The abomination of a budget bill shoved through Congress offers a glimmer of hope for the environment and efforts to fight climate change. The government will cease providing subsidies to solar industry investors. These subsidies made it profitable for investors in Boston to outbid two farming families for a 182-acre farm in Shaftsbury, Vermont, nestled between Hale Mountain and Harrington Cobble on Holy Smoke Road, a road named for its remarkable scenic view. They intend to cover the land with solar panels, generating 20 Megawatts.

Far from Vermont, the supposedly carbon-free solar energy would be sold to Boston-based consumers, who are delighted to pay a premium. One climate activist said, “These big sugar maples must die so other maples may live.”

The 42 acres of forest feature some of the largest sugar maples, white ash, red oak, black cherry, and ironwood I have ever seen. The Taconic Mountains, where the farm is situated on the southern extent of the mountain range, are made up of limestone, dolostone, and marble, which are rich sources of calcium and magnesium. This old forest is pulling down approximately 15,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year. The solar energy barons claimed their industrial solar panels would save more carbon dioxide emissions annually than that, so let the construction begin.

The benefits of photosynthesis, which involve drawing down carbon dioxide to produce carbohydrates, are often overlooked. Of these carbohydrates, two-thirds are used to build plant fibers, while one-third is used to create soil as root exudate. When soil undergoes a chemical reaction to form humus, it can store carbon for more than a thousand years. Vegetation and soil also retain water to nourish plants and streams during dry periods.

To construct the solar complex, all 104 acres of farmland and forest must have the soil completely removed so that heavy equipment can access and install the machinery without getting stuck in the mud. The risk of erosion and the potential loss of Vermont’s trout fishing are significant.

For example, an 18.5-acre solar panel project in Williamsburg, Massachusetts, learned this the hard way. Nearly 2 inches of rain fell on January 12, 2018, damaging about 97,000 square feet of protected wetlands, over 41,000 feet of riverfront, and flooding the West Branch of the Mill River.

Science is finally catching up to the realities of climate change. In December 2024, Science reluctantly published research examining the 1.5°C global temperature rise. Reluctant because the findings are not included in the abstract or made publicly accessible. Carbon dioxide emissions were responsible for 0.2°C, or 10%, of the temperature increase, while 1.2°C, or 80%, of the increase was due to water vapor. The main disruptors of the hydrological cycle and thus the climate were the loss of vegetation and soils in the Amazon, Congo, and Canadian forests.

In March, Science published research showing that soils have lost more water than the volume of Lake Huron (the abstract presents only two-thirds of the missing moisture). Water vapor traps heat. As a result, with less water vapor in the ground, there is more in the atmosphere, worsening the climate. More compacted, hard land with increased heat islands warms the area, leading to more stormwater without an overall increase in rainfall amounts. If the land was permitted to keep the rainwater that falls on it, there would be no stormwater. Instead, developers profit while municipalities manage stormwater at our expense.

It’s time the government revised its gospel of climate change to include more than just the 10% solution: Changes observed in Earth’s climate since the mid-20th century are driven by human activities, particularly fossil fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere, raising Earth’s average surface temperatures.

Better to remember the words of Captain William Scoresby, published in 1820 when he was 31 years old: “changes of climate to a certain extent, have occurred, within the limits of historical record; these changes have been… considered as the effects of human industry, in draining marshes and lakes, felling woods, and cultivating the earth.”

Lowering a ten-gallon self-closing wooden cask deep into the Greenland Sea, Captain Scoresby was surprised to discover the strengthening of the Gulf Stream.

From the fact of the sea near Spitsbergen being usually six or seven degrees warmer at the depth of 100 to 200 fathoms than it is at the surface, it seems not improbable that the water below is a still farther extension of the Gulf Stream, which, on meeting with water near the ice lighter than itself, sinks below the surface, and become a counter under-current. (William Scoresby, page 209)

In 2007, the warm Gulf Stream surfaced in Svalbard, initiating the melting of land glaciers and sending more warm Atlantic water into the Arctic Ocean. Our actions in removing fields and forests have opened the Northwest Passage.

While we may still have much to learn, let’s not be stupid about what we already know.

~

Cited References:

1. F. Goessling, T. Rackow, T. Jung, Recent global temperature surge intensified by record-low planetary albedo. Science 387 (6729), 68–73 (2024), https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adq7280
2. Seo, et al. (2025, March 27). Abrupt sea level rise and Earth’s gradual pole shift reveal permanent hydrological regime changes in the 21st century. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq6529
3. Scoresby, William.  An account of the Arctic regions with a history and description of the northern whale-fishery. 1820  https://archive.org/details/accountofarcticr01scor/page/184/mode/2up