The left’s propensity to create or convert benign words to advance a political agenda is well known.  Even the word “liberal” has a completely different, nearly opposite, meaning today than several decades earlier.  In fact, later publications of F.A. Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom” necessitated a special preface to explain this change in the popular language, lest people become confused by the classical use of the word “liberal” throughout the book.

We are constantly on the lookout for such antics, and feel that it is useful to point these out as they surface.  “Solar garden” is a new one that caught our eye in a Denver Post story published over the weekend.

The word “garden” generally congers up pleasant images ranging from cozy backyard flower beds to the magnificent gardens at Buckingham Palace or the White House.

It is obvious why the left may choose a word like this to describe the industrial-scale solar energy production facilities that are popping up, displacing natural habitats, all over the state.  What is essentially a scar of metal and plastic on the landscape has now been dubbed a “garden.”  Nice.

And, just how “green” are these things, anyway?  Why was (now bankrupt) Abound Solar forced to bury excess solar panels in cement?  What happens to the millions of pounds of toxic waste that is created in the production of solar panels every year?

It’s ironic that the oil and gas industry is public enemy number one to environmentalists when the companies are conducting E&P operations or building midstream infrastructure that slightly alters land.  Yet, when a so-called green energy enterprise plants steel, plastic, transmission lines, batteries, and who knows what else in the ground, all of the sudden it is a “solar garden.”