Letter: Don’t cut trees for solar farm

This massive solar farm, hard at work on April 4, 2015, sits along Edwards Avenue in Calverton. Credit: Steve Pfost
I have to comment on the absurdity of Suffolk County’s tentative plan to cut down 44 acres of woods for a solar farm [“Suffolk going solar,” News, Nov. 23].
Trees consume carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Solar technology produces electricity without emitting carbon dioxide. By cutting down forests to build solar facilities, do we attain a net improvement of zero for our environment?
Trees plus solar would certainly yield a gain! Please construct solar farms on open spaces; they are readily available. Then our forests can continue to help the environment.
Mark Hobson, Riverhead