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To the Editor:

Before a joint meeting is undertaken, board members of Sussex and Southampton County, landowners and farmers should be asking a number of questions: Will there be an environmental impact study done first?  What are the consequences of destroying forest land around Airfield Pond?  How will storm runoff affect water quality?  How will a private solar company acquire productive farmland from unwilling landowners?  What do House Bill 636 and Senate Bill 567 actually say?  The citizens of both counties should be informed of the exact wording.  “What are the policies and goals we have set for ourselves?” Delegate Sullivan and Senator Cree Deeds both live in Northern Virginia.  They are perfectly content to implement their own goals far from their own constituents.  Are their goals rooted in so-called climate change and the Green New Deal? If so, their goals must include a reduction of CO2 as a pollutant to be reduced or eliminated.

Honest climate scientists have stated that CO2 is beneficial and essential to plant life.  Trees absorb CO2 and produce oxygen, essential to all animal life as reported in the Epoch Times (Doctor Craig Ioso, 5-24-2023 and Dr. Patrick Moore, 01-03-24). A NASA report stated that the “Earth’s greenness was increasing, the health of forests, grasslands, and farmland is more robust.”  Does it make sense to permanently destroy forest land or to plant more trees?  Who benefits from such destruction for solar farms?  The solar contractor for one, and certainly not farmers.  Leftist politicians?  “Whoever controls the land, controls the people (Epoch Times, Dec. 26, 2023).” This is how it is being done in Nevada, Michigan and South Dakota.  By taking control of land use from local communities to give it to state officials for renewable energy projects.  By declaring themselves common carriers, private companies are attempting to seize private land by eminent domain.  This appears to be in bill 636 and SB 567.  Amy Drewery of Surry County, Dendron District, touched on this development.  She likened the bill to a form of imminent domain (The Tidewater News, Jan. 24, 2024).  Board members, land owners, farmers, beware.

William Hancock 

Sedley