this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2026
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I totally agree and I've been saying this for a little while. But get this, since there are plenty of unused grassy properties out there in America, there's somewhere they're making deals with sheep heard owners where the sheep are regularly brought over to the property to eat grass around and under the solar panels. Apparently trying to keep the grass cleaned up and not overgrowing the panels is a problem because of all the little nooks and crannies, getting mowing done under and around them as a pain in the ass. But the sheep can just come in there get a free meal and do the job perfectly well. It's win-win.
Here in the West they're just covering up all the desert areas that are not being used anyways. And they also bring in livestock of various kinds to take care of a lot of the weeds and keep it cleaned up as well. I think it's a great use of space since there is so much of it in such wide abundance of sun. There's also quite a few of the car parks here that have been installing solar panels over the cars and that's a great use as well but that's also quite a huge expense overall.
the sheep, we envision when someone says sheep, wouldnt exist without humanity. its also -like all other bred animal breeds with similar situations- serious damage for their bones to carry 10kg's of extra fur(bred to be wooly).
So no, this is not a win-win
Not a win because it's not vegan? Most people don't share your beliefs.
Most people are happy to use the animals we have spent thousands of years making useful
I see this as a win/win/win - the sheep farmer gets rent for the land the panels are on, the weeds are kept down by the sheep, we get clean electricity, we get wool
Ed. "Animal races" the word is species, races is for the variation in humans, or in fantasy it's the humanoid species
I suppose it would be reasonable to talk about races of sheep to talk about all the different types of sheep
Breeds. When is animals they're different breeds. Interestingly there's fewer differences between human ethnicities than between different animal breeds
Among humans I have heard that there is more variety within human races than between them
Music says we're the whole human race
"most people dont share your beliefs" is not an argument for anything. imagine people saying that for a pro slavery work stance. same with "weve done that before".
but sure correct my wording after making a fake argument, must be a very good sign for the confidence in your stance. :D Of course youre talking about sheep for wool, what else would you call a "win" here?
And again, it is not a win, reread my first response, it literally already answered. Im sure deep down u see its pretty hard to not derail without addressing that/admitting theres unbendable, simple contradiction
Goarts then, whatever. You can hang out with goats even if youre not exploiting them more than you would a human.
"No profit, not work-ey" - unless we change the system to make accumulation impossible of course
anything else would be ignorant to compare to the commonness of parking lots - as in not worth to compare to begin with, like the handful of animal sanctuaries or whatever u'd think of here
Maybe we live in a society that just has more goats, and goats are a bigger part of everyones lives.
Id rather not have any parking lots if it were entirely my choice.
look, im car free by choice - couldve owned a newer A4 avant. So we agree on the parking lots in its prevalance are too much.
This doesnt change the fact that the whole sheep input is still absurd - no matter how romanticized the cartoony picture looks like.. the realist view on your idealist idea could be "agrar solar" -> here an example picture
There is a big ass vehicle turning the soil in that pic. I dont think thats a phase of modern agriculture typically presented in the pr photos, and its not pretty even when you do it by hand.
i dont follow, maybe its because im not native english/american? id be happy if you could make the point clearer for me here..cause currently youre discribing the thing but there seems to be no full argument without further context?
Farms are ugly. Factory farms doubly so.
This is the ugly phase. You can see the soil being turned by the tractor in the pic linked. It looks at lesst a little less ugly a couple months after that.
I mean u can easily replace the farming method under it...?!
Never made my point for a farming method here, u can just swap this solar system with syntropic agriculture or whatever your heart desires.... no?
Thats not the point. I... Nevermind.
Goats under economic interest are ugly, I have no clue what your point is by critiquing the solar panel system for a (variable) farming method
I mean we can agree here then no?
Pls enlighten me
No, thanks.
even for non-vegan people the climate impact of sheep farming should be concerning.
interestingly enough - planetary boundries include more essential parameters than greenhouse gases if people would be interested in more food for thought.
like degradation of soil to a level of unusable (N- & P-cycles) due to 75% of landuse for animal food ( "Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek (2018)" where sheep are "just" a small percentile since we breed thousand of millions of other human-made animal breeds) or usable freshwater supplies getting more and more critical decade after decade..
this post to be fair was about where to put solar panels