From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

I hope that solar-energy firms in New England are constantly on the lookout for already open land, such as parking lots around moribund shopping centers, as alternatives to cutting down woodlands to make space for solar panels. The recession we’re now in may well make more moribund shopping center parking lots available.

Trees, after all, are also important in addressing climate change, not to mention wildlife and green aesthetics that help humans’ health. There’s a natural temptation to use a lot of that woodland in, for example, exurban southern and western Rhode Island for solar farms. But there’s plenty of asphalt open space in our urban areas, and wide flat roofs on big-box stores.