To the Editor:

“They glazed paradise and put up a solar park.”

With apologies to Joni Mitchell, I wonder what future generations will think of the current rush to approve taxpayer subsidized solar developments in our city? It’s a reckless rush that will likely leave a legacy of scarred landscapes and persistent power outages if left unchecked.

Fortunately, Warwick residents Jane Kenny Austin and Leslie Derrig are willing to address that concern. Their letters in the July 8th edition are well worth reading (“Warwick needs a solar strategy that preserves our trees, forests”/“Solar ordinance could have long range negative impact”).

Both writers challenge the logic of clearing stands of beautiful, carbon dioxide absorbing trees to make way for ugly, inanimate arrays of solar panels that ultimately end up as hazardous waste.

They are right. It doesn’t make sense. And so they are asking like-minded Warwick residents to register their concerns with members of the Warwick City Council and specifically request the members to delete footnote 27 from the proposed solar ordinance.

We should also question our elected officials about the wisdom of making our city and state overly dependent (the goal is 100%) on unreliable solar and wind energy sources. That extreme pursuit is pure folly.

What will we do for electricity when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow? We will inevitably be faced with exorbitant electricity prices and plagued with rolling blackouts. Without fossil fuels in the energy mix that is bound to happen.

Traditional energy sources have provided us with reliable electrical power for generations. We should not be so hasty to jettison that reliability. Joni Mitchell cautions us: “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone…”

A. H. Liddle
Warwick