I’ve just read “Law looks to minimize land use concerns,” (Recorder, Dec. 7) and was reminded of our next Enviro Show Quote of the Week by John Paul II: “The Earth will not continue to offer its harvest, except with faithful stewardship. We cannot say we love the land and then take steps to destroy it for use by future generations.” As much as I like what Audubon does, logging is surely not one of them. Speaking of quotes, Sam Anderson is quoted in the piece saying, “We found ourselves mostly in agreement that our solar goals didn’t need to be met by sacrificing our natural and working lands goals, our biodiversity goals and our environmental justice goals.” The law that Healey signed, Anderson said, includes “very strong” language prioritizing site sustainability and outlining mitigation hierarchy, stating that projects should minimize environmental and land use concerns — and if such impacts are unavoidable, mitigate siting impacts.

The key words in that quote “mostly in agreement” and “if such impacts are unavoidable, mitigate siting impacts” sound a lot like mitigation as obfuscation. “Mostly” is in itself obfuscation. Neither are “very strong” words. Here are some very strong words I use often, “Stop logging forests for solar.” Doing so destroys natural carbon capture forests that work for free 24/52/365 in a world starving for natural carbon capture. Recently we learned France has made solar canopy for large parking lots mandatory. Presumably many nations will follow. Apparently Massachusetts didn’t get the memo.

Don Ogden, The Enviro Show

Florence