Politics ala Hal page

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I’ve followed a lot of trends in my life. I wore a lot of layered tank tops in the 2000s. In college, I printed off motivational quotes to hang on my wall. I watched Tiger King as soon as it came out.

And I convinced myself skinny jeans were forever (I’m still not convinced they aren’t).

(For anyone still trying to figure out whether it's Rebekah or Josh behind these posts, I assume the skinny jeans reference gave it away. If not…sorry, Josh).

Most of those trends eventually faded, but there’s one that I’ve noticed a lot of lately that I want to talk about today.

Hating solar.

I’m not talking about questioning individual projects, or debating land use, or having legitimate concerns about siting, permitting, or community impacts.

I’m talking about pure hatred, about denial of the economics and the environmental impact studies, and the income these projects are bringing to farmers.

I’m talking about presenting someone with the facts, and being told all my photos are AI-generated (which, honestly, is just a testament to how far iPhone cameras have come along, so I really take this one as a compliment. Hats off to Apple).

Hating solar is fashionable and cool, and what’s funny is that many of the arguments I hear against it would sound downright ridiculous if we applied them consistently.

A subdivision gets built? That's growth. A warehouse goes up on farmland? That's economic development. A parking lot covers 50 acres? Nobody starts a Facebook group.

But you put solar panels on a field, and now, everyone is an expert in land use, international finance, electrical engineering, wildlife biology, geopolitics, and panel manufacturing. The same people demanding cradle-to-grave environmental accounting of solar often have no interest in doing the same analysis for whatever energy sources they prefer.

The same people worried about foreign ownership of solar companies often buy products, fuel, food, and services from foreign-owned companies every day without a second thought.

I don’t think solar should be above criticism. By all means: question projects. Challenge developers. Demand accountability. Push everybody to be better.

But know this: there’s a difference between scrutiny and scapegoating. As someone who spends a lot of time on solar sites, we know that the reality “IRL” (as the kids say - see? I’m trendy) looks a lot different than the internet version.

The internet version of solar is a wasteland where everything is dying, including the birds flying overhead and the soil microbes below. The real version is just what this picture shows: grass growing, sheep grazing, pollinators buzzing around blooming plants, farmers making a living.

Maybe someday, hating solar will go the way of layered tank tops and Tiger King.

Either way, it doesn’t matter. We’ll still be over here, just farming under the panels.

And I’ll still be loving my skinny jeans.