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Nov. 11, 2024 Editor, The News-Gazette: Some folks are upset that solar arrays have come to our corner of rural Virginia. They don’t like the look of solar farms. There is no denying that a solar farm looks different.
My eyes give me a different feeling about solar farms. When I drive by the solar farm in Rockbridge Baths, I feel comforted. The miracle of solar panels making electricity that does not emit carbon dioxide, happening right there. Orderly contoured rows, silent, no smell, no chemical sprays, motionless.
The proposed Huffman array, coming before the Board of Supervisors, if it is built, will be working for 30 years, rain or shine, winter or summer, making electricity without carbon dioxide pollution for 340 homes in our county. Moreover, this invention has arrived just in time to be one of the indispensable keys to solving the human produced calamity of global warming is, by itself, a godsend.
Virtually all climate scientists agree that our planet is getting hotter, and will continue to get hotter until we stop releasing carbon dioxide in our air. They warn that droughts, wildfires, and severe rain events will become more probable, and will increasingly affect Rockbridge County. Moreover, the intensity of each of these hazards will increase until the global carbon dioxide levels stop increasing. These predictions of climate scientists are, unfortunately, coming to pass.
Understanding the science and the consequences of global warming can lead to a new understanding of what is beautiful.
FRED FEVRIER Rockbridge County
