Sharon Weizenbaum News Today

As Massachusetts tries to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 — necessitating seven to 10 times its current solar capacity — contentious cases like Shutesbury illuminate a complex interplay of federal and state policy, grid infrastructure, and economics. Such factors can lead to seemingly counterintuitive proposals that threaten to pit activist against activist, like cutting down forestland to reduce the state’s carbon emissions.

Officials in Shutesbury and Pelham are supporting another Massachusetts community in a Supreme Judicial Court case that, depending on its outcome, could limit how cities and towns control development of large-scale solar projects.With several area...

It must be pointed out strongly that the opening line in Steve Roof’s opinion piece (“Forests and solar: Yes we need both,” Dec. 15) is false: “The cause of climate change is burning fossil fuels.” This is a distortion of the truth that the cause of...