We are sad that solar projects are not getting public support in Maine (via L.D. 1649). Solar power, potentially generated on our roofs and barren surfaces, can give us a partial alternative to the well-subsidized fossil fuels that are driving climate change and damaging our water, air and health.
But many Mainers are not concerned about climate change, and pollution was called “the smell of money” in paper company towns. So, cautiously, state support for solar installations was promoted as a job creator, the logic used successfully to lower the taxes of the rich and, recently, for state support for failing biomass.
But solar installation jobs are perceived as being niche work for the wealthy and arouse unacknowledged class resentment, the underpinning of much of our national politics today.
Also, most of us are fairly innumerate and ignorant of the variables in the energy and financial investment equations. We depend on the “side we are on” and their “math,” and so goes the vote. (As for “biomass” being renewable, it is polluting and inefficient unless tied to co-generation, but we let the paper companies, where co-generation really worked, leave. Supporting standalone biomass generation and unsustainable cutting will only deplete our forests and their watershed protection services, so essential as climate change marches on.
We also need to recognize that we must drastically reduce overall energy use in transportation, heating/cooling, businesses and what industry remains to the point where renewable power can cover our needs. We do not prioritize reducing “demand” (high energy consumption being equated with economic prosperity). We must learn to use solar electric power when it is available to adjust our behavior as a state and nation as public policy, subsidized, incentivized, publicized.
Reduce energy use. Put climate change on the table. Get our priorities straight.
Beedy Parker
Camden
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