Daily Dumbassery

I am not one to easily mock people for their ignorance in Science and will judge silently from afar. But there are those time when simply shaking your head or face palming is not enough.

In Woodland, North Carolina, the town has voted against using solar panels.  They have fears that the panels will consume too much of the sunlight and their other plants will suffer with the lighter load of rays directed to them.  Also, they are concerned that solar panels bring cancer.  And when I say they, both of these 'fears' were presented by a science teacher.  

I could go on with some of the other dumbass reasons, but I am trying to cut back on my rants for my health and for your pleasure.  You can thank me by remembering to donate to a new religion I am devising.  It is all based on The Big Lebowski and Ghostbusters, but I do not want to give away too much in case someone steals my idea before I get everything patented.

As per the usual, I digress.

Let us take a moment and look at these statements made by a science teacher.

1) Sun Thievery

Given the size of the sun, unless your plants are sitting directly under the solar panels or growing in your closet, then I can assure you that there is plenty of sun to go around.  Moreover, the Earth is about the size of an average sunspot.  For those of you non-astronomy folks, that is about the size of a zit on a teenage whale.  Considering that many countries in Europe are using more and more solar power and Disney World has not called to complain that they are getting less sun, I think we can safely surmise, that a few more panels is not going to ruin Spring Break in Daytona this year.

2) Cancerous Panelists

Is there an off chance that some cell or chemical in a solar panel may cause a sickness or cancer.  Sure.  I am not ruling it out.  However, what about our fossil fuel power plants?  Ask the miners that extracted that stuff out of the ground how good it is for their health.  What about Nuclear power plants?  Of course, they are cleaner than the coal burning alternative, but lest we forget Chernobyl and Fukushima.  Both are equally tragic from poor safety measures, although Japan was hit with a massive tsunami.  Of course, I firmly believe in nuclear power, but in the United States it is a bad idea, since we usually allow greedy, incompetent energy corporations to build and run our power infrastructure.  When you go with the lowest bidder, you really do get what you pay for, folks!

Bottom line, whether they can cause it or not, solar energy and solar panels have to be safer than what we currently have!  When I hear these ignorant pontifications, I have to think that they all originate from the same news source that is bought and paid for by the aforementioned incompetent energy corporations that would not want us to use solar energy or drive hybrids.  

As I see it, Woodland, NOrth Carolina... you have won the Dumbassery Award for today!  Bill Nye will be by soon to slap you all around!   Congrats!