to suck up the Sun
Category: Environmental
Posted By: DrCaleb
Date: 2015-12-14 07:32:29

[andyt]

I'm having a bit of trouble believing this story. But then it is Duhmerica.

[BartSimpson]

andyt andyt:

I'm having a bit of trouble believing this story. But then it is Duhmerica.

The story is written quite carefully. The one 'quote' that looks the worst about the solar farm 'sucking up all the sun' isn't a quote but is instead an attribution that the paper can defend in court if accused of libel.

And, yes, solar panels block photosynthesis of any plants that would have lived underneath them. That's how solar panels work, after all.

Seems to me the locals don't want their agrarian lifestyle to disappear. Plain and simple.

[DrCaleb]

andyt andyt:

I'm having a bit of trouble believing this story.

I did too. But when you check the supporting links, you get pearls like this:

"She also questioned the high number of cancer deaths in the area, saying no one could tell her that solar panels didn’t cause cancer."

Like Bart said, people with too little information who don't want to change their way of life.

[ShepherdsDog]

$1:

solar panels block photosynthesis of any plants that would have lived underneath them.

Doesn't that happen to most plants living in shade regardless if it's cast by a solar panel, tree or building?

[andyt]

Well, no. Look at a forest. Hemlock is the climax species in most areas around here because it is shade tolerant and can grow up underneath the pioneer species as well as under its own canopy. It takes near absolute shade to prevent plant growth. Of course directly under the panels there would be little plant growth, but in the side shade cast by the panels, since that changes with the time of day, plants would grow. Presumably these panels would not be installed over a productive piece of farmland. If that was the case, I could understand the objection, but it wasn't mentioned.

Look at the lunacy of that woman saying she's surrounded by solar farms and they've decreased her property value, when the magazine couldn't find one solar farm in the area. These people are nuts.

[BartSimpson]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

andyt andyt:

I'm having a bit of trouble believing this story.

I did too. But when you check the supporting links, you get pearls like this:

"She also questioned the high number of cancer deaths in the area, saying no one could tell her that solar panels didn’t cause cancer."

Like Bart said, people with too little information who don't want to change their way of life.

The story is a little suspect in how it's written. Like I said, these are not direct quotes which the newspaper would have to be able to defend in court.

Like how you're not quoting me but instead attributing my words with a quality.

Just as I can say that Dr. Caleb would appear to be opposed to solar panels due to their adverse impact on bumblebees.

You didn't say that, but I can write my opinion of what I think you said regardless of how untrue it may be.

[DrCaleb]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Like I said, these are not direct quotes which the newspaper would have to be able to defend in court.

I'm seeing direct quotes, that could lead to libel suits if they were untrue.

$1:

Jane Mann said she is a local native and is concerned about the plants that make the community beautiful.

She is a retired Northampton science teacher and is concerned that photosynthesis, which depends upon sunlight, would not happen and would keep the plants from growing. She said she has observed areas near solar panels where the plants are brown and dead because they did not get enough sunlight.

She also questioned the high number of cancer deaths in the area, saying no one could tell her that solar panels didn’t cause cancer.

“I want to know what’s going to happen,” she said. “I want information. Enough is enough. I don’t see the profit for the town.

“People come with hidden agendas,” she said. “Until we can find if anything is going to damage this community, we shouldn’t sign any paper.”

http://www.roanoke-chowannewsherald.com ... olar-farm/

(One of the supporting links in the story)

[BartSimpson]

$1:

She also questioned the high number of cancer deaths in the area, saying no one could tell her that solar panels didn’t cause cancer.

That's legally different from...

$1:

"We've had a lot of people die from cancer around here and no one can tell me that those solar panels had nothing to do with it!", said Jane Mann, a local native.

I don't have to defend my opinion of what you said even if I say you said it. I do have to defend what I quote you as saying.

[BartSimpson]

There's more to this.

The story looks like a media campaign that was put on by a large corporation that's trying really hard to push a massive solar project in North Carolina and they're trying to do it by running the scheme as nine different 'independent' solar energy firms.

There's an open lawsuit going on and while much of the info is sealed there's a stipulation of facts (meaning facts that are not in dispute by either party) that's public record.

http://starw1.ncuc.net/NCUC/ViewFile.as ... 0ba91105ac

It smells.

[DrCaleb]

Yup. Power companies don't seem to be changing their stripes at all.