A little backstory.
A local township here in central Michigan, Ingersoll, recently refused (without legal justification) to approve a permit for a solar farm, for which the developer, Michigan utility DTE, had met or exceeded all ordinance requirements. The Planning Commission did so under duress and harassment by well organized and poorly informed “antis”, who came out in force to recent meetings, egged on by fossil fuel coordinated messaging on social media.
The issue will continue to percolate, and there will eventually be a solar farm – see the column further down.
When I came across the image above on their Facebook page, illustrating a naive and simple minded misunderstanding of the issues, I wrote this response.
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The farmer driving that Combine isn’t there for the “simple country life”.
His land is not his “vibe”, or his “lifestyle’ – it is HIS LIFE, and likely the life of his Father and Grandfather before him.
While you’re watching the sunset, drinking a margarita, and “vibing” – he’s working late into the night, again, because he has to make payments on that 400,000 dollar combine.
The price of a bushel of corn is not much higher than what his Dad was getting back in 1985, and his input prices keep jumping.
He knows that diesel and urea are going to cost him 20,000 dollars more this planting season because of the war in Iran.
Speaking of wars, he’s worried about his son, who is on deployment in the Arabian Sea. He hasn’t heard from him in a week or so, and is a little anxious.
He’s hoping junior will want to take over the farm, but with the economy the way it is, this way of life seems like a lot of work with not much security.
He’s hoping that if he can get some solar panels on part of his acreage, the lease payments would be a drought proof, flood proof, recession proof, tariff proof addition to his income, one that his Banker will appreciate, and might make the farm look more attractive to his son.
He knows that a lot of his neighbors have ideas for how he should manage his own land. They’ve made that clear at meetings he’s been to.
None of them have offered to help pay his taxes, keep up with the diesel and fertilizer prices, or even just be civil and refrain from harassing and insulting him for wanting to exercise what he thought were his constitutionally protected and God given rights to site clean energy on his land.
Some days he wonders if they look at him as just some glorified Grounds keeper, whose only job is to maintain an unchanging pastoral back drop for other’s “lifestyles”.
He hates to think that he might be the one in the family that loses the farm.
He knows if his finances get much worse, he’ll have to consider the offer from those land developers who keep calling him.
They’re ready to turn that farmland into houses, roads, strip malls, subdivisions, burger joints, gas stations and concrete.
It’s use for farming, for habitat for wildlife, as a beautiful landscape, will be gone forever.
He wonders if the people who are hounding and vilifying him have even thought of that?
My column in the local newspaper summarized the issue at hand, and the antis completely predictable cluelessness.
Peter Sinclair in the Midland Daily News:
“It’s easier to fool people” Mark Twain said, “than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
This is true because it is so damaging to people’s self image to acknowledge they’ve been bamboozled.
Con men know this, and that’s why we see this pattern repeated so frequently at all levels of government in the US today.
We saw that dynamic in action this week in Ingersoll Township, as the Planning Commission voted to deny a permit to a planned DTE solar farm, in a proceeding reminiscent of the movie “Idiocracy”.
What should have been made clear to the crowd, heavy with organized, Facebook-frenzied NIMBYs, is that there IS going to be a solar project in Ingersoll Township.
That’s not in doubt.
Michigan’s Zoning and Enabling Act makes clear that a legal use of land can not be zoned out of existence by an “Exclusionary” ordinance – and renewable energy is a legal use of Agricultural land.
The actual issues in question at the meeting were:
- would the Commission issue a Special Use Permit for the utility’s current plan, which meets or exceeds all requirements of Ingersoll’s ordinance
- would the township then be able to apply for a much needed, no-strings, “Renewable Ready Community” grant, worth 645,000 dollars, for successfully permitting the project locally.
The ordinance, painstakingly written by Ingersoll officials over many months, won many key concessions from DTE on important conditions like setbacks and visual buffers.
By law, if the requirements of the ordinance are met, the permit must be granted.
Suddenly saying the conditions are not met, as some Commission members did, without being able to cite a reason in the actual record, does not hold up.
Ingersoll’s own Attorney and Engineer made it plain that the tortured objections being raised by some Commission members were not supportable in the factual record.
So the end result of the “no” vote is, the township has thrown away 645,000 dollars in grant money, and the utility could go to court, with a high likelihood of winning a judgement, based on the record, possibly creating even more legal bills for the township.
Even if the Utility were to lose in Court, they could take the project directly to the Michigan Public Service Commission, and have it (very likely) permitted there.
Many in the crowd were operating entirely on manipulated and misinformed emotion, and their “research” of Facebook memes, rather than acquaintance with the facts.
Members of the crowd felt free to shout and catcall at the board, leading the Chair to frequently stop the meeting to quiet the room.
Sheriff deputies were in attendance, because so many similar meetings around the state have devolved into threats and shoving matches.
It’s sadly not unusual, because the Fossil Fuel industry has a template, – a highly coordinated disinformation campaign, using a vast media structure, and social media algorithms that know us better than we know ourselves, to manipulate those who have the least knowledge to be the most indignant, aggrieved, and convinced of their rectitude.
Farmers across the midwest have told me of being spit on, harassed, and even threatened with death by internet-activated zealots, for having the temerity to lease their own land for clean energy.
The template is being repeated around the state, and the nation, as the fossil fuel industry, threatened by cheaper, cleaner alternatives, seeks to further divide our society, even if it means weakening America, and sabotaging our children’s future.
Another sore point for farmers was the frequent reference by commenters to “preserving OUR Farmland”. Don’t use those words to a farmer about the land his family has sweated over for generations, unless you’re willing to kick in on his taxes, and the soaring costs of fertilizer, diesel, and other inputs.
Farmers who genuinely need, and have a right to, diversify their incomes with clean energy are clearly viewed by the anti-clean energy crowd as merely “the help” – groundskeepers whose only job is to maintain an unchanging pastoral backdrop for exurbanite’s “Green Acres” lifestyle.
So when the panel finally voted to deny the permit, it was ironic to hear members in the audience applaud, convinced they had somehow “won” something.
Savvy observers could only smile and scratch their heads – seeing a whole room of hopelessly confused citizens – entirely clueless as to how they had hobbled their own community, while betraying their own professed values, their children and future generations.
It’s a microcosm of how our political discourse has been poisoned by a massive disinformation machine, and a war on science, largely funded and driven by the fossil fuel industry.
It’s going to take long years of tough love and truth telling to bring our communities back together, but we could start today.