Introduction

Judy: Most people don’t know that this is happening. Colleagues and people in Vermont here don’t know. They may hear a little something about it and then just think, “Oh, well, solar is good because then we’ll have less fossil fuel derived energy.” But it’s not necessarily so. And I think, I mean, really, all of us just want to think that this is the right direction to go.

And, you know, we, we want to be, we want to be able to relax about something. So when we hear that Vermont has pledged to have X percent of energy coming from solar by such and such a date, like you think, phew, great. The grownups are here and they’re taking care of it. But. In order to do that, we may be sacrificing forests and farmland.

And in that sacrifice, we’re also sacrificing biodiversity and, [00:01:00] and forest health and all that.

Mike: Welcome to the Mongabay newscast. I’m your cohost, Mike DiGirolamo. Bringing you weekly conversations with experts, authors, scientists, and activists, working on the front lines of conservation. Shining a light on some of the most pressing issues facing our planet and holding people in power to account.

This podcast is edited on Gadigal land. Today’s guest on the newscast is journalist and author Judith Schwartz. You may recognize her from a previous conversation on the Manga Bay newscast to talk about her book The Reindeer Chronicles and other inspiring stories of working with nature to heal the earth.

But today I speak with her about solar energy and forests. Specifically, The ironic move of allowing developers to cut down forests to make room for solar power, which the state of Vermont and other New England states have been doing to the [00:02:00] tune of thousands of acres. Near her community in Vermont is one such project, which could potentially clear-cut tens of acres of forest, but it’s just one of quite a few in the state.

Furthermore, she says the power isn’t even expected to be provided for Vermont homes. She details the negative impacts of this on a forest’s ability to sequester carbon and mitigate heat in a warming world. Last year, researchers at Harvard Forest and Mass Audubon outlined in a detailed report that Massachusetts, a New England state also increasing its solar capacity, could meet its energy targets and install solar without unnecessarily harming the environment.

And could course correct with proper policy that focused on using already developed land rather than clearing forest and farmland. However, Judith argues that with the advent of AI and ever more data centers stressing our grids and requiring massive amounts of electricity, much of the new renewable energy we are building [00:03:00] globally risks going to the implementation of this AI technology.

The Irony of Clearing Forests for Renewable Energy

Mike: Judy, welcome to the Mongabay newscast. How are you?

Judy: I’m good, thanks.

Mike: And so, you’re joining us from the beautiful state of Vermont. How are things out there right now?

Judy: Actually, right now they’re really nice because the humidity has dropped. So, it’s a beautiful day here today. Although we have had our share of.

Torrential rains and in many parts of Vermont that were flooded last year, the very same day this year, suffered floods as well.

Mike: Well, I’m really, really sorry to hear that, but I’m glad that the humidity has dropped a little bit and things are feeling okay. So, you’re here today to talk to us about clear cutting trees specifically for solar energy, which is kind of, In many ways, quite contradictory, and we will definitely get into the details [00:04:00] about that, but first, can you tell me how and why exactly are developers allowed or encouraged to clear cut forests for solar in Vermont?

Judy: Yeah, I think as in many things, it starts with the way that we frame and understand a challenge. So for the longest time, climate change has been seen as a problem of energy, you know, so to address climate change, we need renewable energy sources. And of course we do. Of course we do need to. Get off of fossil fuels or, you know, wean ourselves or however you want to characterize the transition.

So just jumping on that, our state, as with many states, produced legislation that made it Extremely favorable for solar, which is fine, but what that meant is that [00:05:00] many who get into solar are there for the incentives for the, the carbon credits, you know, the big project opportunity to the opportunity to roll something large out with no interference from the state.

And that is what we have been seeing, and that’s true in much of New England, and as I’m hearing elsewhere.

Mike: Since 2010 in Massachusetts, more than 5, 000 acres of natural and working lands have been destroyed for solar projects. This is equivalent to roughly one third the size of Manhattan. The report examining this was from Harvard Forest and Mass Audubon, released in October of 2023.

In Rhode Island, New York. 1, 000 acres of forest were cleared for solar in a four-year period. Now, getting into the incentives, to be clear, the incentives for solar in Vermont for homeowners are a really great deal, and they come in the form of a sizable 30 percent tax credit. It basically means that a person could lower the [00:06:00] cost of installing solar from anywhere from around 17, 000 to 12, 000.

And their home systems are also exempt from the 6 percent sales tax. And the increase in the home value is exempt from property taxes. That’s a really sweet deal if you own a home. Judy is not really talking about home solar here. She’s talking about larger projects, which sometimes are considered small scale solar.

The thing is, commercial developers also get those same tax incentives. And businesses get an additional 7. 2 percent tax break. And they can also depreciate 85 percent of the cost of installation over 5 years. Vermont also has what’s called the Standard Offer Program. This encourages small scale solar project development.

Utilities will purchase the output from these projects at predetermined rates up to 25 years. Kind of guaranteeing a steady source of income, which is a good thing if you’re a solar developer. However, it’s how and where [00:07:00] these projects are implemented that is the issue. In places like Shaftesbury, Vermont, a Connecticut based solar developer called Freepoint is proposing an 85-acre solar farm.

This would be considered a small-scale utility project. Depending on the siting requirements from the Public Utility Commission, some people estimate that more than 30 acres of forest will need to be cut for this project. Local residents opposed to it, and Judy, also say the electricity generated from it won’t even be for residents or Vermonters, but rather it’ll be for Connecticut.

Judy: And when I think about How early on the, the solar advocates were, you know, they, they were idealists and there was a vision of solar on every roof and, you know, just distributed solar. But what’s come in is industrial solar with all of the world view of [00:08:00] industry, which means that nature isn’t taken into consideration.

for your question.

Mike: It’s, it’s a really weird situation because you wrote a, you wrote a commentary for us in that, in that you, you mentioned that it seems like we’re chasing the carbon, which I, I very much can see that. But even if chasing the carbon is, is the end goal of, of these developments, it doesn’t seem to make sense to cut trees down for that.

Because in nearby Massachusetts, since 2010 alone, enough forest was destroyed for solar projects. That basically had the effect of taking away the carbon sequestration capacity of the annual emissions of 100, 000 cars. And, you know, that’s just for, for Massachusetts. So even if, even if someone is stating that reducing carbon is the goal, the way in which it’s being implemented is pretty contradictory, just from that standpoint alone.

This isn’t even taking into consideration all the lost biodiversity or all the lost [00:09:00] value that we get from forests. So, what are your thoughts on that? Thanks.

Judy: Yeah, well, carbon is really hard to, to really get an accurate measure of what the loss of a number of trees would be. You know, you’re, you’re, there’s so many unknowns, but yes, I, I absolutely agree with you.

But we collectively have gotten, well, I think, I think one challenge is that many people support solar, including industrial solar. Because the assumption is that, oh, we need to do that and that means that we’re not going to have all the emissions from the coal and natural gas, whatever else, whatever sources are being used.

But what I’m seeing increasingly is that it’s not substituting for the dirtier fuels, it’s merely adding on. And that’s something [00:10:00] that I feel that we as a society really, really need to look at. Are we look at energy, electricity as something we need more, more, more, more of without really asking what is electricity for?

AI and Data Centers Increasingly Demand More Energy

Judy: Because at this point, we’re seeing tremendous change in that AI. Is now being used on so many websites, just without anyone really choosing to have it there, you know, backups and transcripts are being generated all the time. And the data centers for AI function and others are huge, huge. Users of electricity.

So this is just happening at a large scale that so our use of electricity is being continually. [00:11:00]

Mike: Solar power is indeed the cheapest source of energy, but it is not being implemented fast enough to offset the demand for energy, as Judith is pointing out, and fossil fuel use continues to expand globally.

According to a report from WIRED, data centers and AIs demand for energy is expected to double by 2026. At a remote wind farm in Scotland’s Moray West, which could potentially power 1. 3 million homes, the company, Amazon, has already claimed half of this project’s power for itself. But back to Judy’s point about the consumption of energy with AI.

A single Google search, under its new AI aided search, uses 10 times the amount of energy as a traditional Google search does. So, one search is like leaving an LED lightbulb on for an hour. Reporting from Gizmodo highlights that Adding AI to all Google searches could approach the energy usage equivalent to the [00:12:00] country of Ireland.

Judy: And then, here in Vermont, we have the situation where the electricity isn’t even going to be used locally, it’s being shipped off to Connecticut. So, when you get into this large-scale industrial model, things happen that early advocates of solar might never have dreamed of. And just one thing is that that’s really not talked about is, and I’m not anti-solar, but solar fields generate heat.

So, you’ve got, you know, a flat surface, and the sun beams down, and it becomes sensible heat. And I know hang gliders that, who say that they’re in Massachusetts, central Massachusetts, that They go looking for solar large solar arrays because they know they’ll get a thermal from from the heat

Mike: Oh, yeah, this is this is [00:13:00] really interesting and it reminds me a little bit obviously different situation But we just had a conversation with Celine Lim talking about in Sarawak where they’re placing more hydropower But a lot of that hydropower is being exported to Indonesia and they’re planning to export it to Brunei and Singapore and so so yeah, so this is the other thing is that I wanted to bring up with you is that Harvard Forest published a report just last year saying that we could meet Massachusetts energy demands with policy incentives that discourage ground mount projects to solar and instead focusing on ones that are much more like individualized such as placing them on roofs or putting them on already developed land or otherwise.

Impervious services that aren’t farmland or forest. I’m oversimplifying the report here a bit, so I encourage you to check it out for yourself. But they do say that some ground mount projects are necessary, but there are adjustments that can be made to the current incentives that minimize the ecological [00:14:00] impact of these.

The report also highlights the benefits of using brownfields or landfills. Which are definitely not farmlands and forests as a great place to put solar projects. The Nature Conservancy stated that there are 20 million acres of brownfields and mine lands in the U. S. alone, which would be enough to power most of the energy demands of most U.S. homes. And it seemed like that some policy makers in Massachusetts actually started to acknowledge that, you know, what had been done was a problem, and that We needed to take a different approach going forward. So I’m just kind of curious as, as to, in a state like Vermont, which is known for its sort of progressive policies, why is that not being acknowledged, do you think?

Judy: Because at this point, I don’t know if anyone has read that report. I’ve read that report and I’ve written to legislators and I, about it, policymakers. I can’t say why [00:15:00] because I’m not hanging around the halls in Montpelier.

Mike: Yeah, I just, it just outlined a lot of different ways that, that could be done rather than deforestation.

And I thought some of those were worth highlighting here, such as, you know, incentivizing approaches that would reduce costs to put rooftop solar on people’s homes, prioritizing solar with the lowest impact to nature. Pretty common sense things that one would think or hope that someone who is involved in creating legislation for solar would have thought of years ago.

Rhett: Hi, this is Rhett Butler, the founder and CEO of Mongabay. Please join me for a special in person event with Jane Goodall. To celebrate her 90th birthday and MAGA Bay’s 25th birthday. The event will be hosted by the Commonwealth Club of California on September 16th, 2024 in San Francisco. You can also join virtually from anywhere.

Find the link in the show [00:16:00] notes for tickets and use the promo code C one partner one word, all letters uppercase for $10 off. I hope you can join us for this exciting conversation with my friend Jane Goodall. One of the world’s most iconic conservationists,

Mike: but anyway, yeah, it seemed like that report had some some good things to share But

Judy: really

Forests and Heat Mitigation

Mike: yeah, and again like you mentioned this isn’t to say that anyone speaking here is against solar But there is common sense ways to do it that haven’t been done that at least some people in Massachusetts are acknowledging That need to be done going forward But anyway, you have also mentioned that on top of all the carbon sequestration that forests provide, which is difficult to measure, it provides heat mitigating effects.

We just had a conversation with Anastassia Makarieva talking about how this could potentially affect climate modeling for the future. Um, so it’s home to wildlife and biodiversity that simply can’t be [00:17:00] replaced, but can you talk about more about the heat mitigating effects of forests? And what you gleaned from the conference on enhancing nature’s complexity for climate that you attended in Munich.

Judy: Yeah, I was extremely fortunate to be at this conference with Anastassia Makarieva and your fellow podcaster Rachel Donald and many other people from places like Brazil. And, you know, a lot of biotic pump scientists are from Brazil because the Amazon rainforest is a an important model for understanding how forests work.

So yeah, I like to think about understanding forest, how forests work. So, think about forest as verb instead of noun. So, we’re learning that forests are more than just a collection of random trees. Plantation forests are, are like that, but, but, uh, a natural [00:18:00] forest that has grown over time has many, many functions.

And one basic function also, which is very relevant here in Vermont, is it manages water. Trees slow the flow of water; the moisture is held in the rich soil beneath the trees. When you remove the trees, then, like on a hill, like, that they’re planning, where they’re planning to cut down the trees in Vermont, then heavy rains like we had the other day, heavy rains like we had last year throughout the state, You’re just going to get erosion and lose all the topsoil and it’ll wash out the roads, all the problems that you, you get.

So, it’s important not to forget what forests do for us. But more than that, what biotic pump scientists have helped us to understand is the extent to which natural forests [00:19:00] drive the distribution of moisture horizontally. So, I like to think that there’s the horizontal impact. And then there’s the vertical impact of the transpiration condensation dynamic.

Transpiration is the upward movement of moisture through plants, and then the moisture that consumes heat, okay? So, process of transpiration is also a process of harvesting heat from the surface, from where solar radiation meets the ground. Transcribed So, the vertical piece is transpiration, moisture comes up, and this solar energy is held as latent heat.

And then, then you get the process of condensation. It cools at some point, and then the water vapor [00:20:00] becomes water, you know, when you get clouds and ultimately precipitation. But what’s important there in terms of the biotic pump, which is this function of natural forests, is that when the biotic pump is working, the heat is released, the water condenses at a high level in the atmosphere, you know, relatively high.

So that, at the cloud level, the heat is reflected out to space. When you have degraded forests, where the biotic pump is no longer functioning, it doesn’t, it isn’t lifted up. The condensation happens lower down, where it then interacts with the greenhouse gases and gets trapped. So, we often look at greenhouse gases, we talk about carbon [00:21:00] dioxide in itself, but understanding how greenhouse gases interact with heat in different forms, latent heat, released heat, and how it interacts with other greenhouse gases such as water, water vapor, you know, water vapor is part of that package of greenhouse gases.

And we’re seeing a lot of, you know, as the, as we’re getting warmer air, more heat is held, you know, what that brings to mind is just the heat and humidity we’ve had here in Vermont lately, but just, just, I think it’s really important to understand. CO2 in the context, in a context that includes the function of forests and the presence of moisture.

One thing that we don’t talk about enough, because I feel that it’s really [00:22:00] relevant to the climate conversation, is climate sensitivity. And what that, what climate sensitivity means is the amount of warming per rise in CO2. And there’s lots of different modeling on this. What we understand is that natural systems, healthy natural systems, provide a buffer for heating.

So, if you have healthy forests and a certain rise in CO2, it might be a small rise in temperature. If the forests are cleared and the natural systems are trashed and it’s full of concrete, you’re going to get more of a temperature rise per increase of CO2. It just makes sense, because another way to understand the story of [00:23:00] climate is, it’s the story of what happens to solar radiation, solar energy, when it meets the ground, whether it hits bare ground, concrete, asphalt, and becomes heat, or whether it encounters life forms, forests and meadows and, um, grasslands, in which case, much of that solar energy is incorporated into life forms, that it, that the heat is actually dissipated through the transpiration occurring.

among those plants. So, I think it’s really useful to understand where we have agency. It’s not just the rise of CO2, it’s the context around the rise in CO2. Yes, we should bring CO2 down, and [00:24:00] many ways to do that. Whatever the scenario, healthy ecosystems, particularly, Healthy, intact forest can help to buffer heating related to greenhouse gases.

Mike: There’s an example. It’s not completely exactly the same thing you’re speaking of, but an analogy I can kind of think of is the urban heat island effect. But when you have more trees in a city, it helps to mitigate the heat that you’re experiencing. So, like where I live, our temperatures, even though I’m only.

It’s actually like a couple of degrees cooler where I am on the same day or a few degrees cooler because there’s lots of trees where I live, whereas if you’re in the west of the city where there’s not as many or any trees, really, it’s a lot hotter out there. So, when we’re experiencing heat waves, they get hit [00:25:00] much harder than we do.

Judy: Yeah, it actually is absolute common sense.

Mike: And it’s like just. It’s, it’s such a delicate system, it’s hard to, like, imagine, like, what the negative effects of what’s going to happen if we take away forests that has previously never been taken away like that before, that, in our lifetime, and we’re doing it as if it’s replacing the carbon one to one.

And it seems like it’s, it’s such a, a gamble to take to deforest all these areas for solar, especially when it’s not even having the carbon mitigating effects that people are, purporting it to have in the first place. So that is really troubling. It’s, it’s really crazy to think about.

Community Awareness and Action

Mike: So just for people who are listening, because obviously those of us listening to this podcast and talking right now, we want to transition off of fossil fuels and, and switch to renewable energy, but we want to do it in a way that [00:26:00] preserves our ecosystems and biodiversity rather than destroying them.

So, to, to the folks listening who are concerned about how solar gets applied, or even if it gets applied, what would you say to them? For them to be more aware or active in their communities about these processes.

Judy: Yeah, of course, that would vary by the community, but, but I would encourage people to, to look and see how solar is being rolled out where they are, because states vary in terms of their incentives and how they deal with developers.

But I really encourage people to do that because most people don’t know that this is happening. Colleagues and people in Vermont here don’t know. They may hear a little something about it and then just think, “Oh, well, solar is good because then we’ll have less fossil fuel derived energy.” It’s not necessarily so.

And I [00:27:00] think, I mean, really all of us just want to think that this is the right direction to go. And, you know, we, we want to be. We want to be able to relax about something. So, when we hear that Vermont has pledged to have X percent of energy coming from solar by such and such a date, like you think, phew, great, the grown-ups are here and they’re taking care of it.

But in order to do that, we may be sacrificing forests and farmland and, and other, and, and when we’re in, in that sacrifice, we’re also sacrificing. Biodiversity and forest health and all that. And I think, I think here in our state and else, I can’t speak for elsewhere that I think forests have been taken for granted because we are so forested.

And again, I understand, I understand the pressure that [00:28:00] legislators are under, you know, that they’re hearing for people. We need, we need to do something about climate change. And it seems like. By going, by pushing solar, that is what they’re doing, but we forget about the other piece. And the huge piece, which is how I articulated it in, in the commentary, is the understanding that healthy ecosystems play a huge role in regulating climate.

So, our climate can only be as healthy as our ecosystems. as our environment. So it’s not like you could say, well, we’ll give up these trees because in giving up those trees, you are losing the climate mitigating capacity of those trees, all that those trees do. So, I mentioned [00:29:00] flooding, you know, how they help regulate the water cycle, how they bring in moisture, you know, they’re, they’re part of that package of the movement of moisture horizontally, globally.

And the trees block the wind, they do so many things, they hold water, um, they release water, they’re, they’re part of so many important biogeochemical cycles.

Mike: And also, uh, giving up those trees for whom or for what, because you mentioned that the energy that is being produced, some of this additional energy, isn’t for, People’s homes necessarily.

It isn’t for people to switch off of fossil fuel energy. It’s for you. You’ve mentioned that a lot of it is going to new data centers or corporations such as like Google. So,

Judy: yeah, I don’t know about exactly. I know that that that’s true. The energy produced by this [00:30:00] proposed project is earmarked for Connecticut because I saw the documents.

But yeah, these data centers, so I guess that’s something else that I would, I would really encourage people to do is to begin to ask the question, what is electricity for? Because if we don’t If you ask the question, then the status quo is just putting in for more, more growth. And is more growth what we need or what we want?

Is that serving us? Because, you know, in, in mentioning these data centers, I know that, so I guess, I guess another thing about being in, in Vermont, you know, I, I think sometimes of like the situation with the solar as a kind of, um, rural land grab. You know, so there are places in Africa and South America where big companies are doing land grabs to get the resources, you [00:31:00] do industrial farming, all those kinds of things.

We’re a rural area with not a lot of wealth in Vermont. I mean, there’s some private wealth, but not, not really. And so, it’s, it’s kind of a like rural land grab there. Two, and I know that data centers are often planned for very rural areas. I know someone in, in, um, semi-rural New Mexico where they’re really struggling for water.

But I think one company, I don’t remember which company, was going to put in a big data or probably already has put in a big data center. And to cool the machinery, tremendous amounts of water is needed. So, it doesn’t make sense to put that. in a water challenged place. But the balance sheet in making these plans doesn’t necessarily look at the [00:32:00] consequences.

They only might look at the consequences or they wouldn’t look at the consequences to the community. It’s only if they have access to the water.

Mike: It reminds me a little bit of a situation in Texas where the local politicians in Texas have incentivized Bitcoin mining companies to kind of come in and, you know, It uses just this gigantic amount of electricity, driving up the price of that electricity for local residents.

It kind of reminds me of that a little bit.

Judy: Again, what is electricity for?

Mike: Yeah.

Judy: Um, for, for us as a, as a society to begin to, to ask questions as opposed to, we just have to have more electricity because this company needs it or, or whatever. I mean, we’re kind of, I think on the back foot. I mean, do, would most people want to have land that might be used for other things used for centers to allow for the [00:33:00] processing for Bitcoin?

I don’t know. I mean, there is a cost to society of all that electricity use. And is society compensated for that?

Mike: This might sound like an obvious question, but what would it look like then in your eyes? What would a just implementation of solar look like in your eyes for Vermont?

Judy: Yeah, I think going back to what the earlier vision of solar was, which is distributed rather than concentrated.

So, the big solar arrays, you know, it’s concentrated, it’s a lot of energy. And also, when you, when you then distribute that energy, you lose a good 10 to 15 percent in the sending off of it to another location. Yeah, just small, small scale and thoughtfully done, [00:34:00] done in the context. Um, place. So it might be on someone’s roof.

We have a small ground, we weren’t able to do it on our roof, we have a small ground-based array and we’re looking to, well, I put in a lot of native plants, shade loving plants. That was my first idea, to make use of that shade. Unfortunately, the rabbits found those plants really tasty, so I may put in a fence and do some plantings, but just thinking about how to use the shade that has been created.

So yeah, so it, so everything context based and local.

Mike: Judith, I, I don’t want to take up too much more of your time and you’ve been generous with it. Um, so thank you so much for talking with us about this very important story. And I wish you the best out there [00:35:00] in Vermont.

Judy: Well, thank you so much. And you all do such a great job covering things everywhere.

Mike: We really appreciate it. Thank you.

Credits

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