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

It was good to hear that Rhode Island’s state Renewable Energy Fund has announced that solar-energy companies can apply for part of  $1 million  set aside to encourage the firms to install their projects on contaminated former industrial space instead of in forests (we need those trees to help fight global warming) and other undeveloped space. It’s a small but  commendable start.

As I’ve often written, as much as is economically practical, solar companies ought to put their panels at such places as parking lots, rooftops, landfills, sand-and-gravel pits, etc.  God knows that as COVID-19 accelerates the destruction of big box retailers and shopping malls surrounded by windswept parking lots there will be more and more space available for solar-energy farms! And the more of them, the less we must depend on fossil fuel from outside New England.

New England Council’s Fine Work

For near-daily updates on New England’s response to the pandemic look at the New England Council’s Web site – newenglandcouncil.com. It’s superb.

Keep Local Stores in Business

I drove by  the Walmart in Providence last Tuesday afternoon. It looked as if you’d need at least 40 minutes waiting in line to get into that depressing establishment. I wish that more people would try to keep their money in our area by patronizing locally owned stores instead of the Arkansas-based behemoth, some of whose stores, by the way, have been COVID-19 hotspots, such as one in Worcester.

I suspect that pandemic-caused unemployment is freeing up time for many more people to shop during what had been their workdays at places like Walmart that offer cheap goods. (I’m an Ocean State Job Lot fan myself. Much friendlier and calmer than Walmart, though, of course less stuff.)