This commentary is by Robb Kidd, conservation program manager for the Vermont Sierra Club, based in Montpelier. Originally published in VT Digger July 7, 2023.
For over 200 years, we have powered our modern society by burning ever-increasing quantities of fossil fuels. Today, without a rapid shift to renewable energy such as wind and solar power, the climate impacts of our energy use will forever alter the wild places and natural communities that Vermonters hold dear.
Across the country and in Vermont, fossil fuel interests continue to fund misinformation campaigns designed to protect their profits by slowing the transition to renewables to a crawl. In Vermont, we see growing resistance to solar (after wind development has been effectively killed) often fueled by misconceptions about how projects will impact our environment.
Over the last decade, the Vermont Sierra Club’s priorities have transitioned to encourage electrification in the transportation and home heating sectors, for we know that the age of fossil fuels must end sooner rather than later if we intend to live in a habitable environment.
However, the anti-renewable naysayers and fossil fuel apologists have derailed conversations by promoting deceiving rhetoric and scare tactics. Meanwhile, the planet around us is burning.
First, let’s acknowledge that there are no perfect energy sources. Everything involves trade-offs — even with solar, some trees must be cleared, some agricultural land converted, or a familiar view altered. These trade-offs make it easy to find reasons to oppose renewable energy projects when you look at them in isolation.
But looking at these projects in isolation misses the big picture: If we are serious about protecting Vermont’s environment from the most drastic impacts of the climate crisis, we urgently need more clean, renewable electricity and — unless we restart wind development in Vermont — that means more solar power.
The most common objections to solar deployment in Vermont — assertions that cutting trees to put up solar panels is a bad deal for the climate or that solar is a threat to Vermont’s forests or farmlands — just don’t hold up to scrutiny.
The Sierra Club has intentionally engaged our community in thinking about the carbon balance between taking down trees and putting up solar. The Sierra Club Magazine’s popular “Ask Mr. Green!” column broke down the math for a homeowner who would have to take down multiple oaks to put solar on her roof in New Jersey.
From a climate perspective, he estimated that the solar panel would be five to 20 times more effective at reducing carbon in the atmosphere than the oaks. Looking at the landscape level, the same pattern holds true — our current electricity generation is so dirty and so bad for our climate that clearing trees for solar arrays provides a clear benefit to the climate, according to analysis by the Columbia Climate School and the consulting firm Synapse Energy Economics.
As a tree-hugger myself, I am willing to weigh that cost in favor of conserving the planet as a whole.
Of course, carbon sequestration is far from the only benefit that trees and forests provide. The habitat, air and water quality, and recreational benefits are invaluable and things that the Sierra Club is committed to protecting.
But the threat to Vermont’s forests isn’t solar power; it’s sprawl and the continued division of the landscape. Vermont is losing as much as 1,500 acres of forest each year. This development cuts deep into Vermont forests, fragmenting critical habitats.
The same is true with respect to Vermont’s agricultural landscape. The Farmland Information Center has estimated urban and low-density residential development will result in the loss of about 1,700 acres of agricultural land a year between 2016 and 2040. That’s over 3,000 acres of forest and farmland that are under threat each year from residential development.
By contrast, we could add 650 megawatts of solar through a mix of on-site net-metering and larger projects, enough to meet approximately 15% of our current electricity usage, using only about 2,300 acres total throughout the entire state.
Some of this solar power could be built over parking lots, on brownfields, and on other environmentally compromised sites, but some trees would be cut and some farmland lost. But the benefits would be much greater in terms of the fight against climate change and environmental injustice. Because the most basic fact about solar is this: Every solar panel that is installed in Vermont reduces the power that is generated by fossil fuel plants in New England.
New England gets half of its power from natural gas plants and the sad but unsurprising truth is that these fossil fuel plants are disproportionately located in vulnerable communities outside of Vermont. These plants not only threaten climate stability, but they also threaten the health of the communities that live nearby.
If Vermont is going to electrify our transportation and heat our homes, we must do more to support renewable energy. Building more solar in Vermont helps protect our environment and the health of our neighbors. Ignoring these realities is unacceptable and irresponsible.