Instead of building solar farms on undeveloped land, Conniff argues that we should be building them on top of or over existing structures, such as parking lots.

"The appeal of parking lots and rooftops," he writes, "is that they are abundant, close to customers, largely untapped for solar power generation, and on land that's already been stripped of much of its biological value."

Building a canopy with a solar array over a parking lot, he goes on to say, would not only generate clean energy for the surrounding area, but would also provide shade for the cars and people underneath.