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North Carolina Town Defeats Big Solar's Plan To Suck Up the Sun (arstechnica.com)
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."
Srsly, I'm amazed that some people are clever enough to breathe.
Finally someone stands up to these big energy companies, the co2 emissions from the sun far exceeds anything produced by burning oil, and the radiation have caused massive problems with equipment!
The sun is dangerous, we need to stop using it!
I think there might be other reasons for young people moving away. Their narrow-minded elders, a town council willing to be swayed by nonsensical arguments, the simple pure idiocy that seems to prevail. The people who stay are happy with the situation (or just can't get out).
Oh arse
You see, that's the problem: all this radiation.
Nuclear energy creates radiation. And the sun IS radiation.
No, no. The only safe energy is the Oil that He has giveth, for us to burn as we please!
(do I need a sarcasm tag? I hope not)
I appreciate that the summary and associated news stories are presenting a fair, unbiased view of the situation, free from ridicule and sarcasm (SWIDT?).
This would have been the THIRD solar farm approved in the vicinity of the town -- there are already two solar projects underway.
The solar farm would not have increased tax revenues or added value to the town. It would not likely employ any of the town's residents.
Yes, the town residents are poorly informed about solar -- they have two projects underway and haven't seen the results of them yet.
The town council did what the town council is supposed to do -- represent the will of their constituents. The solar company seeking the zoning change would have been well advised to work on communicating and educating the town they needed permission from. Why would the town council overrule their voters in exchange for...nothing?
There's quite a double standard when it comes to education -- take someone in an urban environment who can't name their state capital or point to the United States on a map, and it's the fault of the school system and their environment. Take a similarly ignorant person for a rural environment and suddenly they become a willfully hick and fully at fault for not seeking out and drinking deep of the cup of knowledge.
Just tell them we'll add two hours to daylight savings time to make up for it.
Mostly random stuff.
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)
Some day dumb people should be just set up to vote in fake elections. They won't know.
They already are. Not caught on to that yet?
"All the young people are going to move out."
If I were a young person and lived in rural America, I would be chomping at the bit to move to a city somewhere. As an older adult that is currently living in rural America, I can wholeheartedly understand. Living in rural America sucks, especially if you're educated and cultured. I spend the first 35 years of my life living in cities and thought country farm living might be a nice change of pace. Boy, was I wrong.
"The solar panels will block photosynthesis in nearby plants"
Absolutely true, if we change the word "block" to "reduce." After all, solar panels cast a shadow on the ground, and grass on the ground is a nearby plant.
But see, here's the reason it is completely irrelevant how this town voted. It is because they voted. We do not live in an authoritarian dictatorship where the technorati or envirorati or hipsterati get to decide for everyone else what is good for them. The voters of a political subdivision get to decide for themselves how to deploy and use their resources, because, you know, democracy. If they want to be stupid-as-fuck rednecks, it is their right whether the rest of us like it or not.
The one saving grace might be the ACA precedent that gave the government the power to force people to take action and buy products. This may allow the federal government to compel people against their will to buy solar panels and carbon credits and other products the government sees fit we should buy. But, someone with standing will have to sue in federal court that the lack of deploying solar panels is causing them a demonstrable loss. That might be tricky, but if the SCOTUS can apply the same tortured logic that they used in Wickard v. Filburn and NIFB v. Seleblius, then it should be only academic once a test case floats to the top.
No it is not implicit, but have you read Flynn's The Bell Curve? An IQ test is supposed to be normed such that the mean is 100. That is the definition. That the test is flawed is a whole other ball game.
"I said we should set up fake elections for the dumb people, so our elections WORK."
If your surname happens to be Rockefeller or something like that then you don't need to ask. That's been already the case for ages now.
I see bigotry for the southern US is alive and well here on Slashdot. Why look into all the facts when you can parrot this juicy headline.
Conservative, mod down for violating
Like your shit doesn't stink as bad. There are plenty of stupid people, and America has its fair share. It also has a fair share of extraordinarily ordinary and exceedingly intelligent ones. Any deviation in distribution from the developed worlds average is almost certainly minimal. Insinuating that a country is full or morons isn't going to achieve any kind of constructive discussion.
As other people have pointed out here there are other reasons why the project was turned down that probably paid a bigger part; however, a story about a couple of deranged residents causing concern amongst the uninformed population makes for a better 'news' story.
this guy is right.... in the shade below the panel, it prevents photosynthesis. So does his house. I suggest we demolish it and let him live in a hole in the ground.
How goes the joke...
A UN poll asked the question "What, in your opinion, would be the best solution the problem of food shortages in the the rest of the world ?"
The poll was a miserable failure:
People in China, Russia, and North Korea didn't understand the word "opinion."
People in Canada and Western Europe didn't understand the word "shortages".
People in South America didn't understand the word "solution".
People in Australia didn't understand the word "problem".
People in Africa didn't understand the word "food"
And people in America didn't understand the phrase: "the rest of the world"
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
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
Except TFA clearly states this happened in Woodland not Woodlawn.
So ... did you make the same typo several times ? Or is it possible you are thinking of entirely the wrong town ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *