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North Carolina Town Defeats Big Solar's Plan To Suck Up the Sun (arstechnica.com)

Posted by timothy on from the doesn't-work-quite-that-way dept.

mdsolar writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: The citizens of Woodland, N.C. have spoken loud and clear: They don't want none of them highfalutin solar panels in their good town. They scare off the kids. "All the young people are going to move out," warned Bobby Mann, a local resident concerned about the future of his burg. Worse, Mann said, the solar panels would suck up all the energy from the Sun. Another resident -- a retired science teacher, no less -- expressed concern that a proposed solar farm would block photosynthesis, and prevent nearby plants from growing. Jane Mann then went on to add that there seemed to have been a lot of cancer deaths in the area, and that no one could tell her solar panels didn't cause cancer. "I want information," Mann said. "Enough is enough."

5 of 760 comments (clear)

  1. Re:These people by war4peace · · Score: 4, Informative

    More than 50%.
    100 on the IQ scale is not an average. It's a standard.
    http://www.photius.com/ranking...

    --
    ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
  2. Don't judge us by this place by duckintheface · · Score: 5, Informative

    Please, please don't judge North Carolina by these rubes. This dumb little town is about 100 miles from Research Triangle Park, the largest concentration of PhDs in the world. North Carolina is a progressive and beautiful state with the best climate in the eastern US. It has traditionally had the best public education system in the South.

    Yes, we are currently in the clutches of a backwards Republican state government so there are lots of headlines about regressive policies. But this is an aberration ( the first Republican government in over 100 years) and it will not last long.

    --
    "He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
    1. Re:Don't judge us by this place by Critical+Facilities · · Score: 4, Informative

      You might wanna check out that teeny little town, Charlotte. I mean, I know it's only bigger than Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Cleveland and other small cities, but you'd be surprised at how things are coming together there.

      Also, while not a big town, you're not going to get much more progressive than Asheville. It's a great town, and I recommend checking it out if you get the chance.

    2. Re:Don't judge us by this place by Grishnakh · · Score: 5, Informative

      Obviously, North Carolina is NOT progressive, and these "rubes" ARE representative of the population of your state. Do you even understand how democracy works? You have a "backwards Republican state government" precisely because people like this are in the majority in your state, and elected that government. The PhDs in RTP are the aberration, not the rubes.

  3. Re:Well that's a town to avoid. by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 5, Informative

    If one looks deeper, they'll find that this is really a zoning decision and has nothing to do with fear of solar. The town already has approved other solar farms which are actively being built, but they don't want another one in this particular area. The writer of an article chose to ignore the entirety of the panel discussion and select a few ignorant and irrelevant statements made during the proceedings just to give the people a rise.

    And thus the reaction we see here. It looks like there are more ignorant folks out there than just the few in this town.