Letters to the Editor - 2-29-24

Solar power for the future

To produce enough electricity using solar panels, we need to cover farmland equal in size of the state of Maryland and Delaware with solar farms built on agricultural land. So agrivoltaics, the placing of solar panels above crops and pasture, is vital. A study in Minnesota, as reported in Environmental Research, seeded sixty-six different native wildflowers under the solar panels and within three years the number of pollinators, bees and butterflies, had tripled and in five years there were twenty times more pollinators, and that boosted farm production in the neighboring fields.

On 1% of farmland, solar panels could provide 20% of US electricity. The boost of numbers of insect pollinators is very important for we have lost so many of these insects which are important for producing fruits and vegetables. In Connecticut many of us are working with the Pollinator Pathway, promoted in Sharon by the late Jan Dudek, by pledging not to use insecticides and fungicides to save the pollinators.

The shade the panels reduce the need of water for grazing livestock. This becomes a second stream of income for farmers.

As only 20% of solar panels are made in America, the support Jahana Hayes has given with her support for the Inflation Reduction Act will create more solar panels made here in the USA. This is an important part of the battle to reduce the effects of climate change. We need Jahana Hayes to continue in Congress to fight to solve these problems to solve climate change.

Liz Piel

Sharon

Praise for new column on retirement

I recently read a column in the Lakeville Journal titled “Facing Challenges After Life of Working” and I have to say that the writer really hit a chord with me. You see, I am retiring after 50+ years of working this coming April and a lot of what I read resonated with me. I’m really looking forward to reading more from this woman and her experiences as I can relate. Thank you.

Jim Bednarek

Farmington

Turn the Lights Back On

By Kathy-Herald Marlowe

As we’re layin’ in the darkness

Did I wait too long

To turn the lights back on?

—Billy Joel (2024)

We’re dealing with darkness, in dark hours

Asking “Is this law-ignoring nation ours”?

Send forth a posse, round up the out of laws:

Governors, legislators, persons once held in awe

A gang of governors numbering ten

Say SCOTUS findings apply not to them

They get to muster their armed guard force

Against federal law - they’re exempt of course

They wield their authority proclaiming pro-life

While sacrificing pregnant women, someone’s mother, wife

They scurry to truncate their constituents’ might

As they block amendments their voters deem right

Two large state governors deceive, for fun

Resourceless refugees with no place to run

They trick, capture, then openly gloat

Their mastery of the defenseless, minus even a coat

In DC, Cotton wears McCarthy’s mug

“Are you a communist?” or a Chinese thug?

So he grills a Singaporean with relentless glee,

A Senator displaying his Harvard Global Ignorance degree

A fleet of fake electors submit fraudulent forms

Treating corruption as an election norm

They intended to steal votes of those they serve

With criminal audacity, brazen nerve

These crooks follow the voice of dark times

“Whatever I want ought surely be mine”

In our democracy their hands on power levers

Must be forever and ever severed.

Have we waited too long

To turn the lights back on

To flood our lives with justice’s light

Undaunted law, order, decency, what’s right

Have we waited too long

To turn the lights back on

Kathy Herald-Marlowe lives in Sharon.