In the process, plants sequester a lot of that carbon. Climate scolds like to talk about the need to sequester atmospheric carbon and have proposed some expensive schemes to do what a forest does naturally. 

So, when Michigan plans to bulldoze 420 acres of trees to build a solar panel farm to meet "climate goals," you get an idea of how silly that is. But it gets worse: 420 acres is only the start.

Michigan state officials plan to clear 420 acres from a state forest to build a new solar farm in the name of environmentalism.

A “top state official” confirmed to MLive that the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) planned to bulldoze a large swath of forestland to build a solar farm as part of a lease agreement.

The outlet noted that the DNR “recently assessed 1,200 acres of public trust land in Otsego County near a major power transmission line to decide whether it was suitable for solar arrays” and decided to lease 35% of the land to go with other solar projects that are already being developed.

Those "other solar projects" are going to destroy even more forest to meet these climate goals.

The sudden desire to destroy trees for solar panels comes as the state risks failing to meet its own climate goal of 100% “clean” energy by 2040. If it doesn’t increase its development of so-called renewable energy, it won’t meet its arbitrary timeframe.

The 420 acres about to be bulldozed are part of 4,000 acres of public land that will be flattened to try and meet the 2040 deadline.

Public land, even - meaning, presumably, land that is held by the state government in trust, as it were, for the people of the state of Michigan. Land that would otherwise be available for a variety of recreational uses, as most public land is.

Now, though, it will be destroyed in favor of solar panels that will take up an enormous amount of space to produce far less energy than a nuclear power plant would generate with a much, much smaller footprint. 

This is ridiculous.

Atmospheric scientist Dr. Judith Curry was quick to weigh in, citing Chris Martz's recent calculations that we have described before:

Land use requirements (among other thing) will seriously constrain the penetration of wind and solar into the grid, and this analysis doesn't include the additional land requirements for transmission lines. Well done, Chris https://t.co/VjrVEopGfS

— Judith Curry (@curryja) December 30, 2024

To sum that up, solar arrays require 38 times more land to produce the same amount of electricity as one modern fission plant. Wind is even worse, requiring 140 times the land to produce that same amount of electricity - enough to power about 775,000 typical homes. That doesn't even take into account the issues with reliability or the necessity of battery backups for times when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining.

See Related: Climate Scold Claims on Nuclear v. Wind/Solar: The Math Doesn't Add Up

'Green' Energy Sources Have Too Many Problems – Like Unreliability and Fragility

In short, this is land use malpractice on the part of the state of Michigan.

So, why do these "clean energy" goals never include nuclear power? Fission reactors are everything the climate scolds and "clean energy" types profess to want; modern reactors, including molten-salt and small modular reactors, are safe, efficient, and produce no carbon emissions. There is the issue of nuclear waste, but modern reactors are very efficient; hence, the amount of radioactive waste produced is small, and we already have a perfectly ample place to store that waste - or we would, if the federal government would ever stop arguing over it.

With this, the state of Michigan and its "climate goals" have officially leaped feet-first into the realm of the absurd - destroying forested land to install solar panels. They are literally destroying the environment to protect the environment. It's time for the voters of the Wolverine State to impose some level of sanity on the state government and vote in people who will scotch this idiotic idea. And that may well happen; after decades of failed predictions, after decades of climate scolds wagging their fingers at people for driving SUVs while they take private jets off to global climate clambakes, after decades of climate activists gluing themselves to roadways and defacing priceless works of art, it's beginning to look like people have had enough. Even the big investment firms are starting to distance themselves from this horse squeeze.

Maybe Michigan voters can start us on a path back to sanity.