KENNEBEC JOURNAL • August 14, 2021
The Augusta City Council’s decision to put a moratorium on the building of solar farms in the city was based on numerous complaints by constituents that these “farms” are not aesthetically pleasing, and residents don’t want Augusta to be known as the solar capital. Why not? Do we want to be known as the city of urban sprawl? What about our fossil fuel burning, polluting, mass-consuming society is aesthetically pleasing? I think industrial parks are ugly. I think housing developments are ugly and so is the shopping plaza that cleared a forest by the interstate. Why are solar farms being held to a different standard? At this point in the Anthropocene, the aesthetics of energy production, green or otherwise, are the least of our problems. ~ Tracy Weber, Augusta